The city of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (Essonne) indicated on Tuesday January 17 that it would not take over any funeral concessions from the important Russian cemetery it houses, after accusations from Moscow which claims that Orthodox graves would be neglected. in the context of the conflict in Ukraine.
The city “will continue to act to preserve this important international heritage by strongly reaffirming that no Russian grave will be raised“, she said in a press release sent to AFP.
Damaged or abandoned graves
The raising is the resumption of a funerary concession by the municipality, which can lead to the transfer of the remains in the municipal ossuary. In Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, a town of 35,000 inhabitants located about twenty kilometers south of Paris, is the Liers cemetery, known as “russian cemetery“, the largest outside Russian territory. It hosts more than 5,200 Orthodox graves, the upkeep of which is 70% financed by Moscow.
“A large number of graves” are “degraded or abandonedin this cemetery, admitted the municipality. “In 2018, contacts were made on the initiative of the Russian House of Science and Culture in order to be able to implement their rehabilitation“, adds the town hall, specifying that”with the Covid-19 crisis and the conflict in Ukraine, the procedure could unfortunately not be continued“. “Even if they have been put on hold, at no time has the sustainability of these projects been called into question.“, reassures the town hall.
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The payment for the renewal of concessions for the year 2022 wastemporarily adjourned“, specifies the municipality, which adds that it will ensure well “maintenance and rehabilitation of public spaces in the municipal cemetery“. In a press release published on Monday, after the publication of an article in Le Monde on “the uncertain futureof the cemetery, the Russian embassy in France judged “absolutely unacceptable that political games in the context of the Ukrainian crisis take such a hideous form“.
“The international situation is such that this has consequences for the financing of the maintenance of these concessions (…) but there is no danger for the cemetery in the short term“, estimates for his part Nicolas Lopoukhine, president of the Committee of maintenance of the Russian Orthodox graves (Cesor) of the cemetery, which finances 30% of the maintenance of these graves.
The cemetery, very popular with Russian tourists visiting France, hosts the graves of great artistic figures of the 20th century, such as the Nobel Prize for Literature Ivan Bunin, the filmmaker Andreï Tarkovski or the dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev.
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