The uniqueness of human life in eternity. The art of reflecting the beauty of earthly life in the eternity of death: in the aesthetics of tombstones, the beauty of monuments, the refinement of sculptures – cemeteries today have become cult excursion sites on a par with the Louvre or the Great Wall of China. We will tell you about 4 famous cemeteries in the world. Four – because “4” in Chinese hieroglyphs means “death”…
PÈRE LACHAISE (France, Paris)
The famous cemetery of Paris, a cult place for intellectuals and aesthetes, marginal figures, and oppositionists. After all, it is here that Marcel Proust (a connoisseur of Eternity) and Molière (smiling at death), Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, who joked during his lifetime that “everything can be endured except death”, are laid to rest. By the way, the monument on the writer’s grave depicts a semi-naked sphinx, and the tradition of kissing the sphinx, leaving traces of lipstick, forced the authorities of Paris to “hide” the monument behind glass. Edith Piaf and Frédéric Chopin, Yves Montand and Maria Callas, Guillaume Apollinaire and Honoré de Balzac – the list can go on, but it’s better to touch eternity once.
OKUNOIN (Japan, Mount Koya)
One of the oldest cemeteries in the world and the largest in Japan, founded in 816 by us. Here lie over 200 thousand Buddhist monks, and the main shrine for the Japanese is the tomb of the philosopher, thinker, and author of the first Japanese calendar and Japanese alphabet – Kukai. According to legend, he did not die, but immersed himself in deep meditation. The gate to the guru’s crypt is adorned with over 10 thousand Buddhist lanterns, and monks bring food to his grave twice a day. Among other attractions of Okunoin are a monument to a coffee cup in honor of coffee shop workers and a monument to termites, commissioned by pesticide manufacturers.
RECOLETA (Argentina, Buenos Aires)
The “most stylish” cemetery, where you can see mausoleums in the styles of Baroque and Art Deco, Gothic and Neo-Gothic, Classicism and Art Nouveau. Millions of tourists come here for ideas to embody the “style” of eternity. Eva Peron’s grave is a place of pilgrimage for thousands of her admirers, and the remains of the famous Argentine are located 15 feet underground. To avoid disturbance. One of the legends of the cemetery is the buried alive 19-year-old Rufina Cambaceres, whose spirit wanders among the luxurious monuments and crypts at night.
NOVODEVICHY CEMETERY (Russia, Moscow)
Since the beginning of the 19th century, the territory of the Moscow Novodevichy Convent has been a “prestigious” burial place for both nuns and famous nobles, and later for metropolitan professors. By the end of the century, due to the overcrowding of the necropolis, a new Novodevichy cemetery was built a little to the south of the monastery, which today is a real museum of monumental art, because many of the tombstone compositions were made by famous sculptors, while others are surprising. Today, an excursion to the last refuge of adherents of Russian culture is included in many tours of the city.
It is here that the remains of Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vasily Shukshin, Alexander Vertinsky and other world-famous people rest. By the way, on Bulgakov’s grave there is a tombstone from Gogol’s grave, symbolizing Golgotha. At that time, representatives of the Soviet government decided to remove the Christian symbol from the tombstone of the author of Dead Souls. After Bulgakov’s death, his widow made sure that the Calvary from the grave of Nikolai Vasilyevich, her husband’s favorite writer, was installed on his grave.
