Humanity has an amazing love for visiting cemeteries. Especially when it comes to the famous necropolises, where the great people of the past are buried, or if the stories of these graveyards are covered with secrets that excite the imagination and chilling blood. It is not for nothing that excursions to the Parisian Pere Lachaise cemetery have long been included in the classic excursion program in the French capital. And a trip to the Egyptian pyramids in Cairo or the Valley of the Dead in Luxor is also filled with "afterlife romance." On the eve of Halloween, we offer you a fascinating walk through the most famous cemeteries in the world.
Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris - thousands of tourists besieged every day. It is here that they expect to partake of the bohemian atmosphere that reigned in Paris a hundred years ago. This is understandable, because all the lights of that time had long been relocated to Père Lachaise.
Here the writers Marcel Proust, Honore de Balzac and the esthete Oscar Wilde "rest" (who once shone in London, he ended his days in one of the beggarly boarding houses in Paris). The artists Eugene Delacroix and Amedeo Modigliani found their peace next to them. And here is the grave of the eccentric actress Sarah Bernhardt (she loved to sleep in a coffin during her lifetime), here is the last refuge of Isadora Duncan - the founders of modern choreography. But someone with his head bowed is standing at a tombstone with a Russian surname written on it - Princess Trubetskaya is buried here. But the favorite place of pilgrimage for the decadents is, of course, the grave of Jim Morrison. It is always inundated with fresh flowers and covered with lines of his poems.
If you are not going to Paris in the near future, you can also take a virtual walk along Pere Lachaise on the Internet at pere-lachaise.com.
On the banks of the Nile in Thebes, not far from Luscor, lies the Valley of the Dead, which is also called the Valley of the Kings. A total of 64 tombs have been discovered here. One of them belongs to Tutankhamun, who ruled Ancient Egypt in the 15th century BC. The burial temple of Queen Hatshepsut has been best preserved for more than 25 centuries - it is located at the very foot of the mountain. According to historians, according to the law, a woman had no right to rule Egypt, but Hatshepsut succeeded: for 22 years she was a queen in a male guise. The most unenviable fate befell the tomb of Queen Titi: for a long time it served as a stall for donkeys. Yet, the unique Egyptian frescoes miraculously survived on the walls to this day. A journey through the Valley of the Kings opens the doors to a mysterious ancient era for an inquisitive tourist, long covered by the sand of the desert and time.
Highgate Cemetery is located in the north of London. It was opened in 1839, and it immediately acquired the status of one of the most fashionable in the British capital. The whole world of London dreamed of being buried here. And, of course, the rich did not spare money to arrange their departure to another world as magnificently as possible. To this day, the cemetery amazes with the beauty of Gothic crypts, mausoleums and tombstones - among them there are "Egyptian" tombs, marble angels with broken wings, nestling under century-old elms, and eccentric Art Nouveau sculptures buried in rose bushes.
The most famous "guest" of Highgate is the forefather of communism Karl Marx. This is also the origin of the story of the Highgate vampire, who appeared in the cemetery in the 1970s and began attacking young ladies who were treated for vampire bites with holy water and garlic. You can take a tour of the cemetery any weekend (except winter) or visit highgate-cemetery.org.
Green Wood Necropolis is located in Brooklyn and is famous among New Yorkers. Back in 1866, The New York Times named three dreams of the average New Yorker: living on Fifth Avenue, walking in Central Park, and being buried in Green Wood.
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For 12 years, on the eve of Halloween, cemetery historian Jeff Richman has been conducting a tour for mystic lovers. He tells mysterious stories, for example, about Mabel Douglas, the dean of a local girls' college: in 1933, an elderly lady mysteriously disappeared, and thirty years later was discovered by divers in Lake Placid at a depth of 30 meters. Her body was perfectly preserved and was solemnly buried in Green Wood. Another hero is Edward Hall, whose mysterious murder was accused and then executed by his wife Francesca. The unfortunate woman was acquitted after her death and was buried next to her husband. Other notables in Green Wood include William Poole, a descendant of the first settlers, who became famous in Gangs of New York as the Butcher Bill, and most of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy.
The ancient and exquisite Foreign Cemetery is reserved for those who were brought to Japan by the will of fate and who left the world of the living in the land of the Rising Sun. In Japanese, this cemetery is called Gaijin-bochi and is located on the side of Yamate Hill. It is so old that here you will no longer see inconsolable relatives mourning the dead. But under each stone with almost erased inscriptions in all languages of the world, the destinies of adventurers are hidden. Among the Russian gravestones one can make out the inscriptions on the graves of Colonel Bakulevsky, the Siberian merchant Protasiy Chudinov, a certain Petersburg lady, the wife of a French diplomat … The oldest monument that remains to this day stands over the grave of two Russian sailors who died in Yokohama in 1859.
The Merry Cemetery is located in the small village of Sapinta, near the Romanian-Ukrainian border. It is no exaggeration - here are the most cheerful tombstones, decorated with vivid illustrations from the lives of buried citizens. "Comics" reflect the life of the deceased with all truthfulness: even if the deceased was a bitter drunkard, and the deceased was an unfaithful wife. Pictures are accompanied by frivolous rhymes. Now this cemetery is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. No celebrities were seen at this Merry churchyard, but in this case, this is not the main thing.
The Chelyakovice cemetery in the Czech Republic is known as the Vampire Cemetery and dates back to the X-XI centuries. It was discovered quite recently, in 1994, near the town of Chelyakovitsy. In 11 pits there were the remains of 13 people tied with leather belts, aspen stakes were stuck in the chest. Some of the deceased had their heads and hands cut off. Studies have shown that all those killed are men of about the same age. The mystery of the burial remains unsolved, but it is possible that the Czech village was visited by real vampires.