Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires. The burial place of the famous Argentines

Cemeteries are an integral part of the living world. Eerie corners, associated with the decay and fragility of human life, many do not cause the desire once again to walk through them. The entrances of the dead are always shrouded in mystical stories, and some legends even go about certain graves.

However, there are unique cemeteries, which are more like monuments to art. Included in the tourist itineraries, they do not look like a place of mourning, but remind the architecture and special majesty of these open-air museums.

Today's story will be about one of these corners of silence, like a small city with narrow streets, flower beds, unusual sculptures, incredible beauty of crypts and small chapels.

The most expensive cemetery in the world

Argentina is a country that made a national memorial from the cemetery, which was recognized as one of its main attractions. Necropolis Recoleta - the most aristocratic and known throughout the globe. Located in a prestigious area, where the very rich people of Buenos Aires live, it occupies a vast territory of six hectares.

Surprisingly, wealthy citizens of the country are cheaper to buy a luxury cottage near the cemetery, but no place on it. Therefore, burials in the necropolis in recent years are extremely rare.

The history of the necropolis

The history of this ancient place dates back to the beginning of the 18th century, when the Franciscans came to the city of Buenos Aires and founded their monastery on the outskirts of the vacant lot called Recoleta ("The Ascetic"). Having built a small temple of El Pilar, they took care and a place for burial of the servants of the Lord. A hundred years later, the governor considered it necessary to turn a place for the burial of monks in the first public cemetery.

When the city began to shake out the outbreak of a terrible disease that claimed thousands of lives, most wealthy citizens hid from the epidemic of yellow fever, moving to the very outskirts of Buenos Aires.

From the public to the elite

Gradually, the provincial corner grew, becoming the most prestigious area in which all the rich lived. Accordingly, the local cemetery Recoleta changed its social status to the elite, and now it was buried all the respected citizens of the high world. And no one will ever call him "ascetic". And the poor from different parts of the city found the last refuge in the west of Buenos Aires.

The rich, wishing to rest in the most beautiful and expensive crypts, were dissatisfied with a rather modest necropolis and advocated its reconstruction, which occurred in 1881, turning the local cemetery into a real work of art.

The most unusual city of the dead

The cemetery of Argentina, recognized in 2003 as an architectural monument, is visited by a huge number of tourists who marvel at the greatness of this place and note its unusualness in comparison with other places of repose.

At the entrance of all meet neoclassical-style gates with four Greek columns. On the stone slabs the dates of the year of the foundation of the necropolis (1822), its first reconstruction (1881) and the third (2003) were stamped out, while for some reason they kept silent about the second one.

Symbols of the impermanence of life

On the outer side of the facade, facing the views of visitors, an engraved inscription in Latin "Rest in Peace", and from the inside of the cemetery the phrase "Hope for God" seems to convey the appeal of the dead to the living.

On the columns, curious visitors will discover pagan symbols that speak of a short stay of a man in the world: scissors, which at any moment cut the vital thread, the cross and the urn as signs of death, inverted burning torches and a water clock that tell of the transience of time.

Many such symbols on the former monastery will not cause surprise, because Argentina is a country in which Christian traditions are closely intertwined with pagan.

Crypts for rent

Located inside the crypts have long become family burials, in which rest more than one generation. Since this cemetery is considered one of the most expensive in the world, many families only rent for a few years the tomb, where the body of the deceased is located. Three years later the crypt is released, and the remains are reburied in a special wall in the territory of a luxurious necropolis.

Tombs and palaces

The cemetery of Recoleta, located inside the richest city, became a symbol of his "golden age". All the nobility and the elite of Buenos Aires, caring for their future shelter, hired the best architects from other countries to build unusual crypts-mausoleums that resembled luxury palaces in which wealthy citizens lived.

The amazing city in the city is famous for its unusual monumental crypts, reminiscent of Greek temples, which is very symbolic. The oldest burials reflected the spirit of the freedom-loving Argentines, thus expressing their desire to free themselves from the religious background associated with the yoke of the colonization of the country.

Quiet cemetery Recoleta (Argentina) - this is an amazing place, where we combine the quaint buildings in the Gothic style with majestic palaces and strict mausoleums. Almost five thousand crypts and about 350 thousand graves are more snugly settled in the quarters of a gigantic city, which can not be circumvented in one day.

Well-kept and abandoned places of rest

Inside many tombs, relatives hang curtains, put live flowers in vases and burning lamps, thus creating a homely atmosphere for their departed loved ones. There are also mini-chapels in which the living pray, recalling the deceased. Some tombs go to several levels below the ground.

Next to the manicured crypts, lavishly decorated with bas-reliefs and stained-glass windows, there are also abandoned, with traces of a long desolation, but closed to all bolts. It can be seen that no one cares for them, and the buildings are gradually being destroyed. Most likely, the last of the noble Argentinian clan repented many years ago and lies inside.

But, according to the rules, no one can be reburied: once bought a place forever belongs to the owner.

Tomb of the First Lady

The burial place of the famous inhabitants of Argentina is a monumental architectural monument, before which the tourists, who were in the cemetery for the first time, feel a little lost. Walking along the streets of a silent city can be very long, touching the history of life and death.

For most visitors to the cemetery, Eva Peron's name will be best known. About the difficult fate of the people's favorite tell the local guides. A woman who found peace only 24 years after her death, lived a very short life. The death of the first lady was a real tragedy for Argentina, immersed in mourning for four weeks. So that everyone could say goodbye to Eva, her body was embalmed and put on public display.

But the Argentine "Princess Diana" was not only fans. Her opponents, who believed that a woman could not be among the nobility, stole the body, hiding him outside the country. Buried under someone else's name, Peron was dug and buried next to her husband-president, but after the military coup, the remains were again disturbed.

Now her modest grave in Recoleta cemetery, which always has fresh flowers, is covered with lead plates, so that no crazy admirer or vandal can dig a embalmed body.

Looking in different directions of the wife

For visitors, the family crypt Del Carril is of particular interest. A tough politician and his wife quarreled because of the lover's debts to live on a broad footing. A harsh husband did not pay them, and a spouse who was younger than 25 years old was so offended that she stopped talking to him. For thirty years their family life lasted, not broken by a single word.

After the husband's funeral, the woman made her will, in which she mentioned that their stone statues in the crypt must necessarily be turned with their backs to each other, emphasizing that the afterlife will not reconcile them. Surprised tourists daily review the monument, which became the dedication of women's revenge.

Cemetery of celebrities

Do not count all the famous figures of Argentina, buried in the cemetery. Here lies the Nobel Prize winner Leloir, whose palace is considered the most expensive and stands out on the rest of the background by the gilded statue of Christ, located at the top.

The tomb of President Julio Roca, the tomb of the founder of the navy of Brown and his daughter who committed suicide, the tomb of writer Adolf Bioi, the graffiti covered by the mausoleum of Colonel Falcon police attract foreign guests.

In order not to get lost in a vast territory and find independently interesting graves, it is recommended to purchase a map of Recoleti. But it is best to join the excursion, where the local guide will tell all the interesting legends of the ancient necropolis, which you can listen for hours.

The ghost of a suicide

But here are not only the burials of celebrities. The most famous story, passed from mouth to mouth, will be about the cemetery guard who has been saving money for thirty years to buy a place here. Once the right amount was found, he ordered a sculpture from an Italian master.

After the establishment of his marble image on the grave in full growth, the 40-year-old retired and fired himself from the revolver. Considering that his long-standing dream came true, the caretaker did not want to live any further. Workers of the necropolis say that a ghost ringing with keys often appears at night. And no one knows if this is a fictional story, or indeed, in the darkness, the undead soul of a suicide wanders.

Romantic legend

Many legends are associated with the young daughter of the famous writer Velloso, who died at the age of 15. Above her grave is a marble niche, on which lies a snow-white sculpture depicting a sleeping beauty. The inconsolable mother spent a lot of time in the cemetery, mourning her child.

There is a romantic legend about how a young man fell in love with a pretty girl whom he recently met. Late in the evening, escorting her home, he threw his coat over the frozen shoulders of a girl in a white dress. The next day, when a passionate guy came to his mother, he was overcome with real horror: he learned that his beloved had recently died. And when the girl's mother took him to a famous cemetery, the first thing they saw was the clothes lying in the crypt. It is said that the young man went mad and committed suicide, and the dead girl is called "lady in white."

Light sadness

In the silent world of the dead, not only tourists wander: cemetery keepers bred cats that are basking in sunlit graves. Well-fed and imposing inhabitants of the dead city, according to ancient legends, see what is not allowed to observe people.

Death is a natural process that cuts off a person's life. Beauty, which can not be described in words, evokes a burning interest of all who arrived in Buenos Aires. The ceremonial cemetery Recoleta does not cause visitors a sense of desperate grief. A place where one can philosophize and reflect on the impermanence and transience of being tunes in to a certain wave, the main emotion of which will be light sadness.