Chestnuts are blooming in Paris now. Parisian chestnuts

Any city has its favorable angles and those that... not so much. Just like a human face :) And of course, everyone wants to present themselves from the best side, which is understandable. For a person, lighting and head tilt will play a decisive role, and for a city - the time of year and weather. I am often asked: what is the best time to go to Paris, and when is there the least number of tourists? Unfortunately, the first and second points do not coincide. And, by and large, it seems to me that there are a lot of guests here all year round. But, perhaps, we just need to come to terms with this and take it for granted. As one of my acquaintances said after his first visit to Paris: “I don’t understand why many people are surprised and annoyed by the crowds of people in tourist places. What’s so strange about the fact that a huge number of people want to see one of the most beautiful cities in the world?”

If you're planning a trip to Paris but haven't decided on dates yet, I hope this post will give you some ideas.

AUGUST

Of course, I will start with August, because here it is - very soon, and it seems that I have never in my life looked forward to it as much as I do now. As I have said , the last month of summer is the holiday period in France. Parisians are tearing their claws out of the city as best they can and going somewhere to the sea-ocean. Thanks to this, the capital is empty for four weeks, becoming quieter and much more relaxed. I'm internally torn between craving a lazy vacation on the beach and a huge love for the Parisian sunsets in August, when you can catch the feeling of an intimate tryst with the city. In short, come.

SALES

The exact schedule can always be Googled in 5 seconds. Winter sales this year began on January 6 and ended on February 16, and summer sales started on June 22 and will last until August 2. Of course, it is best to come during the first two weeks. And if possible, go shopping on weekdays until 16-00. Unless, of course, you suffer from an acute deficiency of tactile contact with strangers in crowded stores :)

CHRISTMAS

European Christmas means tons of beautiful street decorations, garlands, lighting wherever possible, shop windows, one more luxurious than the other, delicious holiday fairs and just a warm holiday atmosphere. Even though snowy winters in Paris are extremely rare (that’s why they love it so much). Well, and most importantly, the season for oysters and other sea creatures falls precisely in December-January: food counters are crowded in supermarkets, markets, and restaurants. Christmas is the best time to try your first dozen oysters (or better yet, start with a maximum of 6 pieces) or lobster.

APRIL

Probably April sees the heaviest avalanche of tourists in Paris. Why? Because everything is in bloom... Pink clouds of cherry blossoms scattered throughout the city attract people like light attracts moths. True, tourists mostly hang out near the sakura near Notre Dame, while there are much more interesting and atypical locations: jardin des Plantes, Japanese garden , So Park (pictured above and in the post title), Gabriel Pierne Square. But it’s not just about the blossoms: the whole city seems to be slowly, slowly straightening its back, standing up to its full height, straightening its shoulders and taking a deep breath of fresh air. Every day you feel it - that summer is just around the corner. It doesn’t matter that this feeling is very deceptive)) The locals will understand me - this year the spring was lightning fast, and the summer was late. But what difference does it make, because April itself is absolutely wonderful.

OCTOBER

And for dessert I left my favorite month. For me personally, the most beautiful Paris is in October. This is the time when the number of shades on the trees, sidewalks and in the sky is simply mind-boggling, honestly. I really love Paris in general, at any time of the year, but in October I am so happy here that sometimes I want to cry. I’m not sure that everyone will understand this) The garden at the Rodin Museum, again - Albert Kahn’s garden with sunny yellow ginkgos, the Bourbon embankment, the view of the right bank from the roof of the Arab World Institute, sunsets from the Nave bridge, the aroma of chrysanthemums, the first glass of red wine on the terrace (this is my autumn tradition), openwork sunlight through the branches of flying linden trees, red-red-brown-yellow walls covered with ivy in the yard and in the garden behind the administrative tribunal building, mountains of fallen leaves from plane trees in the Luxembourg Gardens and the deserted alley of Bord de l'Eau in the Tuileries... There is no more sky like in Parisian October. No more such viscous, relaxed walks and light, bright the sadness that comes in anticipation of the winter rains.In October, Paris is still warm, very gentle and very welcoming.

Apart from all weather/seasonal/tourism factors, you need to go to any point on the planet when you want, and not when a guidebook, blogger or travel agency advises. The best trips happen when we are ready for them, and these moments most often do not coincide with the above factors. My first Paris happened at the end of March-beginning of April. I remember that it was very unexpectedly warm, and few trees were blooming. And I didn’t even do half of what the guidebooks oblige me to do with their “top 10” and so on. Wherever we go, the first thing we need to pack with us is a light heart and wide open eyes. Then they will be able to accommodate everything new, and not just the expected.

Parisian chestnuts

I'm tired of night thoughts

And I’ll strike a guitar chord,

And chestnuts are blooming in Paris

Near Place de la Concorde.

These candles are weightless,

That passers-by are deprived of sleep,

Good, but short-lived

Just like our spring with you.

In my own youth and in my old age

Don't turn back, even if you die

And chestnuts are blooming in Paris

Over the paths of the Tuileries.

Above the Moscow snowflakes,

For which the rains will come,

I scream hopelessly into the phone:

“Wait for me, wait!”

Why wait for me in vain?

At the turn of the century?

For this joyful holiday

I can't keep up with you anymore.

And in Paris there is a river pier,

Multi-colored carousel,

And they bring boats of tourists

At the foot of the Tour Eifel.

And I look out the window blankly

There's a bottom in the yard,

Where is my age group

Competes in dominoes.

And in Paris it flies in a circle

An endless round dance,

And the student kisses his girlfriend,

And no one is waiting for anyone.

Somehow, historically, it happened that Paris, one of the largest and most beautiful cities in the world, became the place where both the Russian nobility and the Russian intelligentsia always aspired. Perhaps this is why Russia has established strong, centuries-old cultural ties with France. The word “Paris” immediately brings to mind the impressionist artists, Ivan Turgenev, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani and Anna Akhmatova, Edith Piaf and Yves Montand. Paris is associated for us with the childhood discovery of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Prosper Merimee and all the wonderful French literature that has long been akin to Russian.

I first came to Paris back in 1968. A year before, my song “Atlantas” was unexpected for me; at that time I was sailing on another expedition and took first place in the All-Union competition for the best song for Soviet youth. And the Central Committee of the Komsomol, at the instigation of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Komsomol, decided to send me, along with other artists and poets, as part of the “creative group” under the USSR Olympic team to the Winter Olympics in Grenoble.

We stayed in France for three weeks: four days in Paris, and the rest of the time in Grenoble. “As part of our position,” we had to speak from time to time in front of our athletes in the Olympic Village and in front of the French “public.” Since I myself didn’t know how to play the guitar then, and I still can’t now, the Comedy Theater actor, now People’s Artist, Valery Nikitenko was appointed as a special accompanist. Already on the Leningrad-Moscow train, it turned out that he also couldn’t play the guitar at all. After his confession, Valery tearfully asked not to extradite him, because he really wanted to go to Paris. As a result, at concerts in France, guitarists from the Georgian ensemble “Orero” played along with me, and I must say that I don’t remember such luxurious accompaniment to my modest songs in all subsequent years.

Paris struck me with its exact similarity to our school and book ideas about it - the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Pantheon, the Arc de Triomphe, Rodin's Balzac on the Boulevard Raspail, the Invalides Palace, the Sacré-Coeur Cathedral on the top of Montmartre Hill, Notre Dame. Getting to know this city was reminiscent of a journey into the bookish world of our childhood - from Hugo and Mérimée to the “forbidden” Zola and Maupassant. More than others, I remember Notre Dame and the Orangerie impressionist museum in the Tuileries Park.

In Paris, the leader of our group, a high-ranking Komsomol apparatchik Gennady Yanaev, later the last vice-president of the USSR under the last president Gorbachev, who became infamous as the chairman of the State Emergency Committee, was indignant during an excursion to the Louvre: “What kind of museum is this? They placed some kind of stone woman without a head and with wings at the very entrance,” meaning the famous ancient statue of the Nike of Samothrace, “and there was nowhere to drink beer!” The next day, in the evening, having in the morning spoken contemptuously about “mediocre bourgeois portrait painters who paint slanted snouts” (meaning Modigliani), Yanaev unexpectedly burst into our room in a state of joyful excitement, enhanced by the “Stolichnaya” he had brought with him, and stated: “Paris is a city of hostile ideology and constant vigilance is necessary. Therefore, those who have not yet seen the striptease, divided into combat “troikas” - to the Place Pigalle!”

As for Modigliani, I still managed to stand up for him in front of our formidable leaders. And it was like this: on the occasion of the Olympic Games, an exhibition of Modigliani’s works was specially organized, which our delegation visited. Hearing the above-mentioned contemptuous remark of the hungover Yanaev, I became terribly angry and, unexpectedly for myself, forgetting about the difference in our positions and elementary caution, began shouting at him and his deputy first secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Belarus, Mikhail Rzhanov: “Komsomol fools, this is a great artist ! How dare you talk about him like that?” I expected an angry reaction, but our leaders suddenly became quiet, and Yanaev, smiling peacefully, said: “Sanya, why are you barking? You better explain it to us, maybe we’ll understand.” Over the next twenty minutes, with a voice trembling with emotion, I gave an inspired speech about the work of Amedeo Modigliani and his tragic life, which ended at thirty-five, using the film “19 Montparnasse” as the basis for my story. Yanaev listened with half an ear, but when he found out that the artist was an alcoholic and drank himself to death, he joyfully declared: “Sanya! This is our man. The bourgeois bastards made a brilliant artist drunk!” After this, the exhibition was recommended for mandatory visiting by all members of the Soviet delegation.

The era of sad gapings,

Where the catch of death is abundant.

Akhmatova and Modigliani,

Akhmatova and Gumilev.

Heavenly manna from the Lord

The outcast cannot wait.

The novels were short

Both are unhappy.

Only to one who has lived for many years

There is a secret available -

Artist or poet

The poet is incapable of love.

Don't complain in vain,

That everyone burned out before their deadline:

One choked on absinthe

Another was shot.

Because both will last for a long time

She managed to survive.

But with them, even if it’s not enough,

Sharing a bed and shelter,

She tied them together forever

Aliens from different worlds.

Like a bell echoing in the fog

The combination of words sounds:

"Akhmatova and Modigliani,

Akhmatova and Gumilyov."

I still remember the cramped second-class compartment of the Paris-Lyon train that we took to Grenoble. This compartment, the same size as ours, accommodated not four, but six people, and it was incredibly stuffy. We stood in the corridor by the window and decided that we would wait until Paris was over and go to bed. However, we stood for more than an hour, and roads and houses were still flashing outside the window - so we did not wait for a forest or a field. In the middle of the night we woke up from a sharp and unexpected stop, all the more strange since the Paris-Lyon express was rushing at a speed of more than a hundred kilometers per hour. It turned out that one of our compatriots, stupefied by the stuffiness, came out into the corridor from the next compartment, decided to open the window to breathe, and pulled the bracket closest to the window, under which something was written in an incomprehensible French language. It turned out that he pulled the stop valve handle. The next morning, our activists walked around the carriages with hats and collected five francs from everyone for a fine.

In Grenoble, we were placed one by one in the families of members of the Franco-Soviet Friendship Society, whose children studied Russian in college, and were given tickets to all matches and competitions. Once a day we gathered in the central club. There were some scary moments, the most frightening of which was when at the final concert, after the end of the Olympic Games in Grenoble, I had to sing two numbers after Charles Aznavour. There were other tests as well. My hosts put me in a room with a separate entrance. For this reason, I was given the key to a high carved door that opened directly into the garden. Almost the entire room was occupied by an antique huge bed, not two, but at least four, with high stained oak headboards topped with numerous cupids. On the boundless feather beds of this luxurious bed, where you can lie either lengthwise or across, I felt like a lonely wanderer in the desert, especially since the wooden walls of the house turned out to be not a very reliable barrier against the cold of the February nights. Following Soviet habit, I stuffed my suitcase with the two “authorized” bottles of vodka under the bed. One day I went to some kind of drinking and dancing party with our French friends. Somewhere after midnight, when the booze gradually began to dwindle, I suddenly remembered the suitcase with vodka and decided to go get it. One of the French translators, Danielle, a twenty-year-old brown-haired girl in a stunning Mini, took me in her little Peugeot. It was pouring rain outside. Sitting next to her in the car, which she heroically drove through the darkness and rain, I tried not to look at her legs, tightly covered in black mesh tights. We walked through the garden. With difficulty I opened the door in the dark and turned on the light. She took off her wet cloak, took a comb out of her long hair and, loosening it, began to wring it out. Then she jumped onto the bed with a running start and laughed, spreading her arms. Of course, I reached under the bed for my suitcase. When I pulled out the suitcase, she grabbed me by the neck and said: “Listen, there’s still not enough vodka for everyone, and such a bed is very rare among us. Maybe we can stay?” My head swam, but my vigilant heart sank with fear. I imagined that now the ancient wooden walls would move apart, revealing the lenses of photo and film cameras filming us. Then French intelligence agents will burst in to recruit me into the Surte, or some other spy service. “What are you saying,” I muttered in a trembling voice, “it’s inconvenient, they’re waiting for us.” And he reached for her wet cloak. Perhaps that is why on the day of departure, saying goodbye to us, she came up to me and, affectionately patting my cheek and smiling contemptuously, said: “Goodbye, fool.”

After the concert, a large banquet was held to mark the end of the White Olympics. It was announced that the hot dishes would be typically French. Therefore, we were somewhat surprised when we were served chicken tobacco. Only when we thoroughly tasted them did it become clear that these were not tobacco, but fried frogs. The Soviet ladies began to faint, but the men rose to the occasion - they asked for more Smirnov vodka and unanimously fell on the frogs. At dessert, the Italian Fausto, who was sitting next to me, studied at Moscow State University and understood Russian, turned to me with a loud question: “Sanya, how did you like the French woman?” The KGB officer sitting on the other side of me, officially called the school director, put down his glass and looked back at me. “I don’t know,” I stammered. "Why dont know"?" – Fausto did not lag behind. “Why, why,” I tried to get rid of the annoying interlocutor, “I don’t know the language.” He thought about my answer for a long time, clearly not understanding it and wrinkling his forehead, then he smiled joyfully and shouted: “Why with tongue? Hands!”

On the way back through Paris, Valera Nikitenko and I, having asked for time off from our superiors, went to see Paris at night. When, after wandering half the night along the boulevard of Clichy and Place Pigalle and drinking coffee with the drivers of night taxis in the famous “Belly of Paris,” we returned to our home hotel, it turned out that the doors to it were tightly locked. No one responded to calls or knocks. It was then that Valera discovered some half-open gates next to the hotel, decorated with a cast antique lattice with lions. When we entered them, hoping to find some additional entrance to the hotel, it turned out that this was someone’s private house, separated from the hotel by a blank wall. In the courtyard of the house there were open luxury cars; on the table of the open veranda, weak street lighting made it possible to distinguish some bottles and the remains of an uncleaned dinner. We turned back to the gate in fear, but it turned out that it had slammed behind us as we entered. And how they slammed shut! Some kind of automatic lock worked, which was impossible to open even from the inside without a key. Only now did the meaning of what happened penetrate into our drunken heads. In the middle of the night we broke into someone else’s house, and if we were caught, we wouldn’t even be able to really explain anything, since we couldn’t put two words together in French. For the next half hour we climbed over high gates topped with sharp points simulating spears, on one of which I hopelessly tore my only weekend trousers.

In Paris, however, we were lucky. There was bad weather in Moscow, and Air France, apologizing for the flight delay, took upon itself the care of air passengers. We were immediately accommodated in one of the most expensive hotels in Paris, the Lutetia, on the Boulevard Raspail, and given five hundred francs each for personal expenses.

Frightened to death by Soviet citizens, carefully instructed in case of “provocation” and slightly stunned by unexpected favors, accustomed to the fact that our native Aeroflot treats passengers as prisoners of war, we flatly refused luxurious single rooms and were placed in even more comfortable double. After dining at the company's expense, with Burgundy wine, and walking half the night along the Grand Boulevards, we returned to our unusually rich room with Rococo style furniture. And here my neighbor, who had already exchanged winks with the pretty journalist from our group, came up with a crazy idea. This journalist and her translator friend lived in the same room, one floor above. My neighbor tried to call them on the phone, but the telephone operator did not understand Russian, and my neighbor could not communicate either in German, or English, or, especially, in French. Then he approached me and demanded that I speak English with the telephone operator and find out the telephone number of our ladies. His plan was simple to the point of genius; his girlfriend was supposed to come to us, and I was supposed to take her place, to their room. All my attempts to dissuade him had no effect on his mind, excited by the fumes of Burgundy and the sight of a luxurious - at least four-size - bed with an alcove canopy. “Valera,” I persuaded him, rightly fearing “immediate provocations,” “well, wait until tomorrow, until Moscow, what difference does it make to you?” "What are you talking about? - he shouted. “On French soil our women are sweeter!” I had to pour him another glass of wine, after which he finally fell into a sleepy state.

The next day, to some of our chagrin, the weather improved and the plane flew safely from Le Bourget to Moscow...

In subsequent years, I had the opportunity to visit Paris many times, and I always compared this great city with my previous ideas about it, gleaned from the books of Hugo, Dumas, Mérimée, Stendhal and Maupassant. I remember that in Omsk, during the hungry years of evacuation, I was fascinated by the biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. All the boys then, apparently, were captivated by the figure of this great commander! I have re-read Academician Tarle’s wonderful book “Napoleon” many times. And this childhood fascination with Napoleon remained for many years. Therefore, when, already in adulthood, I went to the Invalides Palace in Paris, where Napoleon and his famous marshals were buried, the era of the Napoleonic Wars passed before my eyes again, causing acute nostalgia for myself. By the way, there in the Palace of Invalides, where everything speaks of victorious battles, including Borodino, and the military glory of France, I, unexpectedly for myself, found tombstone inscriptions in Hebrew on the gray wall. It turned out that Jewish soldiers who fought for France on the fields of the First World War are buried here.

In the Parisian Invalides,

Where Napoleon is buried

And mournful-looking statues

Bowed down at the magnificent columns,

Where glory soars at its zenith

And everything talks about war,

I found the inscription in Hebrew

On a gray tombstone wall.

They said under the inscription the dates,

That the eternal found peace here

Soldiers killed in battle

Distant World War.

And looking at the list is sad

Those who saved French honor,

I remembered - such graves

There are plenty of them in Berlin.

At the Weissensee cemetery,

Where is your youth and talent?

Buried by Jewish soldiers

Those who died for the Vaterland.

Fighting on the Marne and Ypres,

Fighting on both sides

Jews died for their homeland,

Causing damage to the enemy.

In the regions where the iron blizzard

I burned the fields with fire,

They killed each other

For someone else's fatherland,

Him in inert thoughts

Naively considering it to be ours.

And the fat fire of the Holocaust

Europe answered them.

On each of my visits, Paris turned to me with some new side, but it always remained not the imperial capital, a symbol of loud military victories and bloody revolutions, as the architects sought to present it, but, above all, a city of poets and artists, an eternal city of lovers.

Paris shines with the edges of the roofs

In the noise of alien people.

A long-standing romance has disappeared into the fog,

Only love remains.

Where is it, my home? Do they shine in it?

Stars at the bottom of a well?

The fire goes out, the palm gets cold,

Only love remains.

In a distant country, in peace, in war,

We all lived as we had to.

Grief and evil were carried away,

Only love remains.

Is it a mountain peak, is it Ryu Lepik,

Nothing will come back again.

The water carries everything to nowhere,

Only love remains.

Keeping the memory, remember me,

Over time, giving up the fight.

The bitterness of grievances will fly away into the night,

Only love remains.

The circle is over, time is out of hand

It flows in a thin stream.

Which one of you will tell me now,

What remains then?

The seagull's wing hits the glass,

The new sun laughs.

An oar will glow brightly in the river,

So love remains.

One of the main symbols of Paris is the famous Luxembourg Gardens with the ancient Luxembourg Palace, an oasis in the middle of a noisy city that never stops day or night. Here you can meet Parisians of all ages spending their leisure time in numerous cafes or enjoying the silence on garden benches. This garden is especially beautiful in two seasons - the crimson Parisian autumn and spring, when it is filled with students taking a break from their intolerable studies on the eve of the session.

Recalling Manet's blue canvases from memory.

I’m unlikely to find a similar scene in Russia,

That she would also be cloudless and carefree.

Under the inscription that prohibits lying on the grass,

A policeman stands, bored in the spring sun.

All around on the lawns the lazy fun continues,

The lovers doze, head to head.

All of France is sleeping at this hour in the Luxembourg Gardens -

Babies in strollers, old ladies in patterned lounge chairs.

Wasn't it here that the outdated guns now thundered?

Bringing the last misfortune in life to the Communards?

They were shot here, at this low wall,

Where a young couple kisses selflessly,

Representing a sculptural group by Rodin,

What sleeps is lulled by the world of daytime silence.

And I walk through the garden along the sandy path,

Looking around at them enviously and stealthily.

Students lie on the grass in the Luxembourg Gardens,

Running away from lectures, like we used to run away.

Noisy Paris flows around this world of couch potatoes,

Where the Amazons sleep, with their tunic pulled down short,

And God slumbers over the garden on a sunny cloud,

Like an idle student who can’t wait for the holidays.

Paris is an amazingly green city. There are a huge number of parks, squares, gardens. Almost all parks are associated with historical events, since Paris is so steeped in history that no matter where you step, you are sure to stumble over some relic. If the Communards were shot in the Luxembourg Gardens, then Vladimir Ilyich Lenin walked in Montsouris Park. His apartment was nearby, on the small street Marie-Rose, where Inessa Armand lived in a neighboring house. And in this wonderful park, where ducks swim, seagulls soar, chestnut trees bloom, he thought no more and no less than plans for the World Revolution. It even seems strange that everything in Paris is so closely connected - both the absolute silence of Parisian parks and the thundering flames of revolutionary terror, both French and Russian.

Another completely unique world of Paris, without which Paris would not be Paris, is children. France has a very large number of large families. Unlike, for example, neighboring Germany, where at best there is one child per family, here it is considered the norm to have three or four children. While parents work, nannies look after the children. Little Parisians - relaxed, cheerful, beautifully dressed and well-groomed, filling Parisian parks and squares with their chirping, creating an absolutely amazing atmosphere of cheerful sunny Paris, looking towards tomorrow.

In Paris, life is in full swing day and night, but as soon as you turn the corner from a noisy highway and take a few steps, you find yourself on a quiet, cobblestone street with muted lanterns that seem to have come from the Middle Ages. And it seems that right now, three musketeers will come out from around the corner along with d’Artagnan, and those adventures that attracted so much in childhood will begin. And very close by, noisy highways intersect the boulevards, and Paris continues its day, evening and night life.

When on the verge of gray roofs

I watch it before I go to bed,

I see Paris again

Outside the St. Petersburg window.

There in the middle of a foreign land

Ships are sailing along the Seine,

And my friend Natalie and I

Let's go to Place Itali.

Without knowing grief and worries,

From dawn to dawn

Festive people walking

In the Tuileries Park.

Where kings used to live

Now the tulips are blooming

And my friend Natalie and I

Let's go to Place Itali.

There, drunk with wine and happiness,

Holding a glass in your hand,

D'Artagnan sits with friends

In a smart wig.

There above the boulevards in the distance

The cranes are flying north,

And my friend Natalie and I

Let's go to Place Itali.

They drink merry wine there

At this evening hour.

Oh why is it so dark

Outside our windows?

And there they sing: se tre zholi, -

Rather quench my thirst,

And my friend Natalie and I

Let's go to Place Itali.

When you get to Paris, looking back at your own life, you remember the great literature, primarily Russian, that you discovered in childhood. Here we cannot help but recall the wonderful writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, who in his last years lived in Europe and did a lot to bring Russian literature and Western European literature closer together. Close friendships connected him in Paris with Flaubert, Zola, Hugo, Maupassant, Merimee, Georges Sand and other French writers. He died in 1883 near Paris, in the town of Bougival, from lung cancer.

What strange shadows, however,

Reflected in this glass!

Turgenev dies of cancer

On cozy Parisian soil.

This evening, sunset and long,

What does he suddenly remember -

Benefit performances of the beautiful Polina

Or Bezhin abandoned meadow?

Or the gloomy pre-dawn Nevsky

The Vladimir Church is mute,

Where Dostoevsky wanders wearily

From the gambling house to home?

Who was the talent and who was the genius?

Everything has now melted into darkness.

Turgenev dies of cancer

On cozy Parisian soil.

Noble profile appearance,

Heads of unmelted snow,

They will float away like a silver cloud,

In the not-too-distant Silver Age.

I look at the volumes of his prose,

I heal the wounds of the soul with them.

There roses bloom between the gazebos,

They are both fresh and good.

Coolness blows over the estate.

The lake surface is motionless.

And they don’t cut down the cherry orchard,

And they don't teach how to kill yet.

The tragic fate of another Russian poet is connected with Paris - Vladimir Mayakovsky, who was and remains my favorite poet. It was here that he apparently met his last love, Tatyana Yakovleva. It was not just love, but an attempt to break out of the environment in which Mayakovsky found himself in the Soviet Union and find the desired freedom. He wrote to her: “I’ll still take you someday, alone or together with Paris.” He was seriously in love with Yakovleva. Who knows, perhaps Mayakovsky’s fate could have turned out differently if he had come to Paris again.

Bloody banners of October,

We didn’t live our century in vain with them, -

They still hurt us today.

The poet who portrayed the rebel

Speaking to descendants through the years,

In his personal life he was weak and weak-willed.

He lived with all his might,

Served the Great Revolution,

I shared its misfortunes with my native country,

But, having fallen in love since youth,

Holding up your poems like a party card,

He also depended on women on power.

Waving his menacing fist,

He sang with a lump in his throat,

Giving all the strength I can to them.

Both are deceived and attracted,

They both had him under their thumb,

And both led him to the grave.

Maintaining a calm appearance

It stands in bronze on the square,

Chewed on laudatory articles.

His poems artillery row

Then they will be revived again for life

Letter and resolution to Yezhov.

Last departure. France. Paris.

You can’t run away, Volodichka, you’re playing naughty:

Don’t even think about Yakovleva.

Coming back along the way,

He gave it to Lorigan Coty

All fees that were received.

The sound of a broken string is sad.

There has been no trace of the country for a long time now,

Whose passport was closer to him?

The poet died, and it’s not his fault,

That no one needs today

All one hundred volumes of his party books.

The past century is unimaginably distant.

It burns out like a coal.

The poet's end is sad and pitiful.

But many years until the deadline expired,

His girlfriend was placed on the threshold

Bouquets of violets paid for by them.

Mayakovsky's other love, Liliya Yuryevna Brik, played a rather complex role in his fate. The famous love triangle became fatal for the poet. It was Brik, especially Osip Brik, who collaborated with the “authorities,” who advised not to give a visa to Mayakovsky, so that he would not be able to go to Paris again, because they feared that he would marry Tatyana Yakovleva and remain in France forever. Here we recall an epigram dedicated to Brik, usually attributed to Sergei Yesenin: “Who do you think Osya Brik is? Russian language researcher? But in fact, he is a spy and investigator of the Cheka!” Unfortunately, that was the case. However, Lilia Brik ensured his immortality after Mayakovsky’s death. It was on her letter to Stalin that the leader’s famous resolution was written in red pencil: “Comrade Yezhov! I kindly ask you to pay attention to Brik’s letter.” N.I. Yezhov did not yet head the punitive authorities, but was the secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Next came the lines that people of my generation learned by heart at school: “Mayakovsky was and remains the best and most talented poet of our Soviet era.”

This lady's Mauser is in a huge hand!

This shot, which is connected with a secret,

From which the echo hums in the distance,

For the edification of other poets!

Why, agitator, tribune and hero,

Suddenly you shot yourself,

So squeamishly avoided raw water

And not eating unwashed fruit?

Maybe women were to blame for this,

That they burned your soul and body,

Those who paid the highest price

Failures of your adulterers?

The point is not that, but that friends are enemies

With each new one they become an hour,

That all the sonorous power of the poet cannot be

Give to attacking classes.

Because the poems glorify terror

In the frenzied and howling press,

Because a feather was equated to a bayonet

And they were included in the system of repression.

You fulfilled your last civilian duty,

Having not committed any other atrocities.

You carried out the sentence - until,

And not retroactively, like Fadeev.

The century continues, the day ends

On a high, piercing note,

And a shadow falls on Mayakovsky’s house

From the huge house opposite.

In the vicinity of Paris there is an amazing corner of Russia - the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois. Here lie the Russians who lost their Motherland during life and found it only after death. But we found it, hopefully, forever. Many of those whom we called the White Guard and who were sung by Marina Tsvetaeva and other wonderful poets and writers remained in this cemetery. Anyone who comes here is shocked by the order of military burials. The glorious officers of the White Army lie in their own military units - separately the Don artillery, separately the Cossack troops, separately the cavalry units. Until their death, they maintained their commitment and love not only to Russia, but also to their military traditions, including those educational institutions where they were brought up. In addition to the ranks of general, colonel and others, on almost everyone’s gravestone you can see the shoulder straps of the cadet corps or cadet school that they once graduated from when they were young.

Not just in the era that was before,

Now figure it out.

Cadet fraternity.

They lie silently in the damp darkness,

But no complaints.

Cadet shoulder strap on a gravestone

And Pavlovian monogram.

School years beckon us back,

And nowhere to go, -

The road from life everywhere and always

Goes through childhood.

The commanders of past campaigns lie,

Dressed in earth

Than the rank of cadet.

The generals of the dashing divisions lie,

Heroic grandfathers,

And there is no higher title for them,

Than the rank of cadet.

The cranes scream as they fly south,

Disturbing the dead.

Money is running out - from this land

They will be discharged too.

Change color in neighboring forests

Earth revolutions.

They habitually close ranks in the sky

Cadet companies.

Forget, cadets, about cannon smoke,

Get some sleep.

Let you dream, gray boys,

Abandoned St. Petersburg.

Ancient manor mysterious world

With a yellowing garden.

And mom's dress and dad's uniform,

And the Motherland is nearby.

A canonically shaped tombstone with the inscription “Don Artillerymen” located opposite the cadets’ memorial also attracts attention.

Lying far from the Empire

Under a half-fallen chestnut tree,

Lieutenant of the Don Artillery

He won't become a captain anymore.

Under the warm glowing ray,

Parted with the sublunary world,

He will be a lieutenant forever,

Cheerful, enthusiastic, young.

An autumn puddle shimmers,

And no regrets again

That he will never achieve

Until the next title.

He will remember bridges with crossings,

And the windows of my home,

Where it smelled like heated herbs

Over the waters of the Quiet Don.

Steppe, dense, tart,

Against a background of darkening blue.

And here the Orthodox Church is only

Reminds me of the former Russia.

And the years of emigration - as if there were no -

There are only snoring horses

And this is only the distant sky,

Where are the stars, as in the pursuit.

Not far from the graves of the White Guard lie the most prominent representatives of Russian literature and art of the 20th century, who died in exile: Rudolf Nureyev, Alexander Galich, my peer Andrei Tarkovsky, who amazed the whole world with his art of cinema and, having flashed, passed away. Wonderful writers and poets lie here: Ivan Bunin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius and many, many others. Here it is, a huge Russian field on French soil...

At the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois

The grass of oblivion does not grow, -

Her, dressed up like a lover,

The gardener does the cutting regularly.

Where statues freeze in arctic fox boas,

The emigrants found peace -

Guarantors of Russian freedom.

At the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois

The ground is white from the February snow,

And they look at the black crowns,

Forgetting about horses and squadrons.

Rings at the cloister of Saint-Genevieve

The starlings have flown in a two-syllable tune,

Tied her with birdsong

With Donskoy or Novo-Devichy.

Again waiting for a new spring

The dead have Moscow dreams,

Where the blizzard swirls,

Flying around cast crosses.

Native places familiar from childhood,

And the dome shines over the temple of Christ,

Inclining the departed to hope,

That everything will return as before.

At the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois,

Disappearing from the planet like the moa bird,

A flock of swan lies

Growing into the Parisian soil.

Between marble angels and terpsichore

An invisible choir sings canons to them,

And no, it’s clear from the singing,

Freedom beyond the Dormition.

The cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois is inextricably linked not only with Russian literature, cinema, ballet, but also with Russian art song. Every time I come here, I lay flowers on the grave of Alexander Arkadyevich Galich, a man of complex fate who marked an entire era. A successful writer, a prosperous playwright, whose plays were staged throughout the Soviet Union, he, at the height of his prosperity, suddenly became a dissident, starting to write harsh, accusatory songs. After that, he lost everything he had, was expelled abroad and died a few years later under strange circumstances. This death still seems mysterious. The songs of Alexander Galich, as well as his famous poem “Kaddish”, dedicated to the outstanding teacher Janusz Korczak who died in a Nazi concentration camp, forever remained in the golden fund of Russian literature and became a kind of monument to that unfortunate era, which we now call the “Era of Stagnation”.

Again the old word “just now”

It comes to my mind unbidden.

They say: "The return of Galich"

As if you can come back from the past.

These songs, once forbidden, -

Neither anathema now, nor sale to them,

In those days, politically harmful,

And now irrevocably forgotten!

The guardsmen calculated well,

Convinced Leninists-Stalinists:

Who is torn from his usual home,

He will remain without him forever.

The sound of an empty stirrup is heard

Above today's full edition.

Who is torn away from place and time,

He will come back late.

A jackdaw circles above the crosses.

I'm looking at the Melody store

On the sad portraits of Galich,

To the dashing portraits of Volodina.

It gathers dust there, not knowing the rotation,

Their records are a silent pile...

No one can return

No one, nowhere, nowhere.

It is absolutely impossible to imagine Paris without open cafes, without songs played with a guitar, without the famous French chanson. Without Jacques Brel, Yves Montand, Charles Aznavour and many others. Bulat Okudzhava once told me that it was Montana’s arrival in Moscow in 1956 that prompted him to take up the guitar for the first time. The spirit of French chanson, which once swept the whole of Europe and was a serious impetus for the birth of the original song in our country, still exists. It’s just that the attitude towards the authors is different. At the Montparnasse cemetery, at the grave of the famous French chansonnier Serge Gainsbourg (Ginsburg), always littered with fresh flowers, I somehow involuntarily remembered our chansonnier Ginzburg, who performed under the literary pseudonym Galich.

We can't guess ahead

Your earthly existence.

Lie in French graves

Two Ginsburgs, two chansonniers.

Sketches of autumn landscapes,

Breath of nearby seas.

One of them is Dnepropetrovsk,

The other is a Kishinev Jew.

October red fox

Sneaks through the wet grass.

One was famous in Paris,

The other one is popular in Moscow.

We know a little in total

About their dissimilar fate, -

One died from drugs

The other one was killed by the KGB.

They were united by common ties,

From birth, everyone is an outcast,

But the first one remained French,

And the Russians were left with another.

How are these graves not close?

Cold rainy times:

On the first - flowers and notes,

Dense grass on the second.

And the thought is sad again

Suddenly it comes to me:

The Russian word does not follow

Bury in someone else's side.

It’s an amazing thing - those emigrants who lie in the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois dreamed of returning to their homeland for the rest of their lives, and those boys they once were, who died on the fronts of both the First World War and the Civil War, dreamed of getting to quiet and calm Paris, which historically was a place of rest and entertainment for Russian people.

Chapter III. Parisian ordeals A four-week sea voyage. – Meeting with Meyerbeer in Boulogne. – Wagner comes to Paris with his letters of recommendation. – Smiling hopes for a minute and quick disappointment. – Wagner has to write music to order

From the book Verlaine and Rimbaud author Murashkintseva Elena Davidovna

Parisian escapades “Oh, if I had predecessors at least at some crossroads of French history! But there are no traces of them. It’s clear, I’m a man without a family, without a tribe. I don’t understand what rebellion is. People like me , rise only for robbery - so jackals

From the book In the Footsteps of an Angel [fragment] by McNeil David

Italian chestnuts At that time, there were still many Italians in Vence, who arrived at the beginning of the century from the south of the peninsula, mainly from the poorest province - Calabria. They seemed to have forgotten how a good hundred of their fellow tribesmen were laid to rest under the walls of Aigues-Mortes in 1911; that was

From the book Memories author Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna

Parisian memories The Queen left Romania without us. In her absence, the Cotroceni Palace fell silent and empty, all activity in it ceased. A few days after her departure, my husband’s parents arrived in Bucharest with our boy. Road ordeals at last

From the book Literary Portraits: From Memory, From Notes author Bakhrakh Alexander Vasilievich

Parisian shards It was so long ago, so faded from memory, that it may already seem that it never happened at all. In 1912, a small collection of poems “Scythian shards” was published in St. Petersburg, mainly dedicated to the ancient Black Sea region, a certain fictional Scythian

From the book “At the Pillars of Hercules...”. My life around the world author Gorodnitsky Alexander Moiseevich

Parisian chestnuts I'm tired of night thoughts And I'll strike a guitar chord, And in Paris chestnuts are blooming Near La Concorde Square. These weightless candles, That deprive passers-by of sleep, Are good, but short-lived, Just like our spring. You won’t return to your own youth when you’re old, even though

From the book Mozart author Kremnev Boris Grigorievich

PARISIAN SORROWS Fifteen years in a person's life is a long time. If a person a decade and a half ago was only seven years old, fifteen years is a huge time. Wolfgang felt this very quickly when he arrived in Paris. Then the Parisians were alarmed by the miracle child,

From the book Happiness Smiled at Me author Shmyga Tatyana Ivanovna

Parisian motives In the spring of 1976, I was about to travel to France as part of a tourist group, which included artists from various Moscow theaters. I had already been there twice before. For the first time I saw France, or rather, only Paris, back in the early 60s, when

From the book Everything in the World, Except an Awl and a Nail. Memories of Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov. Kyiv – Paris. 1972–87 author Kondyrev Viktor

Parisian cafes But isn't it time to unwind, talk about things that cajole the eye and envelop the tormented emigrant soul like a balm? About Parisian cafes. “I'm sitting in a Parisian cafe, blissful, and most of all I want to talk about this bliss. And tell everyone

From the book Keys to Happiness. Alexei Tolstoy and literary Petersburg author Tolstaya Elena Dmitrievna

Parisian snowdrifts Back in Paris, a conversation took place which, according to family legend, prompted the Tolstoys to return. This is evidenced by the following episode, reported by Tolstoy’s youngest son D. A. Tolstoy: “Mom told me what was the last straw in their decision

From the book Legendary Favorites. "Night Queens" of Europe author Nechaev Sergey Yurievich

“Parisian Pieces” We have a description of one of the episodes of this crisis summer from the lips of its eyewitness - Sofia Mstislavna Tolstoy. It's the beginning of August. The Tsarskoye Selo house is empty after the scandal that just shook the family. Tolstoy invites Sophia to this empty house,

From the book In the Caucasus Mountains. Notes of a modern desert dweller by the author

Parisian morals While Virginia, remaining in the shadows, worked for the good of her country, Paris rejoiced at the opening of the congress, which was attended by representatives of all leading European countries. The festive atmosphere was felt in all its quarters. Krymskaya

From the book Book of the Dead author Limonov Eduard Veniaminovich

CHAPTER 2 Construction of a cell - Chestnuts and midges - Brother settled - New inhabitants of the desert - Warning of the nuns Only in the middle of summer did the hermits finally find, beyond six not too high, but very steep passes, a flat clearing with a small source of water,

From the author's book

Parisian secrets I met Yulian Semyonov in Paris at the end of 1988. First, a small digression. I lived in Paris for 14 years, and it still feels like I didn’t live in it. What is this city? There are several comparisons I made about him... Well, of course, he’s like scenery

Very soon Paris will be enveloped in a pink cloud of cherry blossoms. In general, to see Paris in bloom, all you have to do is go to Instagram. Believe me, all self-respecting bloggers will try to post their excellent photo of blooming Paris. But if you plan to see this spectacle with your own eyes, then save this article, in which I share the most popular and also secret places of blooming Paris.

If you want to catch the cherry blossoms, then come to Paris from March 25 to mid-April. Of course the weather is unpredictable this year, but let's hope for the best. Read the article to the end! At the end, the most beautiful place where sakura blooms awaits you.

Popular places among tourists:

1. Near the Eiffel Tower.

2. Square next to Notre Dame.

3. Small (Avenue Winston Churchill) and Grand Palace (3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower).

4. Next to the famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore (37 Rue de la Bûcherie).

5. Jardin des Plantes (57 Rue Cuvier).

Secret places.

1. Square Gabriel Pierné (5 Rue de Seine).

2. Jardin Tino Rossi (2 Quai Saint-Bernard).

3. Square des Saint-Simoniens (151 Rue de Menilmontant).

4. Père Lachaise Cemetery (16 Rue du Repos).

5. My favorite is Parc de Sceaux. How to get to this park? You only need 40 minutes from the center of Paris on the RER (B) train. The easiest way to start your journey is from the metro stations: Luxembourg or Saint-Michel. Go to Parc de Sceaux station. A train ticket costs no more than three euros one way. It only takes 10 minutes to walk from the station to the park.

Park So is a huge territory (you can’t even imagine how huge it is... I would say gigantic), on which there is also a beautiful castle. In spring, more than 100 sakura trees bloom here. You can have a picnic here, as well as a fantastic photo shoot. Just remember that you need to bring everything for a picnic with you, since there are no shops nearby. On April 15, 2018, a holiday dedicated to cherry blossoms will be held. So don't be surprised to see girls in beautiful kimonos. You can get detailed information about the work of the park

Have you heard of the Japanese tradition of hanami? Every spring, Japanese residents gather in parks to admire the cherry blossoms. Incredible white and pink caps of flowers announce the arrival of spring and transform the landscape for several weeks. Given my love for nature, seeing cherry blossoms has become almost an obsession.

Unfortunately, the Land of the Rising Sun is far away, but I managed to find a breathtaking - dare I say it - garden of cherry trees right next to Paris. All that remained was to wait for spring and good weather. I was lucky - everything coincided just perfectly. Usually nature photographs are dominated by green and blue shades, but this time your monitors will go crazy with the abundance of pink. If you notice even a particle of Japanese contemplation in yourself, then welcome!

Gardens with cherry trees (or groves, as they are called in French gardening slang) are located along the Grand Canal. These are square plots of approximately 100x100 meters, fenced with bushes and trees. The first one has white flowers and is much less impressive. I accidentally learned of its existence by overhearing a conversation between an elderly couple.

As you can see, even at the peak of flowering, the tree branches seem bare, although there are quite a lot of white flowers:

But the most interesting thing begins in the neighboring grove. Behind the trees there seems to be a pink fire raging:

We enter the territory and first of all we pick up the fallen jaw:

Millions, billions of flowers hang like pink foam on cherry trees. Here it is, hanami in French!

The color pink is rarely found in such quantities in nature, so the brain initially refuses to process the information coming from the eye receptors.

Sakura is an integral part of Japanese culture. The fragility of cherry blossoms is a metaphorical representation of the fragility of human life.

The Japanese, Chinese and other Asians come to So Park from all over Paris and the surrounding area to sit with the whole family under the cherry blossoms and remember their homeland:

If on weekends in the morning the grove is still quite free and secluded, then closer to lunch it becomes difficult to find a free place.

Everyone rests in their own way. Someone is reading:

Someone is meditating:

Someone is sleeping:

Someone plays sports:

Someone masters horse riding:

Someone is practicing using a sword:

And, of course, many people take photographs:

Or take pictures:

And pensioners do Asian exercises in the morning with some exotic name - for example, tai chi:

The centuries-old tradition of picnics under flowering trees began with the ume plum blossom, but over time, sakura stole all the attention.

Sakura flowers bloom for only a few weeks and fall off before they have time to wither. In the same way, any beauty in the world is ephemeral, and you need to have time to enjoy it while you have the opportunity.

Some children are too young to understand the unusual nature of trees:

And others are already reaching out for beauty with all their might. Mostly girls, of course. Whatever you say, women are more contemplative than men.

Have you heard about the Japanese tradition hanami? Every spring, Japanese residents gather in parks to admire cherry blossoms. Incredible white and pink caps of flowers announce the arrival of spring and transform the landscape for several weeks. Given my love for nature, seeing cherry blossoms has become almost an obsession. Unfortunately, the Land of the Rising Sun is far away, and it is difficult to find tickets so that the dates coincide with the flowering period, which varies slightly from year to year. Fortunately, with the help of my beloved Flicker, I managed to find a breathtaking (I’m not afraid of this word) right next to Paris. cherry tree garden. All that remained was to wait for spring and good weather. I was lucky - everything coincided just perfectly. I went to four times So Park in the south of Paris, one of them just for reconnaissance, literally a week before the start of flowering. Almost a thousand frames were taken - many of them were almost identical, but it was simply impossible to stop. Usually nature photographs are dominated by green and blue shades, but this time your monitors will go crazy with the abundance of pink. If you notice at least a particle of Japanese contemplation in yourself, then welcome to the cat.

Park ensemble So ( Sceaux) is located approximately 6 km south of Paris, so in fact it can be considered part of the French capital. This is a spacious park in a classical style with a castle, spacious lawns, figured trees and bushes, fountains, ponds and a large canal, like in Versailles. I could write a separate post about So, but today I will tell you only about two small kindergartens, for which I actually came here, and for the first time.

Gardens with cherry trees (or groves, as they are called in French gardening slang) are located along the Grand Canal. These are square plots of approximately one hundred by one hundred meters, fenced with bushes and trees. The first one has white flowers and is much less impressive. I accidentally learned of its existence by overhearing a conversation between an elderly couple.

As you can see, even at the peak of flowering, the tree branches seem bare, although there are quite a lot of white flowers.

But the most interesting thing begins in the neighboring grove. Behind the trees there seems to be a pink fire raging.

We enter the territory and the first thing we do is pick up the fallen jaw.

Millions, billions of flowers hang like pink foam on cherry trees. Here it is, hanami in French!

The color pink is rarely found in such quantities in nature, so the brain initially refuses to process the information coming from the eye receptors.

Sakura is an integral part of Japanese culture. The fragility of cherry blossoms is a metaphorical representation of the fragility of human life.

The Japanese, Chinese and other Asians come to So Park from all over Paris and the surrounding area to sit with the whole family under the cherry blossoms and remember their homeland.

If on weekends in the morning the grove is still quite free and secluded, then closer to lunch it becomes difficult to find a free place.

Everyone rests in their own way. Someone is reading.

Someone is meditating.

Someone is sleeping.

Someone plays sports.

Someone is learning horse riding.

Someone is practicing using a sword.

And someone is playing ball.

Naturally, everyone writes on Twitter and Facebook, inviting friends to see the unprecedented spectacle.

And of course, a lot of people take photographs.

Or take pictures.

Large groups gather under the bushiest trees for a picnic and informal communication.

And pensioners do Asian exercises in the morning with some exotic name - for example, tai chi.

The centuries-old tradition of picnics under flowering trees began with the ume plum blossom, but over time, sakura stole all the attention.

Some children are too young to understand the unusual nature of trees.

And others are already reaching out for beauty with all their might. Mostly girls, of course. Whatever you say, women are more contemplative than men.

39, 40

41, 42

Great place for romantic dates.

Even a trendy bar on top of a skyscraper overlooking the city lights can hardly compare with a garden of cherry blossoms.

If you want to please your significant other, invite her to a picnic in So Park in early April. This is also a great place to propose to a girl - it’s hard to find a more romantic place.

Or simply collect rose petals to decorate your room and create a romantic atmosphere at home.

It is difficult to imagine how these lush, fleshy petals fit into the buds.

On one of the trees one could simultaneously contemplate white and pink flowers. A separate experiment by a gardener, probably.

It's hard for me to find words to describe all this pink madness. Let me just say that at the moment this is the most vivid (in every sense) impression of the year.

A real Garden of Eden.

I wish each of you to see something like this at least once in your life. Remember that beauty is short-lived, but its sources are varied and numerous. Looking for beauty in the world around us, feeding on it and being inspired by it is one of the paths to enlightenment.

Have you already seen cherry blossoms? Have you been looking for pink flowers in spring? Have you been to Japan during the Hanami period?

How to get there: from Paris by train RER B to the station Parc de Sceaux, then walk (about 20 minutes).

All about car tuning

Chestnuts are blooming in Paris now. Parisian chestnuts

Popular places among tourists:

Secret places.