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In memoriam Sergiu Grossu (14 noiembrie 1920–25 iulie 2009)

DanutM — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:28:49 +0000

Sâmbătă 25 iulie a trecut la cele veşnice scriitorul creştin Sergiu Grossu, unul dintre spiritele cele mai luminate şi una dintre minţile cele mai lucide ale exilului românesc în perioada comunistă. Ceremonia funerară va avea loc marţi 28 iulie, ora 12.00 la Cimitirul Sf. Vineri din Bucureşti.

Spre sfârşitul anilor ’70 am primit de un prieten câteva numere din revista Catacombes, subintitulată Messager surconfessionel de l’église du silence, pe care Sergiu Grossu o edita la Paris din 1971. Am aflat astfel pentru prima dată numele acestui scriitor român. Le-am citit atunci pe nerăsuflate. Ele au fost apoi ascunse de un prieten, împreună cu alte materiale compromiţătoare, într-o perioadă în care eram foarte urmărit de Securitate şi era riscant să fie găsite la mine în cazul unei percheziţii; din păcate, n-am mai reuşit niciodată să le recuperez.

Am primit, tot în vremea aceea, un volum de poezie creştină care mi-a fost foarte drag, şi pe care l-am citi adeseori. Se numea Pietre de aducere aminte şi era semnat Simion Cubolta (acesta era numele satului din Basarabia în care se născuse scriitorul, în 1920). Mult mai târziu am aflat că autorul era Sergiu Grossu, unul dintre liderii mai tineri ai Oastei Domnului, care fusese persecutat de comunişti (fusese condamnat în 1959 la 12 ani de închisoare şi eliberat printr-un decret de graţiere în 1962).

După eliberarea din închisoare, a plecat în exil în Franţa, împreună cu soţia lui, Nicoleta Valeria, care şi ea fusese închisă de comunişti din motive religioase. Experienţele din perioada de detenţie au fost redate de aceasta în cartea ei Binecuvântată fii închisoare (Nicole Valery, Bénie soit tu prison, Editions Plon, Paris, 1976), după care Nicolae Mărginean a făcut în 1992 filmul artistic omonim – cu Maria Ploae în rolul Nicoletei; un film, trebuie să recunoaştem, relativ modest).

La începutul anilor ’90 am fost contactat de domnul Alexandru Călinescu, de la revista Convorbiri literare, în perioada în care se pregătea să publice cartea lui Sergiu Grossu Calvarul României creştine, apărută în 1992 (cartea a fost republicată în 2006 la Editura Vremea).

Sergiu Grossu a publicat cel puţin trei volume de poezie şi zece alte cărţi, aproape toate legate de persecuţia Bisericii în „lagărul” comunist.

Din păcate, n-am avut cinstea de a-l cunoaşte personal pe Sergiu Grossu. Cărţile şi poeziile lui însă au jucat un rol atât de important în „devenirea mea intru fiinţă”, încât am sentimentul că l-am cunoscut dintotdeauna.

Iată că a plecat dintre noi încă unul dintre spiritele nobile ale secolului care tocmai a trecut. Roadele slujirii lui vor rămâne însă întotdeauna cu noi, iar răsplătirile cereşti care i se cuvin îl aşteaptă în ceruri.

Închei cu un superb text al lui Alex Ştefănescu despre soţii Grossu, aflat pe siteul Procesul comunismului:

Sergiu Grossu şi Nicoleta-Valeria Grossu, un cuplu intrat în mitologia luptei anticomuniste. Amândoi creştini fervenţi ţi patrioţi înflăcăraţi, au făcut ani grei de temniţă, în Romînia comunistă, pentru convingerile lor. Stabiliţi în Franţa în 1969, au continuat cu o energie exemplară să lupte pentru cauza creştină, editând revista Catacombes, colaborâns la numeroase alte periodice, publicând cărţi. După moartea soţiei sale, autoarea emoţionantului volum de memorii Binecuvântată fii, închisoare!, Sergiu Grossu consideră o datorie de onoare să meargă mai departe, ca şi cum ea i-ar fi încă alături, pe calea urmată de amîndoi încă din tinereţe. Comunismul rezidual, comunismul care încearcă să se reconstituie sub alte forme, ca şi cel mai odios aliat al comunismului, amnezia colectivă, au în el şi în prezent un adversar de temut.

Dumnezeu să-l odihnească în pace!

* * *

Dacă sunteţi interesaţi, puteţi găsi AICI şi AICI un text al lui Sergiu Grossu în limba franceză intitulat „La technique du regard”.

Citiţi, de asemenea, AICI, un interviu luat de Ion Zubaşcu lui Sergiu Grossu în 2006.

Les cataflics :la police des catacombes

CAE — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:33:07 +0000

Un immense labyrinthe pour jouer au chat et à la souris.

Dans les 300 km de carrières sous Paris, policiers et cataphiles se croisent, le plus souvent sans se voir. Mais parfois, ils se rencontrent. « L’année passée, nous avons contrôlé, verbalisé – 35 euros l’amende – et raccompagné à la surface 220 personnes », détaille le commandant Didier Mauger, à la tête de la brigade sportive spécialisée dans ces interventions souterraines…

Lire la suite sur 20minutes.fr

Encore un doudou perdu…

clhomme — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:27:15 +0000

J’espère que le ou la propriétaire n’est pas resté coincé à l’intérieur

Day 42 [12 Mar 09] - Paris

jn82 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:32:49 +0000

There are so many great sights to see in Paris, but as we had very limited time in the city, we decided just to visit those which interested us and were very famous. The first one today was to the Catacombes. This probably is not as famous as the other tourist attractions, but it interested us very much, as how often is it you get to see millions of human bones neatly arranged and placed into purpose built underground tunnels? After a bit of touble finding the Caracombes from the train station due to no clear markings, we decended 20 metres underground, below Paris’ metro, sweage and water systems. A further 500 metre walk later in a dark, damp and cold tunnel, we were greeted by the remains of an estimated three million of French people from centuries past, whose bodies had been exhumed from grave sites around the city when the city needed more land to build stuff on.

500m of tunnel like this before the prize.

Notice the arrangement of bones and artistic placement of skulls to form two lines, how neat.

Even more creative, I think these are skull men?

Very neat. Bottom section bones facing one way, middle section skull divider, top section bones facing another way.

I thought this would make a good post card for Halloween or something.

Big cross of human skulls.

After seeing this, I guess that if you had to stack and arrange millions of bones and skulls, you might as well make it look nice so you can open the place up as an attraction to the public. The creative and neat arrangement of the bones was really something very unusual and interesting. You might think I actually played with some of the bones, but I will leave you to guess about that part.

After the Catacombes and a cheap chinese lunch, we headed to the Lourve, probably the world’s most famous art gallery. It is impossible to finish the Lourve with one visit or maybe even ten (we were told that if you were to spend just 30 seconds at each exhibit, it would take a consecutive four to seven months to finish the entire Lourve), so we just decided to catch a few of the more well known art pieces, as well as French, Dutch and Flemish oil paintings.

The inverted pyramid, probably one of the bigger draws of the Lourve to me.

Da Vinci code nerds would know what this is.

Venus de Milo.

Victory wings.

This is (GAY) Spartaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

French crown jewels. Not impressive at all.

老鹰捉小鸡.

对牛弹琴.

Boob job?

Hmm….?!

Over the years, the Lourve has had many famous and expensive art pieces stolen from it many times, and this is probably one of the reasons why.

Siesta time.

Oh yeah, there is also this picture of a rather unattractive women with a sly smirk on her face people were crowded around. Have no idea what the big fuss about it was but if everyone takes a picture I guess it must be pretty famous or something.

The sly woman of the Lourve.

The final stop of the day, and probably the one with the real WOW factor, was the Eiffel Tower. This is a really weird tourist attraction as it was never meant to be anything more than a monument for the 1889 Universal Exhibition held in Paris. It does not really do anything (other than serve as a point for radio antenna transmission, which is why it was allowed to remain to stand towards end of the 19th century), and has no real history behind it. However, neither Paris not her skyline will be the same without it and it is truely a one of a kind icon. It is said to turn a profit of around 47 million € annually nowadays, after paying the nightly 4,000€ electricity bill for the lights.

The Eiffel Tower, from across the river.

Instead of take the lift straight up to the top for 12 euros, we decided to walk up to the first and second floors (which cost 4 €), and then take the lift from the second floor to the top (costing another 4.20€), as we felt that to get the true Eiffel Tower experience, we will need to climb the tower (and not only because the queue for the lift from the ground floor was insanely long). The tower has a total of 1226 steps from ground to the top, of which a maximum of 668 can be reached by foot till the second floor, from then on you have no choice but to take a lift if you want to go to the top. The views from the third floor landing (tower top) extend for around 42km!

Token view from the first floor landing, with Sacré Cœur at the highest point.

668 steps later, we’re on the second floor landing.

Token second floor landing view of the river Seine.

Insane views from the third floor landing of the city and the Seine.

City planning?

The Arc de Triomphe.

Now just to put things in a bit of perspective about how much you can see from each of the landings, here are three pictures taken of Jardins de Trocadero.

Comparative view from the first floor landing.

Same view from the second floor landing.

Now from the third floor landing.

After that was done with. We decided to head back down and reach our viewing point by 8pm, as once an hour on the hour at night the Eiffel Tower starts to sparkle with white lights, in addition to the orange light it already had on when it becomes dark.

View of the tower from the base at night.

The Eiffel Tower at night.

Disco time!

Paris is often said to be one of the most overrated cities in the world, along with Sydney. Now I am not sure whether that applies for a short visit or long stay/move, but all I can say is that if you are in the city for only a few days, then it is one of the most amazing places to be, and all the attractions you have seen on the tv or movies really do live up to their expectations and hype. The amazing system of metro and train public transport systems, the walk down Champs-Elyssees to the Arc de Triomphe, spending an afternoon in the Lourve, climbing the Eiffel Tower to enjoy its views, and a day at Versailles, all very cliche no doubt, but still an excellent experience!!

Links to today’s pictures here.

Archéologie - Les faux martyrs de Rome

frankherles — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:24:38 +0000

Par Frédéric Lewino * A Rome, tous les coups de pioche mènent à l’Antiquité. En 2002, des ouvr

"The ossuary tour could make a strong impression on children and people of a nervous disposition."

bohemianvegan — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 11:04:14 +0000

In my seriously War and Peace-esque post on my Christmas holiday I completely neglected to mention my visit to the Catacombs in Paris. I actually only realised it when my friend who is about to go to Paris asked me what I’d recommend doing there and this was at the top of my list (screw shopping when I can look at morbid things).

The title comes from the warning that’s displayed at the entrance to Les Catacombes. I loved it. You’re not allowed flash photography, but I made do with the little light there was. Here are a few photos from my flickr (go and see the rest if you like; it’s linked from my Facebook).

Now that I think about it, the other favourite thing of mine in Paris is Le Cimetière du Père Lachaise. (Photos below.)

The last two photos are Frédéric Chopin and Oscar Wilde’s graves, respectively. I think progress is about to be made to remove the kisses from Wilde’s monument (I think Revlon is sponsoring it), but I’m not sure. Either way, now you know that I am truly entertained by the most morbid things!

Mystère dans les catacombes de Rome

larchiviste — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:03:50 +0000

Article: Mystère dans les catacombes de Rome Source: Le Monde Date: 21 octobre 2008 Extraits:

Paris sommeille - Part 3 and 4

Nicholas Moran — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:36:26 +0000

Bonjour à tous, je cumule aujourd’hui les deux dernières parties de Paris sommeille pour une raison très simple: je n’ai plus beaucoup de temps devant moi, je pars demain dans l’après-midi pour Rome pour finir ma formation avant de partir au Rwanda.

Donc aujourd’hui, deux séries de photos, sur deux endroits totalement différents, mais toujours dans la lignée des endroits que l’on voit peu. La première série a été prise dans les catacombes de Paris, une visite que je conseille à tout Parisien. Comme la tour Eiffel ou les grands musées de Paris, c’est un endroit trop souvent ignoré, et c’est bien dommage.

Les deux photos représentes les deux aspects différents des catacombes, d’un côté l’ossuaire, de l’autre les galeries creusées à même la roche, qui font plus penser à des tunnels de carrière qu’à des catacombes.

La deuxième série de photos est toute simple dans son sujet, comme dans sa prise de vue, ce sont les rues de Paris, la nuit, tard, vide de monde et de lumière. Pour les deux photos les sujets sont de surprenantes compositions de lumière sur lesquelles je suis tombé lors de mes promenades nocturnes. J’espère que vous les apprécierez autant que moi!

Paris, ses touristes et ses musées

feenomenale — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:21:02 +0000

Trouvé en rapport avec le sujet dans le Figaro en ligne, cet article de ce matin …

http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2008/08/27/01016-20080827ARTFIG00294–paris-les-touristes-etrangers-sont-moins-nombreux-.php

Rappelez-vous il y a quelques semaines, j’étais invitée à l’Office du Tourisme et des Congrès de Paris pour la publication des résultats 2007. Monsieur Rol et ses collaborateurs avaient déjà souligné l’nfluence des indicateurs économiques et financiers sur le tourisme : le prix élevé des carburants, un euro fort… dissuadent les Américains et Japonais, au contraire des touristes venus de Russie et du Moyen Orient. De leur côté, les touristes Français renouvellent moins leur passeport et préfèrent un tourisme “de proximité”. La communication favorise certaines curiosités “populaires” (Paris Plage, Nuit Blanche) au détriment de musées que l’on aurait plaisir à découvrir, dans une ambiance plus calme…

Voici quelques musées plus modéremment visités mais qui requièrent tout de même votre attention!

Le musée de la publicité proposés par les Arts Décoratifs, 107 rue de Rivoli. Du mardi au vendredi de 11h à 18h - dernier billet vendu à 17h30
Le samedi et le dimanche de 10h à 18h- dernier billet vendu à 17h30
Le jeudi : nocturne jusqu’à 21h - dernier billet vendu à 20h30
Fermés le lundi.
- L’affiche 100% Finlande jusqu’au 26 octobre
- 40 ans de pub à la télé jusqu’au 12 avril 2009 (une saga du film publicitaire consacrée à des marques à la télévision française)
Les Catacombes ou l’”Ossuaire Municipal” date de la fin du XVIII° siècle. Après les problèmes d’hygiène rencontrés au cimetière des Innocents, ayant pour conséquence sa fermeture en 1785, la ville profite de la consolidation des carrières pour implanter un nouvel ossuaire. La translation des restes commence après la bénédiction et la consécration du lieu le 7 avril 1786 et se continua jusqu’en 1788. A la tombée de la nuit et selon un cérémonial constitué d’une procession de prêtres chantant l’office des morts, les tombereaux chargés d’ossements et recouverts d’un voile noir prennent le chemin des Catacombes. Jusqu’en 1814, ce site recueillit les ossements de tous les cimetières de Paris. Il suscitat la curiosité dès sa création. Parmi ses visiteurs célèbres on compte le Comte d’Artois, futur Charles X, qui y descendit en compagnie de dames de la Cour en 1787. L’année suivante, on mentionne la visite de Madame de Polignac et Madame de Guiche. L’empereur d’Autriche François 1er, résidant en vainqueur à Paris les visita en 1814. Napoléon III y descendit avec son fils en 1860.

NOUVEAU : PRESENTATION Ci-gisent les Hommes célèbres (6 juin 2008 - 1er mars 2009)

Véritable labyrinthe souterrain, les Catacombes abritent la mémoire des Parisiens au fil des siècles. L’exposition réveille le souvenir des nombreuses personnalités de la vie artistique et intellectuelle de Paris tels que Girardon, La Fontaine ou Jules Hardouin-Mansart dont les restes furent transférés en même temps que ceux de 6 millions de Parisiens au fur et à mesure de la fermeture des cimetières de la capitale.

Accès Denfert Rochereau ou 1, avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy Paris 14°

Ouvert du mardi au dimanche de 10h00 à 17h00 (fermeture des caisses à 16h00)
Fermé le lundi et les jours fériés

Tarif jeune (de 14 ans jusqu’à 26 ans inclus) : 3,50 €

Le musée Cernushi,à l’orée du Parc Monceau est l’un des plus anciens musées de la Ville puisqu’il a été inauguré en 1898. Deuxième musée d’art asiatique d’Europe et cinquième mondial en art chinois, il semble parfait pour parfaire ses connaissances sur l’art du pays du milieu depuis l’origine jusqu’au XIV° siècle. Le financier Henri Cernushi (1821-1896) a ramené des pièces très diverses de son tour du monde. A sa mort, il légua son hôtel particulier et son impressionante collection. (7 avenue Vélasquez Paris 8°).

tunnels and catacombes under Bristol

Neil Watson — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:48:00 +0000

I found a sketch of the layout of some medieval water conduits under Bristol which appears to show that there may be tunnels either under or very close to under our offices.

The Thistle Hotel may well have access to the Broad Street conduit, but how far it goes we don’t know yet. If intact, we could probably get all the way to Colston Hall and possibly up Park Street using the underground network.

How cool is that?!

Premier week-end à Alexandrie

bsaouter — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:59:33 +0000

Vendredi 9h00, gare Ramsès, facile à rejoindre par le métro, station Moubarak. Prendre les bill

Opération Totenschädel

kikalesque — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:46:35 +0000

Par une nuit sans lune, à l’heure où les gens honnêtes dorment sans se douter de rien (hin hin, les pauvres), nous sommes descendus dans les entrailles de Paris pour nous livrer à quelques activités mystérieuses.

Parcourant les souterrains secrets oubliés par le temps…

Bref on est descendu dans les catacombes parisiennes par une plaque d’égout secrète, et après avoir descendu un puits de 20 mètres de profondeur dans le noir sur une échelle glissante, s’être contorsionné dans des chattières boueuses, couru à travers des dédales de galeries avec nos lampes frontales, et croisé les traces des autres cataphiles qui nous avaient précédé, on est arrivé à un ancien abri anti-atomique désaffecté. L’endroit est vraiment hors du commun: prévu pour que 300 personnes y survivent et comprenant des dizaines de salles, on y trouve en particulier un système de ventilation actionné par 4 tandems et un vieux poste de téléphone à fiches. Apparemment complètement oublié depuis la fin de la guerre froide, ça reste un endroit absolument surréaliste.

D’autres photos là.