home › Chassis › Horrors of crematoria: truth and fiction. Vip-persons do not want to burn Attitude towards cremation of the Greek Orthodox Church

Horrors of crematoria: truth and fiction. Vip-persons do not want to burn Attitude towards cremation of the Greek Orthodox Church

IN Lately in the press (especially in online publications) began to appear a lot of different information about How now in certain countries it is accepted bury the dead, who and How provides funeral services. Curious materials about the application of various technologies appear. I am always with I read these articles with interest in order to be, so to speak, aware of modern ritual affairs. It’s just that relatives, acquaintances and sometimes even strangers often turn to me with a request to consult them on a particular issue related to With funeral. So you have to match.

Just recently, a friend of one of the neighbors came (her father died) and asked me to tell you more about cremation. I asked How organize it and what to do after. How to burn the body Christian church. Along the way, for some reason, she asked others alternative ways funeral. This is where my knowledge comes in handy.

How Right bury urn With ashes, neededwhetherfunerals, memorials and fences

In general, now there are many different ways of burial. This is due to many reasons.

After all, the decision of the family of Valentina Ivanovna (this neighbor's friend) to cremate the deceased was dictated by understandable difficulties. She herself lives with her husband and children somewhere in the Primorsky Territory. In the city of childhood on mainland” are selected extremely rarely: far and expensive. A How then take care of the grave? Well, so far two of her aunts are alive and on the move. But they are already old enough, they won't be able to drive soon. at the cemetery . And there will be no one else, except perhaps ritual services. Besides, she wants to dust father was buried in the place where she lives and can always come on visit the grave So, the deceased must be transported. But transporting a body from central Russia all the way to Primorye is an extremely expensive business. And here urn with ashes shipping is much cheaper and easier. However, disagreements arose in the family. Religious aunts stood up with their chests: in no case should you burn the body - it is a sin. And the younger generation, including grandchildren and husband, prove that there is no sin here, so How there is no direct prohibition of the Church. Which of them is right?

Traditions

I must say that cremation was practiced by mankind With time immemorial. This is how representatives of many pagan cultures and civilizations buried their dead. For example, the same the ancient Greeks and Romans burned their dead, and the ashes were placed in ceramic vessels and buried in the ground. Moreover, sometimes it was buried right in the house, under the main hearth, so that the spirits of the ancestors protected the housing and its inhabitants.And in Rome has a tradition of sometimes keeping a piece ashes of fathers in urnsin the form of stone or ceramic busts that stood in a special home sanctuary. Our Slavic ancestors before their Christianization, they also arranged a fiery funeral for the dead, and the ashes were placed in specially shaped pots. Then they were either buried in burial mounds or placed in wooden dominoes. on tall poles. The Vikings, and the Celts, and many steppe peoples like the Huns or the same Mongols cremated the dead. All They were sure that the soul after the death of the body must be freed from the flesh by means of a purifying fire. Say, the wild views of the pagans? But the most complex religions - Hinduism and Buddhism - say the same thing. Their representatives also cremate the dead, thus releasing their souls. at will.

With modern monotheistic religions, the situation is more complicated:

Christian faith States that the body is a vessel and a gift of God, which must be preserved even after death. Therefore, the burning of the deceased is undesirable for Christians, the Church does not approve of it. However, it does not prohibit, especially if there are some objective reasons for cremation. Moreover, Orthodoxy treats this method of burial with a fair amount of condemnation, while the Catholic and Protestant branches are more tolerant.
Representatives of Judaism consider the ritual burning of the deceased sin. Many clergymen say that it is better to occasionally visit the distant graves of relatives than to cremate the bodies for transportation. dust . direct ban on cremation among the Jews How would not, but this method of burial is not popular.
Here is Islam completely excludes cremation How ungodly and very sinful act. Funeral rite of the faithful is described in detail in the Koran and hadiths, it cannot be violated, because in this case sin will fall on both relatives and the soul of the deceased himself.

In modern Western countries and both Americas, cremation of the dead is a very popular way of burial. Very environmentally friendly, economical and approved by the authorities. Many cemeteries they simply do not provide sites for traditional burial in coffins - only for urn with ashes . For such a grave, less space is needed, and from the point of view of sannorm, it is much more preferable.In Russia, cremation is also gaining popularity. , especially in big cities. There Ashes can be buried in urns ordinary churchyards, or you can get a plot (even a family one) at the cemetery columbarium at the crematorium.

Permissivedocumentation

on Cremation is easy to assemble. Their kit should include: passport of the recipient of the service, stamped death certificate, order invoice on funeral services and accessories. To obtain dust for a funeral (usually this can be done on the other day after the cremation), special papers will also be needed. Namely: certificate of cremation; accompanying card with registration number ( indicating the date, time, place and name of the deceased); a receipt for paid services of a cemetery or columbarium or a statement about the burial of the urn in another place.

Usually, relatives are given an already issued urn - with surname, name, patronymic of the deceased and thus the registration number, which is indicated and on card. Thus, any confusion should be practically excluded. Issuing dust usually in a ceremonial setting. On this ceremony, in addition to relatives, other people can come - friends, neighbors, colleagues. But usually the case is limited to the family, so How the rest had already seen off the deceased during the memorial service. Everything is organized in a special funeral hall, where music is played, and urn installed on pedestal decorated with flowers.

A little abouturns.They are different, including the price. Simple standard ones (of all shapes and colors) are made of plastic. They are inexpensive - from 600 rubles to one and a half thousand. But many people want to buy something more interesting. They are offered the most different variants from wood, porcelain, metal alloys, enameled, stone, ceramic, etc. These models stand already more expensive - from 4 thousand and above - up to several hundred thousand rubles (if, for example, they are gilded or author's work). The upper price bar depends on the high cost of the material and the complexity of the design of the vessel. In any case, the so-called capsule (sealed plastic bag) with the ashes is placed in the urn.

Most burial traditions at cremation

remain unchanged. For example, the same farewell to the dead occurs in the usual way. A memorial service is most often organized right in the mourning room at the mortuary or crematorium - depending on where it is more convenient. These are mostly civil ceremonies, so How the funeral service is preferable after all in the temple. But sometimes it, in a shortened version, is organized in the same funeral hall. Usually there are no difficulties with the clergy. In the sense that they do not express their negative attitude towards the chosen method of burial. And even more so, no one will refuse to sing the funeral of the baptized deceased.

The very burial of the ashesusually occurs on the day it is issued(unless transportation to another place or some other method of storage is expected urns ). Most common after cremationdustburied more or less traditionally. Can choose place in the columbarium- open (these are also called "Walls of Sorrow") or closed.In our country if possible, they still prefer to bury in the ground on cemetery. Grave for urns done less than traditional. But sometimes relatives want to put dust also in an ordinary coffin (it happens!). In this case, the grave, of course, needs a traditional one. By the way, Valentina Ivanovna asked me if I could whether she will put somewhere consecrated ground. I consulted with the priest about this, and he said that it was possible. If they are buried in a coffin - then in it, and if not, then - then in itself urn.

By the way, Sometimes dustthe deceased is buried not in one, but in two (or more!) Places. This is quite possible during cremation, although does not conform to the canons of most religions. I have heard more than one story on this subject from quite reliable sources. For example, a friend of my cousin died a couple of years ago. Native sister the deceased lived in the USA for a long time, got married there. She insisted on cremation just because wanted part dust take with you to Cincinnati and there bury . And some more acquaintances a piece of the cremated remains of their dead son buried at home on dacha near Moscow, where they lived almost constantly. The rest of the boy's ashes rest on one of cemeteries in the family grave.

Wake after cremation

no different from those who spend after traditional funerals. After all, the meaning remains the same: the farewell of the soul, a tribute to memory, the unity of people in the days of sorrow. Therefore, relatives and friends sit down at the memorial tables on the day of farewell to the deceased (this is usually the 3rd day after his death), and then on the 9th, 40th and on years. By the way, now some crematoria offer a convenient service: the organization of a memorial meal in a cafe at their ritual complex.

Howdecorate the grave with an urn

Whether there is a fundamental difference compared to conventional burial, depends on the rules and cemeteries. If it is ordinary and does not provide for special areas for urns , then the territory is allocated the same as for everyone. And you can also arrange it in the usual way: make a fence, put up a large monument, set up a flower garden, etc. And herein special urn areas or in cemeteriescolumbariums often have special standards. The allocated territories themselves are smaller, their fencing is usually not provided (or only a low plinth is allowed), and monuments and tombstones are allowed in a certain size, shape, and sometimes even colors. In general, standardization reigns in everything.

If the urnneed to be transported for burial to another city or even country, then it will be easier to organize it than the transportation of cargo-200. After all, packed in a capsule dust no longer dangerous from a sanitary point of view. It is carried in the same way as ordinary luggage, taking with it the death certificate of the deceased and a certificate of cremation issued by the crematorium. For transportation of urnsby train, plane and across the border you will also need a certificate of non-insertion of foreign objects into urn issued by the ritual service, and a certificate from the SES on non-obstruction of transportation and confirmation of the quality of soldering urns . For overseas travel you will need to take care of permission for burial in the desired country (it is issued at the consulate) and translate all documents in a foreign language.

Non-traditional burial methodsdust

almost uncommon for Russia. The maximum that relatives occasionally allow is scattering ashes in some beautiful place. Most often they choose the one that the deceased himself loved: the edge of the forest, the river, the sea, the meadow. It happens that this is done even in different places, in parts. Wealthy people even hire helicopters for such purposes in order to capture a larger area. In How many it costs them, I don't dare to guess.

Still abroad came into vogue anonymous burial dust. It is scattered over the so-called meadow of memory, which is a picturesque lawn created just for such purposes. These glades are now hosting many European cemeteries.

Recently, another trend has been strengthening:store bins at home. That is, in reality, for example, on chest of drawers, mantelpiece or special pedestal. For this, they even order especially beautiful urns - with paintings, carvings, inlays. People carry such arks and vessels everywhere with them in case of moving. Apparently, this is the main point of such a decision - to leave dust yourself. Although one of our English acquaintances explained that she should always keep at hand urn with ashes dead husband because she loves to talk to him. In the evenings, she tells him about what happened to her during the day, consults. She says that he even answers her. Not out loud, of course, but so. Mentally.

What is storage ashes at home! This is old, but there are more amazing innovations. For example, paintings painted with mixed paint dustrelatives. Some more wear ashes on his chest in special pendants. Also, multi-colored crystals are made from it, which are then set in jewelry. And recently, a new service appeared in one of the European tattoo parlors: they offer ash tattoos, into which the body of a loved one has turned.

It's up to you, but I still don't understand such things. As for me, then dustthe human must go into the ground - period. Even after cremation, since it is so convenient and preferable for someone. Even in the West, free from many complexes, people still prefer to bury what is left of the deceased, namely in the ground. Although cremation there, according to statistics, is chosen almost in ninety percent of cases. But for the main part of the inhabitants of Russia closer traditional funeral. We still have a lot of open spaces, there is where to bury according to the Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish and other rites. Therefore, I consoled this neighbor’s friend, of course, with information suitable for her, but I myself hope that my son will personally bury me How supposed to. No fire, straight to Mother Earth.

A report about one of the most unpleasant professions. Every 10 minutes, the drivers of the Minsk crematorium are required to open the valve in the furnace and stir the ashes of the deceased. They do it with an absolutely deadpan air, repeating that there is nothing supernatural in their work: "People are born, people die." Journalists personally observed the cremation process and found out why it is not customary to sprinkle ashes on one's head during work.

The monumental red brick building, surrounded by columbar walls and graveyard graves, is not a pleasant place to work. The air here seems to be saturated with human grief. If in the 80s there were about 1,000 cremations a year, today their number exceeds 6,300. Last year, about 39 percent of the dead went through cremation.

Unfilled cells in the columbarium - reservation. Relatives worry in advance about being "close" after death.

The deputy head of the crematorium, Alexander Dubovsky, explains the increased demand by the fact that, compared with a cemetery grave, the columbarium cell does not need special care. In addition, there are fewer and fewer places in the cemetery every year. And in the future, experts predict, the load on the crematorium will only increase. In Europe, today about 70 percent of the deceased are cremated, and in Japan - up to 98.

Those who, by misfortune, happened to be in the crematorium, know only its outer side - ritual halls (there are three of them) and a store with the appropriate assortment (flowers, urns, tombstones, etc.). The cremation shop and other utility rooms are located on the level below, and outsiders are not allowed to enter here. Long and dark corridors, along which coffins with the dead are carried on a cart, are connected with the ritual hall.

Machinists of ritual equipment - 5 people for the whole republic

Despite the specifics of the work, life is also "boiling" below. Work in the cremation shop strong-willed people - with a hardened psyche and a healthy outlook on things. In official documents, they are called "machinists of ritual equipment" - they are representatives of a rare profession in our country, if not piecework.

In the only one in the republic, this work is performed by only 5 people - exclusively men. They themselves are sincerely surprised when their profession is called difficult or unpleasant. And then they remember that the morgue workers (perhaps the most experienced people in the prose of life) are wary of the workers of the cremation shop, calling them "barbecue people". However, contrary to popular belief, there is no smell of either burnt or fried here. Cadaverous smell occurs occasionally - most often when a person dies at a respectable age and begins to decompose very quickly. On the day of our visit, we did not notice any unpleasant odors.

The work experience of local "stove-makers" is impressive. Both Andreis, one with a mustache, the other without, have been working in the crematorium for more than 20 years. They came, as they say, young, strong, slender guys. Of course, with the expectation of working here temporarily. And then they "worked in", and now - already half a life has passed within the walls of the crematorium. Men talk about it without a shadow of regret. They seem to be quite content with their position indeed. Face to face with the dead, they say, they do not intersect (deceased people are cremated only in a closed coffin and together with the coffin), and all the main work is entrusted to the machine.

Previously, "the smoke was coming in a column", today the work of the driver is dustless
The cremation process today is truly automated. The workshop has four fairly modern Czech furnaces. In one of them, postoperative oncological waste is burned, and the rest are used according to intended purpose. According to Alexander Dubovsky, with the old equipment, "there was a column of smoke here." Now the work of the driver is relatively dust-free.

After a memorial service is served for the deceased, the coffin is transported from the ritual hall either to the refrigerator (if all the ovens are occupied), or straight to the workshop. Crematorium workers say that they often encounter the opinion that, allegedly, before burning, they take gold, watches from the coffin, and also remove from the deceased nice clothes, shoes. "Will you put on the clothes of the deceased?" - Andrey asks a question in the forehead, who is clearly fed up with such conversations. And without opening the lid of the coffin, the machinist quickly loads it onto the lift.

Now you need to wait until the computer gives the "green light", and only after that you can send the dead person into it. The program automatically sets the required temperature (usually not lower than 700 degrees Celsius). Depending on the weight of the body and its condition, cremation takes from an hour to two and a half hours. All this time the driver is obliged to control the process. To do this, there is a small glass hole in the furnace, which the faint of heart is unlikely to dare to look into. "You just treat it like this: you have to do it, and that's it. And even at the very beginning I tried to think that I just threw the box. I used to work for one day. You should be afraid of the living, not the dead."

"If Ivanov came, then they will give Ivanov's ashes"
The main thing, men say, is to do your job well. And the criterion for quality work for a crematorium is the absence of confusion. In the words of the heroes of the article, "if Ivanov came, then they would give Ivanov's ashes." For each deceased, something like a passport is made: the name, age, date of death and time of cremation are indicated on paper. Any movement of the coffin or ashes is possible only with this document.

After the end of the cremation, the data is recorded in a special journal. “It all depends on the driver, how carefully he rakes out the remains,” Andrey continues the story. "Look how the deceased is being raked out. There are only bones, the organic part is all burned. And then the ashes go to the cremulator room, where the remains of calcium-bones are ground in a ball mill. And this is what remains of a person."

Ashes ground in a cremator

Andrei shows us a container with fine powder. If you do not try to turn events back and do not imagine what this person was like in life, you can safely work. The machinist pours the ashes into a special bag and attaches a "passport" to it. Then the "powder" enters the room for the issuance of ashes, where the organizers will pack it in an urn and give it to the customer. Or they won’t give it to the customer, because he simply won’t come for him. Although this is a rare occurrence, it happens regularly. The urns can wait for months for their relatives until the crematorium workers start looking for those who ordered the cremation and somehow miraculously forgot about her.

"The only thing hard to get used to is baby cremations"
Every day, about 10-18 people are cremated in this workshop - from different destinies and life stories. Average age The dead, the machinists say, are about 60 years old. Usually, they try not to go into the causes of their death here. But when it comes to children, even the harsh "stove-makers" change their faces. And the worst thing, according to men, is when they bring a child from a year and older. Fortunately, there are few such cases.

Rest room for tough men

I remember raking the little one, and there was an iron machine among the ashes. So I dreamed about her for a long time. Racing like this. You get up at night, throw off the sweat, go to the toilet and think, how could this be a dream? The only thing that is difficult to get used to is children's cremations. The first child who was cremated was a girl, she was a year old. Well, there is a newborn, and when he has lived ... And you also see how the parents are crying ...

Money doesn't smell
Children are the only reason for stingy male sympathy. Alexander Kanonchik, 22, tries to think dryly: "People are born, people die. What's wrong with that?" When he first started working in the crematorium, he was warned that they often come here for 2 weeks, and then they can’t stand it - they leave.

In this case, a very clear distinction between "work and home" is necessary, otherwise even an "above average" salary will not be able to reassure. Operators of ritual equipment dirty earn about 7.5-8 million a month. "Money doesn't smell," Andrey, the driver, who showed us the cremation procedure, hurries to remind us. Men are proud that lately the dead have been brought to them even from Russia. The rumor spread that they "everything is fair."
"Goodbye," the crematorium workers say shortly. "We hope that we will meet with you very soon," we answer and gladly leave this curious, but sad place.

That's all I wanted to say. WITH last phrase agree.

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES: AND OTHER LESSONS FROM THE CREMATORY

First published as a Norton paperback 2015

* * *

To my dear friends
So loyal and generous
terrible haiku 1
Haiku is a national Japanese form of poetry, a genre of poetic miniature. - Approx. ed.

From the author

According to a journalist-witness, Mata Hari, a famous exotic dancer who worked as a spy during World War I, refused to wear a blindfold when she was led by the French to be shot in 1917.

- Do I have to wear this? Mata Hari asked her lawyer as soon as she saw the bandage.

"If Madame doesn't want it, it won't change anything," the officer replied, turning away hastily.

Mata Hari was not tied up and put on a bandage over her eyes. She looked her tormentors straight in the face as the priest, the nuns, and the lawyer stepped aside.

It is not easy to look death straight in the eye. To avoid this, we prefer to wear bandages, hiding in the dark from the realities of death and dying. However, ignorance is not a blessing, but only an even stronger fear.

Contact with death can be avoided in every possible way by storing dead bodies behind stainless steel doors and leaving the sick and dying in hospital wards. We are so diligently hiding from death that there is a feeling that we are the first generation of immortal people. However, it is not. It's no secret that one day we will all die. As the great cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker said, “The idea of death and the fear of it haunt man like nothing else.” It is because of the fear of death that we build cathedrals, give birth to children, declare war and watch videos about cats on the Internet at three in the morning.

Death governs all our creative and destructive actions.

The sooner we realize this, the better we can understand ourselves.

This book describes my first six years in the American funeral industry. If you do not want to read realistic descriptions of death and dead bodies, then most likely you have stumbled upon the wrong book. The stories here are true and the people are real. Some names and details (but not obscene ones, I promise) have been changed to protect the privacy of some people and protect the identity of the deceased.

Attention!

Territory with limited access.

California Code of Regulations

Title 16, section 12, article 3, section 1221

Caring for the deceased and preparing for the funeral.

(a) The care of the deceased and preparations for burial (or other arrangements for the disposal of human remains) must be strictly confidential...

Funeral preparation requirements warning poster

How I shaved Byron

A girl will never forget the first body she shaved.

This is the only moment in her life that can be called even more awkward than the first kiss or the loss of innocence. The hands of the clock move agonizingly slowly as you stand over the dead body of an elderly man, a pink plastic razor in your hands.

In lamp lighting daylight I stared at poor motionless Byron for ten whole minutes. That was the man's name, or at least that was the name on the label hanging from his big toe. I did not know how to perceive him as a man or as a body, but it seemed necessary to me at least to know his name before I began to carry out very intimate procedures.

Byron was a 70-year-old man with thick white hair sprouting from his face and head. He was naked except for a sheet wrapped around his lower body. I don't know what this sheet covered. Probably, it was required to preserve the posthumous dignity of a person.

His eyes, fixed on infinity, became flat, as if Balloons. If the lover's eyes are a clear mountain lake, then Byron's eyes were a swamp. His wide mouth froze in a silent scream.

- Um, Mike! I called my new boss. – Do I understand correctly, do I need to use shaving cream, or what?

Mike entered the room, took a can of shaving cream from a metal cabinet, and asked me to be careful.

“It will be difficult to fix something if you cut his face open.” Be careful, okay?

Yes, neat. You have to be as careful as the last time I shaved people. Although this has never happened to me before.

Pulling on my rubber gloves, I brought the machine up to Byron's cold, hard cheeks, covered with thick stubble. I didn't feel like I was doing anything important. I always thought that mortuary workers should be professionals in their field, able to do with the dead what the rest cannot. I wonder if Byron's family members knew that a 23-year-old girl with no work experience shaves the face of a person they love?

I couldn't close Byron's eyes because his wrinkled eyelids didn't obey and rose again, as if he wanted to watch me shave him. I tried again. To no avail. "Hey Byron, I don't need observers!" I said, but no one answered me.

The same thing happened with the mouth. I closed it, but it remained in this position for only a few seconds, after which the jaw dropped again. No matter what I did, Byron didn't want to do what every gentleman should do, which is shaving. I ended up clumsily smearing his face with shaving cream, reminding myself of a one-year-old painting with his fingers.

In the process of work, I tried to convince myself that it was just dead man. Just rotting meat, Caitlin. The carcass of an animal.

However, this persuasion technique did not prove effective: Byron was more than just rotting meat. He was also a noble and magical creature, like a unicorn or a griffin, combining something extraterrestrial with mundane.

By the time I realized that this job was not for me, it was already too late. I could no longer avoid Byron's shave. Armed with a pink loom and making a high-pitched sound only dogs could hear, I brought it to my cheek. Thus began my career as a barber of the dead.

Even in the morning of that day, I did not think at all that I would have to shave my body. Of course, I understood that I would be dealing with corpses, but I had no idea that I would need to shave them. It was my first day of work at Westwind Family Funeral Home: Cremation and Burial.

I woke up early, which had never happened to me before, pulled on trousers that I had never worn before, and put on massive leather boots. The trousers were too short and the boots were too big. I looked ridiculous, but in my defense I can say that I had no definite idea of \u200b\u200bwhat a worker who burns dead people is supposed to look like.

When I left my house on Rondel Place, the sun was just rising. Discarded needles and evaporating puddles of urine gleamed in its rays. A homeless man dressed in a tutu was dragging an old car tire. In all likelihood, he intended to make a toilet out of it.

When I first found myself in San Francisco, it took me three months to find a place to live. I eventually met Zoey, a lesbian law student who rented out a room. We moved in together in her bright pink duplex. 2
A duplex is a house consisting of two sections, united by one roof and side walls and designed for two families. - Approx. ed.

At Rondel Place. On one side of our glorious house was a Mexican diner, and on the other, Esta Noche, a bar famous for Latin American drag queens and deafening national music.

As I walked along the Rondel towards railway station, a man came up to me, opened his coat and showed his penis.

"What do you think of that, sweetheart?" he asked me, gleefully waving his dignity.

“Oh man, it could be better,” I replied. His face immediately darkened.

I took the high speed train to Oakland and had to walk a few blocks to Westwind. view of my new workplace which opened up to me ten minutes walk from the station was amazing. I don't know what I expected from a funeral home (maybe I thought it would be like my grandmother's living room with several stoves), but because of the metal railing, it looked quite normal. An ordinary white one-story building that could easily pass for an insurance company.

Near the gate there was a small sign asking you to ring the bell. Gathering my courage, I called. A moment later, the door creaked open, and my new boss, Mike, appeared on the threshold. I had already seen him once before and mistakenly thought he was completely harmless: a balding man in his forties, of average height and weight, dressed in camouflage pants. However, despite his friendly khakis, Mike looked intimidating that morning. He gazed at me intently from under his glasses, and his whole look spoke of how sorry he was that he had hired me.

“Good morning,” Mike said in a low, expressionless voice, as if only he was supposed to hear those words. He opened the door and left.

After a few awkward moments, I realized that I should follow him: having entered the room, I turned the corner several times. A muffled roar could be heard in the corridors, which gradually grew louder.

We went into a large storage room, where that roar came from: inside were two large but squat machines located in the very center of the room, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee of death, made of corrugated metal. Pipes came out of them, which went up through the roof. Each car had a metal door that opened up.

I realized that there were cremation ovens in front of me. There, right this very minute, there were people, dead people. At that moment I had not yet seen them, but the realization that they were nearby excited me.

“All those cremation ovens? I asked Mike.

“They take over the whole room. It would be strange if they weren't cremation ovens, wouldn't it? he replied, going out the nearest door and leaving me alone again.

What is a nice girl like me doing in this place? No one in their right mind would prefer working with the dead to the position of, say, a bank clerk or a kindergarten teacher. Most likely, it would have been much easier for me to get a job as a bank clerk or educator, because in the death industry they were very suspicious of 23-year-old girls who wanted to join its ranks.

When I was looking for a job, I typed in the words “cremation”, “crematorium”, “mortuary” and “funeral” in the search box.

Employers responded to emails with my resume (if they responded at all): “Do you have experience in the cremation industry?” Funeral homes seemed to insist on work experience, as if body burning skills could be learned in a regular high school class. I sent out hundreds of resumes and got a lot of "Sorry, we've found someone more experienced" responses until I landed a job at Westwind Cremation and Burial Company six months later.

My relationship with death has always been quite complicated. When I learned as a child that the inevitable end of the existence of any living organism is death, I was seized by a wild fear and a strong curiosity. As a little girl, I lay in bed for hours, unable to sleep, until the headlights of my mother's car illuminated the driveway to the house. For some reason, I was sure that my mother was lying somewhere on the road, bleeding, and at the same time, pieces of a broken windshield. Despite the fact that the theme of death, disease and darkness literally swallowed me up, I still managed to seem like a half-normal schoolgirl. In college, I decided to stop hiding my interests and started studying medieval history. In the end, for four years, I read articles with titles like this: Necro-Fantasy and Myth: Pago Pago Native Interpretations of Death (Dr. Karen Baumgarter, Yale University, 2004). I was attracted to all aspects of death: bodies, rituals, grief. The articles answered some of my questions, but that wasn't enough for me. I needed real bodies and real death.

Mike came back pushing the creaky gurney with my first corpse on it.

“I don’t have time to introduce you to cremation ovens today,” he said indifferently, “so I’ll ask you a favor: shave this guy.”

Obviously the family dead man I wanted to see him again before the cremation.

Next, I followed Mike, who took the gurney to a sterile white room located right next to the crematorium. He explained that it was in this room that the corpses were "cooked". He walked over to a large metal cabinet and pulled out a pink plastic disposable razor. After serving it to me, Mike turned and walked away, leaving me alone for the third time. "Good luck!" he shouted as he walked away.

As I noted above, shaving a corpse was not part of my plans, but I had no choice.

As he left the room, Mike kept a close eye on me. It was sort of a test to see if I could work with his rigid philosophy: sink or swim. I was the new hire hired to burn (and occasionally shave) bodies, and I could either do it or not do it. Mike was not willing to give me time to study or probation.

He returned a few minutes later and, standing behind me, looked at my work: “Look, you need to shave in the direction of hair growth. Jerky movements. Right".

When I wiped off the remaining foam from Byron's face, he began to look like a newborn. There wasn't a single cut.

Later that morning, Byron's wife and daughter came to last time take a look at it. Byron, draped in white sheets, was taken to the farewell hall. The lamp on the floor and the pink lamp on the ceiling softly illuminated his open face; it looked so much nicer than under the harsh fluorescent lights in the preparation room.

After I shaved Byron, Mike used some sort of funeral magic to close Byron's eyes and mouth. Now, illuminated by soft pink rays, the gentleman's face looked peaceful. I was waiting for a shout from the farewell hall, like: “What a horror! Who shaved him like that?!”, but, fortunately, this did not happen.

I learned from his wife that Byron had been an accountant for 40 years. An organized person like him would have liked a carefully shaven face. Near the end of his battle with lung cancer, he was unable to even go to the bathroom on his own, let alone shave.

After Byron's family said goodbye to him, it was time to proceed with the cremation. Mike placed Byron inside one of the huge ovens and set all the settings on the front panel with amazing dexterity. Two hours later, the furnace door swung open again, and I saw the red glowing embers that had once been Byron's bones.

Then Mike brought a tool that looked like a metal rake and showed them how to remove the bones from the oven. As all that was left of Byron was falling into the container, the phone rang. His call rang through the ceiling speakers, which had been specially installed so that the phone could be heard despite the roar of the furnaces.

Mike shoved his goggles at me and said,

“Finish shoveling the bones, I need to pick up the phone.”

When I took Byron's bones out of the oven, I noticed that his skull remained intact. I turned around to see if anyone, alive or dead, was watching me, and then began to drag the skull towards me. As he approached the oven door, I took him in my hands: he was still warm, and I could feel his smooth but dusty surface even through industrial gloves.

Byron's lifeless eye sockets stared at me as I remembered what his face had been like before it was on fire just two hours ago. This face I should have remembered well, given our client-hairdressing relationship. However, everything human that was in his face was gone. Mother Nature with "her cruel laws", as Tennyson wrote 3

The church has always treated cremation as a blasphemous and ungodly matter. But the year 1917 came and the Bolsheviks who came to power thought differently.

They began to actively promote this "ideologically correct" way of burial, in their opinion, equalizing everyone after death.

1920 - a competition was announced in Russia for the design of the first crematorium, which was held under the slogan "The crematorium is the chair of godlessness." Who is right - the church or the atheists, was shown by a unique experiment of St. Petersburg scientists.

fire funeral

The custom of burning the dead in Europe appeared among the Etruscans, and after that it was adopted by the Greeks and Romans. With the advent of Christianity, cremation was banned. However, over time, a problem arose - the lack of places in cemeteries. Were forced to bury the dead in common graves, which were not buried for several days until they were filled. And of course, this has led to the spread of various diseases.

Then in XVI century in Europe they began to organize funeral pyres, but they did not solve the problem. Several centuries passed, until in 1874 the German engineer Siemens invented a regenerative oven in which cremation took place in a jet of hot air. After 2 years, a crematorium began to operate in Milan, similar to modern ones, of which there are now about 14,000 in the world.

The first crematorium in Russia, which opened in 1920, was located in the building of baths on Vasilievsky Island in Petrograd. It should be noted that he worked for a short time, just over a year, and after that he was closed "due to lack of firewood." But in a little over a year, 379 bodies were cremated there.

1927 - in Moscow, in the Donskoy Monastery, in the church of Seraphim of Sarov, the same "department of godlessness" was launched. By the way, the Soviet government ordered furnaces for this crematorium from a German company, which later began to supply them to Auschwitz and other death camps.

Later, crematoria appeared throughout the country, and "fire burials" became commonplace.

strange experiment

1996 - a program was shown on St. Petersburg television that did not leave indifferent everyone who could see it (the show was during working hours, there were no repetitions). St. Petersburg scientists of one of the research institutes conducted a unique experiment in the crematorium and filmed it on video.

Several sensors of an electroencephalograph, a device for studying the bioelectrical activity of the brain, were attached to the head of the deceased, lying in a coffin prepared for being sent to the oven. In a living person, an encephalogram can determine the functional state of the brain and its various diseases.

It is clear that in this case the device remained at rest, since the subject died 4 days ago. The coffin with the deceased was placed on a special escalator tape, which was supposed to send him to the cremation oven. And the escalator moved. The stylus still didn't move.

As the coffin approached the stove, the pen began to tremble, "came to life" and began to barely noticeably draw broken curves on the tape of the device. After these curves turned into high teeth. The whole horror was that the brain of this man was already dead. It turns out that before the danger, he began to function again!

After deciphering the readings of the device, it became clear that the signals given by the brain of the deceased are identical to the signals of the brain of a very frightened person. The deceased did not want cremation, he was afraid, no matter how strange and ridiculous it may sound.

Of course, everyone would like to hear the comments of the participants in the experiment on such a phenomenon, but despite the promises to provide them in next gear, there was no continuation. Someone, apparently, was beneficial to close this topic.

And if there are no official comments, there are assumptions. Here is one of them. the integrity of the organism is violated, but the cells continue to live their lives for some time, until they exhaust the reserve - by analogy with lost limbs or organ transplants. And, like any living organism, cells react to danger. It was such a surge of the rest of the energy as a cry of danger that the device recorded.

Outlines above the chimney of the crematorium

Nikolai S. - doctor of the St. Petersburg hospital. Mechnikov told a completely incredible story. On the one hand, what he saw defies any explanation and looks like a fiction or a hallucination, on the other hand, the doctor is, most likely, a man of material views. Nikolai assured that his story was true.

That February evening, he was returning home after a day's duty. It was already dark outside at that time. Seeing his bus at the bus stop, besides empty, the man hurried to get into it. And there he fell asleep in the warmth. The conductor woke him up at the last stop. It turned out that, in the dark and from fatigue, Nikolai got into the wrong bus. The end of this bus was just opposite the crematorium.

While he was waiting for the return flight, he smelled some kind of unpleasant smell. Smoke was coming from the chimneys of the crematorium, which means that corpses were burned there. Everyone knows a certain cynicism of doctors, and Nikolai was no exception. Having nothing to do, he began to count how many dead people would be burned until the bus arrived. And finally, a portion of smoke appeared from the chimney. What was the doctor's surprise when a human silhouette began to be seen through the soot.

Having missed his bus, Nikolai decided to wait for the next cremation. And again I saw the outlines human figure. Then suddenly the smoke began to go without interruption, and our doctor counted six silhouettes. Suddenly, before his eyes, a dark clot formed near the chimney of the crematorium, which Nikolai at first mistook for smoke. But this clot began to absorb smoky silhouettes.

Even the doctor, who had seen a lot in his life, felt uneasy. He would have kept quiet about this story, but he hoped that maybe someone else had seen something similar.

From the point of view of esotericists (by the way, many scientists also recognize this), each organism has an energy shell, in other words, an astral or mental body. This body attracts the microscopic constituents of smoke towards itself, thus forming a visible silhouette. Not very convincing, but without fish ...

Don't rush to burn

Let's remember the Russians folk tales, in which the villains (Koshchei the Immortal, the Nightingale the Robber) were not only killed, but also burned, and the ashes were scattered in the wind. They did it in such a way as to completely erase their traces from the face of the earth. That is, with the help of fire they got rid of negative energy. If so, then cremation is a guaranteed road to heaven. But where is the guarantee that together with negative energy will not perish in the fire and that positive, accumulated over a lifetime?

This is what Buddhism preaches. In the East, the dead were always burned, so that during reincarnation it would be clean, like a white sheet, devoid of everything accumulated in a past life.

But Orthodoxy thinks otherwise. Man is made of the same matter as the earth. Therefore, after death, he must return his physical shell to her, not only preserving the energy given to him from birth, but also multiplying the information acquired throughout his life. In addition, slowing down this process (embalming) or speeding it up (cremation) is considered a sin that falls on relatives or those who did it.

All this, of course, is not only debatable, but also has no evidence. Therefore, everyone decides for himself what to do.

Natalia Kravchuk

How this place shrouded in myths actually functions is told and shown by the employees of the crematorium at the Baikove cemetery in the capital.

Gloomy and unusual building Kyiv crematorium - giant white concrete hemispheres - stands on a hill on the territory of the famous Baikovo cemetery, the oldest and most prestigious in the country. It is always crowded here, at times the processions go one by one, conveyor. We asked for a kind of excursion here to see how this mythical place functions. And they showed us the whole process - from the registration of the cremation procedure to the moment the ashes were handed over to relatives.

The head of the cremation shop, a calm, pleasant man of about 50, agrees to conduct a "tour" around the crematorium. He is sociable and willingly answers all questions, but immediately voices his demands: not to indicate his name, surname and not to photograph him personally. Almost all employees of the KP Kiev Crematorium will behave in the same way, and there are a little more than a hundred of them here. Not everyone here is ready to tell where they work and what they do. It is understandable: the work is not easy in every sense.

First of all, we are taken to the administrative building, where the cremation procedure is completed. Relatives come here to agree on dates, agree on conditions and pay for the service. The price list is available on the crematorium website. The total price tag here is a little more than 4 thousand UAH. Of these, the cremation procedure itself costs 445 UAH, the rest of the expenses include renting a hearse, providing a ritual hall, buying an urn, a funeral service, an orchestra, and applying text to the urn. All this varies in price. The most expensive urn, for example, costs about UAH 1.5 thousand, the cheapest - UAH 525.

More than 12,000 cremations are now taking place every year, and this number is increasing. This is more than it used to be: before it barely reached 10 thousand, - says our escort. He links it to two things. First, he says, more and more people during their lifetime choose this option for their own burial, considering it more environmentally friendly. And secondly, cemeteries are simply overcrowded in the capital.

On average, more than a thousand cremations take place here per month, but it all depends on the time of year: people die more often in summer, because chronic diseases worsen and the heart cannot withstand the heat.

There are several farewell halls in the crematorium at once: two small ones right there, in the administrative building, and two large ones a little further away, in that very famous building in the form of concrete hemispheres. First we go into the small ones - now they are just empty.

One room is considered normal, and the second one is ours as a VIP room. It is not so hot in summer and not so cold in winter, there are heaters. Previously, there was a small urn storage here, but now it has been reconstructed into a hall, - says the escort.

The VIP-hall is also distinguished by the fact that it organizes farewell procedures for representatives of different faiths. The walls here are almost bare, and all elements like crucifixes and icons can be easily dismantled if necessary.

VIP room

And in the first and second halls, unlike the other two in the next building, there are no elevators - after parting, the coffin is taken away manually. The second hall is decorated with colorful blue bas-relief - a unique monument Soviet architecture. It was created in 1975, when the building of the crematorium itself was being built. Its authors are artists Ada Rybachuk and Vladimir Melnichenko - 13 For years, we have been working on another mega-project, which was supposed to grow near the unusual shape of the crematorium building - the Wall of Memory, 213 m long, 4 to 14 m high. Elements of a huge high relief, Walls, should have been painted in bright glaze, reflected in the water of the lake and symbolized Love, Motherhood, Spring, Creativity and other joys of life. But when the construction took 13 years and the Wall had only to be painted, the incredible happened: in 1981, city officials suddenly considered the building "alien to the principles of socialist realism." Either there were too few Soviet symbols on the Wall, or one of the functionaries was afraid of responsibility for a too free-thinking approach to the interpretation of the afterlife, but the epic structure was ordered to be destroyed. It took three months and 300 KAMAZ trucks of concrete. They filled them with Spring, Love and others like them, the same workers who helped the artists cast them.

The Wall of Remembrance was originally conceived as an element that should distract the attention of the mourners. Looking at the pictures embodied in concrete from famous myths, people could reflect on life and being or remember deceased relatives. Now none of the active workers of the crematorium even remembers what the drawings on the Wall looked like. Now it looks like a concrete rampart overgrown with ivy.

All that's left of the Memory Wall

While we are talking about all this, I notice how a young priest is looking at us from the backyard.

This is Father Vladimir, he is the only one who is constantly involved here. There is his parish, - our escort points to a small wooden temple on a hill.

All other priests come to the ceremonies from different churches.

While we are climbing the columbarium to the hill, to great halls, our "guide" says that people often come to the Wall and the crematorium to take pictures.

Sometimes the Goths come too, they walk here at night. Homeless people sometimes come in and steal everything that can be sold or sold later, metal structures, for example, - he says.

Near the big halls - crowded. Here and there scattered groups of relatives and hearses - mostly black Mercedes. In one of them, in the front seat, a woman under 50 with a pocket mirror in her hand paints her lips. There is a badge on her chest that reveals that she is an employee of the ritual service. And in the first, and in the second halls there is a farewell. We look into the largest one, a young guy is being buried there. On the back wall of the hall there is a panel of artificial flowers.

Once a young woman was buried, I think she was the director of a travel agency, - our interlocutor recalls. - It seems that she died in Turkey, or something. So they overlaid all the panels at their own expense with fresh flowers.

When the priest finishes the memorial service, the trumpeter gets down to business, playing a sad tune. He is also a full-time employee of the crematorium, but at the request of relatives, musicians with an orchestra from other companies can also be invited. When he finishes playing, the coffin is covered with a lid and lowered by an elevator down. Relatives split up. A local funeral worker, a lively black-haired woman in a blue down jacket, takes a portrait, collects everything that relatives have brought, and quickly exchanges it for a new one. Instead of a portrait of a guy, a photograph of an elderly woman appears.

Let's! - orders the ritualist somewhere in the distance. A man in black with a bandage on his sleeve, on command, unloads the next coffin from the hearse, he is brought onto the stage and proceed to a new farewell. This coffin is not even opened, everything goes faster. Several bouquets and a loaf of black bread are placed on the lid.

We go outside. The territory near the halls is paved with paving stones. Our guide tells us that this is also the idea of the architect Miletsky.

It was so conceived that the people who walk in the procession looked under their feet, and did not yawn, - the man explains.

Through the rows of the columbarium we go to the next point - the cremation shop. Where the coffins end up after saying goodbye. Everything is arranged like this: a 75 m long tunnel runs underground, through which the coffins are transported on a special electric car. Rather, this is what our interlocutor calls it, but later we will see that this type of transport resembles rather a large cart.

While we are going to the krem shop, the guide talks about the columbarium. There are currently 16 lots here. There are new ones and old ones - in the hill and in the ground around. The ones in the ground are like family vaults. It holds four urns. It can be seen that there is an empty space left on some tombstones, which means that they will still be buried here. Here you can also see a new site with empty cells for bins.

There are very few places left. Very, very, - the man sighs thoughtfully. - For a couple of years and all. Now in the spring they will go, they will go, and that's all they will take. In winter, rarely anyone buries - cold, frost.

On top of the hill - a separate area for "mass graves". Urns are buried here once a year, for which no one came. I walk along the site and see square concrete signs with names on them. Above is the year of death. The oldest are dated 2003. It happens that relatives come for the urn even after a few years. Then she is found in common graves by last name and confiscated.

We are approaching the cremation shop. Two dogs barking at us. The man hurries to assure that they are attached. Under the feet of one of them, a small black pot-bellied puppy gets confused. He tries to copy an adult and also barks, but he does it funny.

Look, he survived, - our escort nods at him. - Somebody put it up.

He hides for a couple of seconds behind the heavy metal gates in the workshop to warn the workers that the journalists have come, then leads us inside. There is nothing here but a long concrete tunnel - the same one that leads to large halls, metal racks for coffins and furnaces. Furnaces - there are eight of them, that is, four blocks of two furnaces each - were purchased during the construction of the crematorium.

There's a refrigerator over there, but it hasn't been working for a long time, - the man nods at the ajar green doors with the corresponding inscription. - And what to do if even in morgues they have not been working in some for a long time. But there is also a working refrigerator. True, in the administrative corps.

The workers of the shop come to us. A bell is heard somewhere in the tunnel: this is a signal that it is time to go to pick up another coffin from the hall. One of the men, Dimitri, jumps onto the platform of his vehicle and hides in the tunnel. I walk a little forward and see that there is a bowl of water and an empty plate near the wall.

Cats live here, our guide explains. - There are so many mice and rats - the tunnel is underground.

A few minutes later Dmitry appears, carrying two coffins in front of him at once. Apparently, these are the dead, the farewell to which we observed upstairs. Near one of them is a loaf of bread. The lids just lie on top, not screwed or nailed in any way, slightly beveled a couple of centimeters to the side. Dmitry takes a special metal hook, hooks the coffin under the lid and pulls it onto a cart. Then he shifts to the stage near the wall - to wait, because the furnaces are still busy.

On the lid of the coffin is a piece of paper with the data of the deceased. Inside is a metal token engraved with an individual number assigned to this deceased. When the remains are removed from the furnace, the token will be in them as proof of identity for identification.

We go around the ovens on the other side. Three men peek out from behind them - local workers. They also do not want to be called and photographed. The furnace has a round hole through which flames are visible. One of the workers opens the shutter so that we can see what's inside: flames and bones.

The burning process takes an hour and a half, depending on the size, they explain to us.

Sometimes they put everything in the coffin. Some boots or a bottle of moonshine. Moonshine is dangerous, it can explode, the men say.

I ask them where the rumors came from that here, in the crematorium, during the Maidan, the murdered protesters were burned. Our escort brushes aside, saying that after that scandal they were visited by the Prosecutor General's Office with a check, but nothing suspicious was found. The cremation shop, he explains, is equipped with meters that count gas consumption, and to understand whether there has been an overrun of fuel, you just need to double-check the figures.

Opposite the ovens there is a separate room in which the bones removed from the oven are crushed into dust on a special machine and given out in an urn. In the room - a table on which a table lamp is turned on, there is a journal with handwritten notes. The names of the dead are entered there - records are kept. Along the wall is a closet. On the glass is a black and red sticker of the Right Sector. Above the shelves is a wooden crucifix. On the floor there are iron cells, similar to covered scoops from shovels, in which there are bones that have not yet been ground, and the same metal buckets. On each - a piece of paper with data on the deceased, inside - the same metal token.

Sometimes they put everything in the coffin. Some boots, or a bottle of moonshine. Moonshine is dangerous, it can explode

There are two such granite balls inside - a local worker, a man in blue overalls, opens a round door in one of the cars. - These balls grind the bones into dust, before placing the bones there, I take such a large magnet and pull all the metal elements onto it. We put them in a special container.

He waves his hand in the direction of the container - there are melted nails from coffins, a watch strap and a metal denture frame are visible.

The ground ashes are placed in a bag, a token is placed on top, all this is put in an urn. Usually its capacity is about 2.8 kg. A metal token is also placed here, which was with the body of the deceased during cremation. So relatives will be able to make sure that they were given the one they need.

In addition to the cremation of human bodies, animals are sometimes cremated here: the owners can order such a procedure, for example, for their beloved dog. Also, the KP Kiev Crematorium has a license for the cremation of biological waste, which, as a rule, is brought from medical institutions.

The room where the remains are ground to dust and poured into urns

Then we go to the urn storage, where they come to get an urn with ashes. At the entrance to the vault itself there is a window for issuing. The woman checks the document and gives out the ashes. There are also examples of tombstones, slabs and monuments that can be purchased for the burial of ashes.

We pass by the woman and get inside. There are dozens of racks with trash cans here. They are all of different shapes, they are made of stone, wood and even ceramics, the vast majority are black. Each rack is marked with an A4 sheet with a printed letter - the one that begins the name of the deceased. But they are scattered randomly, not alphabetically.

A woman walks between the rows with a piece of paper in her hands and looks for the right thing to take to the issue. A man helps her - in overalls, a cap and glasses. Represented by Alexander. From the photo does not refuse and even poses a little. He does his work methodically, it shows that he has been doing this business for a long time. He is looking for urns that will be needed for issuance and burial tomorrow. I ask him about the strange order of the letters on the shelves.

Yes, we have already got used to it for many years, - the man says. His position sounds like the head of the urn, but emphasizes that he is not in charge here - "there is still a woman above him." I'm trying to calculate the capacity of the urn, at least in approximate numbers. 12-13 urns are placed on one shelf of the rack, five shelves in the rack. It turns out about 70 bins per rack.

To find the right urn on the rack with the letter, you have to read each engraving: there is no photograph or any other marker.

When the relatives take the urn, they themselves decide what to do next: bury it here, in the columbarium, take it with them, take it to another city or country, or scatter the ashes where the deceased wished in his will.

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