To Paris With Love From Sweden And Russia

The city of Paris has recently been the recipient of two glorious gifts; one offered by Sweden and another by Russia.    Both  are beautiful and symbolic of the holidays, but one ended up surprising governmental officials and causing a rather delicate and embarrassing diplomatic snafu.

Last Tuesday King Carl XVI Gustaf and his Queen Silvia of Sweden inaugurated the Northern Lights display in the romantic gardens of Palais Royal.  Sponsored by the Swedish giant Ikea, and designed by one of their renown light artists, it was an unusual and dazzling gift!

Aleksandra Stratimirovic,  from Stockholm, is a reigning contemporary light artist who drew inspiration  from the Aurora Borealis that magically lights the extreme northern hemisphere  skies in winter.

Ikea provided the 35,000 led lights that were mounted on seven meter tall poles that crossed the gardens just in front of the fountain.  If the wind was strong,  the poles were supple enough to undulate in the wind.

It was brought to Paris as a prelude to the Saint Lucia festival that is very popular in Swedish culture and will be celebrated here in Paris by the Swedish students and church.

Palais Royal garden at night is  already very lovely without any further embellishment, lit from the soft glow of lamplight along the columned arcade that encircles the entire garden. To enable comfortable gazing at the lights, the city put in more comfortable chairs than the pretty, but rigid wrought iron ones.

When I was there last Saturday, the wind wasn’t apparently strong enough to cause any swaying of the poles, but that was alright, because the various coloured lights that moved like  waves from one side of the garden to the other and then reserved the sequence, made for a dreamy flow of colours and hues.

The lights ranged from white, intense blues, reds, purple, gold and green, though strangely enough the predominant colours were whites.  I would have thought more various shades of green would be more inclined to imitate the  Aurora Borealis.

It could have been more meditative  for me, if  it weren’t for the cold, that nevertheless chilled the comfy plastic chairs.  Otherwise, I could have stayed for hours watching one wave after another flow across the garden, giving off coloured hues that dappled the shimmering waters of the fountain.

Leaving Palais Royal, I walked pass the lovely fountain in front of the Comedie Francaise, the old and historical theatre. It was colourfully draped in the French tricolours that rotated all around.

Once home I busied myself to making a wonderful dinner to celebrate the end of a spectacular night.  Rougets, (small red fish) were served with a beurre rosé made from grapefruit and lime.

The other spectacular gift came from the immense and vast green forests of Russia that literally caught Paris off guard.  In mid November the rector of Notre Dame cathedral announced that their Christmas tree would be a gift from Russia!

Patrick Jacquin the rector, went on to explain that they were not able to come up with sufficient funds to buy their annual Christmas tree.  Having only been able to rise 30,000 euros, which already seems excessive to me, just wasn’t enough!

The cathedral then reached out to the foreign embassies and Russia was the most responsive of them all.   The rector even went so far as to contact the Ukrainian embassy explaining the offer and accordingly they said take advantage of it.

The 25 meter tree was trucked, taking over four days to cross the European continent.  Moscow not only offered the tree but agreed to taking care of the total cost of transportation too.

At the inauguration and blessing ceremony, Alexandre Orlov, the Russian ambassador declared ”  for the first time in history that Paris has a Russian Christmas tree”. He further announced that “the tree was a message of peace, and a  gesture to show that despite the underlining  efforts to isolate Russia, that the  friendship has been too strong and profound between our two countries to be destroyed by politics”.

Igor Tkatch, the Russian diplomat that helped organise the gift said “that the tree is a marvelous symbol of unity, fraternity and mutual understanding amongst the Christian people.”

All of these glowing and robust tributes of Russian generosity came mainly from the Russian themselves, as French governmental politicos kept their opinions to themselves, either out of embarrassment over the matter or not to further disturb the already shaky diplomatic ground between France and Russia.

The mayor of Paris responded that she was totally surprised to learn of the gift and that the cathedral never consulted her office for any donations.  She added that although it would have been difficult to help the cause directly, they could at least have participated in generating local donations.

The Parisians however, were very critical of her  for financing the ridiculous  inflated green tree symbol, recently placed in the center of Place Vendôme. Designed by an American artist, it really did look like a plastic anal plug rather than a Christmas tree.  The public sentiment was so strongly against it, that three days later is was found deflated, from an act of sabotage.

Reportedly, the Russian media had a heyday over the gift, saying that France couldn’t afford a Christmas tree for Notre Dame this year and with much schadenfreude proudly gloated that Russia had come to the rescue.

This extremely generous gift, which in the end cost 80,000 euros, made for more tension amongst French officials who have suspended the delivery of two naval warcrafts, the Mistrals, that Russia ordered.

Was Russia trying to honey up and woo the French opinion, which has diminished since the Russian involvement in Ukraine, by this gift? Only Russia knows the truth of the matter and they are all smiles at their magnanimous contribution to the Parisian Christmas scene.

Aside from the politics, perhaps we should thank them also for inadvertently revealing the outlandish Christmas tree budget that Notre Dame feels the need to spend each year!  Even 30,000 euros in my opinion is way too much for a tree that will be used for only a little over a month!

Certainly they could use that money for more important things, such as their ongoing restoration program and gifting clothes and food to the poor. Notre Dame is grand enough as is, and a tree half the size of the one now presiding, would have been sufficient.

I would hope that next year either they receive a donated tree form the hundreds of growers in Burgundy that has almost as many Christmas trees farms as vineyards, or from the Ukraine.

Even having a” Charlie Brown” Christmas tree in front of Notre Dame, would seem to me  a powerful message that Christmas has every thing to do with Christ’s birth, and can’t be measured by the grandeur of a huge Christmas tree!

I went to Notre Dame’s noon Mass yesterday for the Immaculate Conception feast day, that celebrates the conception of Mother Mary in the womb of her mother Sainte Anne. The icon seen below is one of my favourites and shows Sainte Anne with Mary on her lap, who is holding a white lily, a foretelling of the Christ to come.

Certainly, I found the tree to be  impressive and dwarfs last year’s tree seen at night.  Regardless of its Russian pedigree, it is a grand and beautiful gift for Notre Dame.  I would like to believe though ,  that the gesture was indeed from the deeply faith filled Christians of Russia,

The poor tree was cut from lord knows how many years of growth it took to reach its height, and  will soon make very expensive fodder for recylage.  Therefore, this tree  deserves all of our admiration for its majestic beauty while standing!

So thank you Russia for your very generous gift!  I hope that it will be seen as a gesture of friendship and as voiced;  a message of peace, fraternity and goodwill from the  Orthodox Christians to  the Roman Catholic church, which I pray can some day be reunited.