The Double Life of Paris

In French there is the expression "au diable vert": the green devil - that is, not in hell and not in paradise, but in some other world. This other world has existed relatively recently in the cellars of the bohemian Montmartre, where artists, poets and dancers from cafes have drunk emerald green absinthe. Strong, truly diabolical, a drink infused with anise, bitter wormwood and other herbs, created the effect of drug intoxication and plunged into the world of green dreams. Absinthe today in Paris, of course not served, but in Paris there is a different, to be exact the underground world - numerous cellars and tunnels - perfectly preserved to our days.

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The Parisian underground labyrinths of the past atmosphere reigns to this day: the ancient career, the catacombs, the bunkers of World War II - all this is ideal for exhibitions of art and unrecognized parties. While engineers strengthen the walls of quarries, and police patrol the dark alleys, a semi-forbidden underground culture fills the underground tunnels with life.

In fact, Paris has a deeper and more strange connection with the underground part than any other city. His dungeons are one of the most impressive and heterogeneous. The back of Paris is a few thousand kilometers of tunnels: one of the oldest metro networks and sewers in the world.

Therefore, it is not surprising that under the French capital you can find ancient tombs, abandoned bank vaults - and all this today is converted into nightclubs or galleries. But the most amazing underground structures are old limestone quarries, which somehow resemble an intricate network. They stretch under a lot of residential blocks, mostly through the entire southern part of the city.

These careers were dug in the XIX century - they mined a stone. Later, when the careers were depleted, they were abandoned and local farmers started growing mushrooms in them. And during the Second World War, these careers were of strategic importance: in some areas were hiding wrestlers of the French resistance, in others the German army built bunkers.

Cathaphiles - explorers of the underworld

Today, these abandoned tunnels are no longer needed by the authorities, and their research is handled by an informal community that calls itself - cataphy. The community is completely free of anybody does not commit to anything and does not have a leader, amateurs come to its ranks to spend days and sometimes even nights underground.

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The community called itself cataphiles appeared after 1955 - after the authorities banned entry into the non-tourist zone of dungeons (the law is still in force, for non-compliance you risk receiving a fine of 60 euros). At that time, the traditional Parisian rebels shook up the punk culture, so at that time mostly young people with problems with the law became cataphiles. They penetrated into the dungeons and arranged parties there, painted walls, took drugs .... Simply put, then under the ground reigned complete freedom and anarchy.

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In those years to find the entrance and penetrate the ground was easy enough, for example, it was possible to penetrate into the careers through a forgotten door in the basement of the school, and from there to get into the tunnels that replaced the old cemeteries - the famous underground catacombs.

Initially, the government and the upper city did not pay any attention to it, but in the late 1980s, the owners of municipal and private buildings closed the entrances to the majority of basements and tunnels. And the tunnels themselves began patrolling the elite police unit. But they did not manage to get rid of cataphils.

The way to Cloaca Gleiva

Having risked going down into the catacombs alone, you will immediately feel how cold and dark you will become, just like in a grave. Just imagine: droplets of water shimmer on the ceiling, the air is heavy and the smell of mold and damp earth is beating in your nose, and around you human remains are stacked-walls of skulls and thighs.

Here in the catacombs have found the peace of about six million Parisians - this is almost three times more than the current population of the city. All these skeletons and remains were excavated in crowded cemeteries in the 18th and 19th centuries and literally scored the old tunnels of quarries. The latest burials date back to the era of the French Revolution, the earliest - to the Merovingian era, they are over 1200 years old.

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At first, the careers were located far beyond the borders of Paris. But the city grew, and part of the buildings turned out directly above the ancient tunnels. This went on for several centuries, without any control. Workers in quarries worked almost blind, by the light of torches, panting from the dust, under the threat of collapse. And when the quarry was dwindling, it was piled up with cobblestones or simply thrown. On the surface, no one paid any attention to this. More precisely, no one could have imagined how porous the founding of Paris had become.

The first big collapse occurred in December 1774, when one of the old tunnels crumbled, swallowing homes and people in the area of the present Avenue Dunfer-Rocher. In the next few years, a lot of serious collapses occurred, when houses plunged into a dark abyss. And then King Louis XVI instructed the architect Charles Axel Guillomo to compile an accurate map of the quarries and strengthen them. And the slow and painstaking work to strengthen the tunnels began. To ease their work, they dug several more tunnels that connected isolated networks of quarries. Around the same time, when the king decided to close and release one of the crowded cemeteries, Guillaume was asked to place somewhere old burials.

There are too many rules to follow at the top, but here below we can do whatever we want. Where else is this possible? It is this principle that modern cataphils adhere to.

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