Moscow on the Mediterranean

Moscow on the Mediterranean

I had mentioned the huge numbers of Russians that have been roaming around Nice over the holidays and I wanted to follow up a bit since it is a phenomenon that has perplexed me since first visiting Nice several years ago.  The connection is a long one starting from around 1850 when the Tsars sent their Tsarinas to winter with other nobility in Nice. The Tsarinas drew large numbers of other Russians hoping to gain favor with the Tsar so before long there were thousands of Russians living most of the year in Nice.  The Russians had lost their rights to use the Black Sea for any naval bases as a result of the Crimean War and were in need of a warm weather base. The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia ruled Nice at the time and the king was only too happy to grant the Russians permission to build a base in Villefranche, hoping that they would protect them from the Austrians.  For a dozen years the Russians kept a sizable presence in Nice, adding to the growing population of Russians in the area.

It got to the point that there were so many of them that they wanted an Orthodox Cathedral built in Nice and Tsar Nicolas II started to build them a doozy in late 1890 as you can see from these photos.  After the Russian Revolution in 1917 the Bolsheviks were not inclined to continue to support the Orthodox Church, especially a building in Nice, so those Russians who had stayed in France and kept their wealth continued to support the Cathedral.

There is no more Russian Nobility in Nice any more!  The Russians who bought and built in Nice in the early part of this century were more connected to drugs, prostitution, gambling and other polite forms of racketeering.  There were, and still are, oligarchs here who, with the blessing of Boss Putin, pillaged the oil and gas wealth of the nation to their own advantage and still have lots of cash to toss about in the Med, but the times they are a changing and you can see a little microcosm of the big changes taking place in Russia here in Nice.

With the international pressures being placed on Russia for their brutish behavior in the Ukraine, the value of the Ruble has plummeted and the once newly rich are now poverty bound.  Scores of seaside apartments now have “for sale” signs on them, in Russian!  The fancy food stores and restaurants that are owned by and cater to Russians are mostly empty.  A poll taken by the BBC last year found that 67% of the French had a very unfavorable opinion of the Russians and it is obvious in many ways large and small.

So, if you have a few hundred thousand Euros burning a hole in your pocket, there are bargains to be had in real estate here in Nice as the Russians continue to default on their mortgages.

A bientôt, Cindy and Wm