Today, I will take you to a big European city, Brussels, to a little tourist place, and we will make a particular journey through time. We go to the large open gates of the cemetery, the day is gray and we smell the rain. We walk among the small neglected monuments while the statues, gray from pollution, look at the sky. They don’t seem to notice our passage. With the camera well hidden in the bag, we seek access to the realm of the dead in the immense cemetery. We are not interested in monuments, but in the world below. The ancient crypts.
We find a curved staircase that descends into a corridor dotted with fairly modern niches, then in an almost hidden corner, we find a passage blocked by metallic barriers. Under the worried gaze of an elderly lady, we climb over and disappear into a narrow corridor.
Here we are finally in the realm of the dead, in that part of the forgotten underground cemetery closed to the public. Here rest the souls of a big city. Forgotten souls. Censored to the public. The kingdom of the dead is forbidden.
Here thousands of families rest. Large tombs enclose the soulless bodies of several generations. Forgotten faces, as if they had never existed. Faded plastic flowers and dry leaves adorn this macabre gray world.
And what happens after death?
We walk silent in these long labyrinthine tunnels. Mold-stained marble headstones frame porcelain photographs and bronze characters.
The time comes to take away the disturbance and to let this hidden city rest in peace. We go out from where we entered and we return to our world.
Born in 1987, Jonathan is an internation author, one of the most famous about “Urbex”. He is one of the most active in Ascosi Lasciti project. He is attracted by history, aesthetic beauty, architecture of abandoned places in all over Europe.
