Moscow's annual NECROPOLIS-TANEXPO is one of the largest and strangest funeral industry trade fairs in Europe. Nothing like the staid events held here, their trade fairs feature interactive experiences and cosplay actors that look straight out of Halloween. The irony of Russians being sent off to die in Ukraine (over 3000 alone in the past week) apparently lost on trade fairgoers.
The report below is from 2021 when the scourge was COVID decimating the population. This year it's Russia's war of choice in Ukraine.
We've mentioned before about death benefits for families and wives and that for some of them their men are worth more dead than alive, which is why they all seem to be smiling at this ghoulish, macabre spectacle.
Source: Radio Free Europe (2021)
A Moscow trade show pitching glitzy funeral options takes on grim significance as hundreds of Russians die each day from COVID-19.
Actors simulate a mourning ceremony at Moscow's NECROPOLIS-TANEXPO, a funeral industry trade fair that is scheduled to run from October 26-28.
The exhibition is a joint project of the Russian NECROPOL trade fair and the Italian TANEXPO. The annual events are the largest of their kind and showcase the latest trends in European and Russian funerals.
Events at the expo include an embalming class, a lesson on "ritual floristry," and a class dedicated to the legal complexities of funeral management.
Oksana Zhavoronko, the project manager for the Russian NECROPOLIS expo, told RFE/RL that the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a surge in interest in the funeral industry.
"More people have come to appreciate our profession," she says, "because in these past two years death has come to so many people."
