Proposal for a Theme Park Draws From Crimea’s Distant Past
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Version 0 of 1. LES EPESSES, France — Philippe and Nicolas de Villiers, father and son, run one of France’s most popular theme parks, a grand and gaudy take on the country’s past. So naturally, they are planning to expand. To Crimea. Of course, planning a historical park in Crimea is a bit fraught. What do you say about the Tatars being chased out by Stalin? Or about the Ukrainians being chased out by the Russians? For the de Villierses, the solution is to turn back the clock to the Byzantine Empire, the Christian offshoot of the Roman Empire that is known for its domed churches and elaborate mosaics, which once held sway over Crimea. “We were looking for something different, and the logical thing is Byzance,” Nicolas de Villiers said in an interview, using the French word for Byzantium. “It’s a second Rome, so it’s a very interesting theme.” In December, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said Crimea had a “sacral importance for Russia” and likened it to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. But in practice he is turning his new conquest into a sort of Orlando meets Las Vegas, with at least two major theme parks and plans to open the peninsula to casinos, though Russia’s economic crisis and the Western sanctions are complications. The de Villierses firmed up their proposal in August after meeting with Mr. Putin at the Livadia Palace in Crimea, where the Yalta Conference was held during the waning days of World War II. The Crimea park, along with another planned in Moscow, will be partly financed by Konstantin V. Malofeev, a Russian oligarch on the European Union’s sanctions list who is known for his close ties to Ukraine’s rebels. A second park in Crimea by another developer will be built on about 100 acres in the Simferopol area. The park will be divided into five historical eras and have features like a roller coaster set in a Roman villa, plunging near a pond, according to plans and pictures on its website. The de Villierses do not do roller coasters. They are known for Puy du Fou, the second-most-popular park in France after Disneyland Paris. Its nearest American equivalent is Colonial Williamsburg. The park in this town in western France has a medieval village and a formidable Roman coliseum where you can see gladiators battling slaves, and real lions and tigers giving chase. It is known for elaborate stage shows. During a recent visit, a lighting show transformed a 3,000-seat theater into an ancient village illuminated by torchlight. Puy du Fou has decidedly French flourishes like a garden dedicated to the fabulist Jean de La Fontaine, where small shows with animatronics and live animals depict his fables. Among the themes discussed for the Moscow park is Napoleon’s disastrous 1812 march into Russia. Mr. de Villiers said that Mr. Putin told his father “as a joke, actually, he was smiling — that he was wondering what would be our point of view, French or Russian?” The idea for Puy du Fou began in the 1970s when Philippe de Villiers, as a university student, organized local patriotic historical shows. The park had attendance of 1.74 million in 2013. While that is far behind the nearly 15 million who visited Disneyland Paris in 2013, the larger park has been struggling financially. Puy du Fou, by contrast, has some built-in advantages. Because of its nonprofit structure, many of its performers are volunteers. Mr. de Villiers also estimated that capital expenditures on a roller coaster are about one and a half to two times higher than those on a long-running show. Nicolas took over day-to-day operation of Puy du Fou from his father several years ago, and serves as both president and artistic director. They have looked to expand by designing, setting up and helping operate foreign parks financed by local investors. Puy du Fou is developing a park in Britain exploring the Roman and Viking invasions, with backing from a hedge fund manager, Jonathan Ruffer. It also has 40 employees working on a show at a Dutch theme park, Efteling, about five children who must “join forces to fight the cruel Count Olaf and his five-headed monster.” “The mission is just to entertain the people and of course give them emotion, which lasts in time, not just a quick sensation in your body,” Nicolas de Villiers said. “The other purpose is to give them the pride of being English, or Russian.” The European Union’s sanctions, which ban investment in Crimea, are an obstacle for the Crimea park, which is still at a conceptual stage. While the de Villierses don’t portray themselves as investors, European Union officials said there was also a ban on providing “technical assistance, or brokering, construction or engineering services directly relating to infrastructure in Crimea.” Nicolas de Villiers said his group “has not undertaken any obligations nor granted any rights which could result in a breach of these rules” and was monitoring “the evolution of the legal environment.” Moving into Russia now might seem surprising, unless one knows the history of the elder Mr. de Villiers. He was a longtime right-wing French politician and presidential candidate, leading the Movement for France party. He has retired from politics but has been making headlines of late with his public displays of affection for Mr. Putin. “I would gladly swap Hollande and Sarkozy for Putin,” he recently said, referring to President François Hollande and his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy. He has denounced France’s decision to delay sending two French-made Mistral-class warships to Russia and said Europe was becoming America’s 51st state. Nicolas, 35, took pains to emphasize his ties to, and affection for, the United States — he once studied at Ohio State University. But he also is convinced that the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych as Ukrainian president last year was part of a C.I.A. plot. “Everybody knows that,” he said. “They are very involved in it, yes, of course, because it’s American interest to master Ukraine, because it’s the gate of Russia.” He also has doubts about who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in July. “Maybe it was a mistake in the media to say too quickly it was the Russian people,” he said. The views of the father and son offer a window into the French right wing’s affinity for Mr. Putin — though the younger Mr. de Villiers is not a politician himself. Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front and France’s pre-eminent far-right politician, has been one of Mr. Putin’s biggest fans, and her party is being financed by a Russian bank. Right-wing groups “believe Russia stands for moral values against everything that is decaying in the West,” said Jean-Yves Camus, a political analyst at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations in Paris. On the other hand, a recent Pew Research Center survey of 44 nations found that the French had among the most favorable opinions of the United States. “We think that it’s possible to have a very strong, good partnership with the United States of America,” Mr. de Villiers said. “We need that as France and Europe, but we can’t avoid Russia. We can’t be blind and put a wall up and say, ‘No no no, we don’t want Russia.’ It’s not possible.” |