Élisabeth de Demidoff

Birth Name:

Baroness Elizaveta Alexandrovna Stroganova

Birth Date:

December 1, 1776

Birth Place:

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Death Date:

March 27, 1818

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Age:

Cause of Death:

Unkown

Cemetery Name:

Cimetière du Père Lachaise

Claim to Fame:

The Odd and the Interesting

Baroness Elizaveta Alexandrovna Stroganova was a Russian aristocrat of the Stroganov family. By birth she belonged to the highest nobility of the capital. Elizabeth's father was the owner of the Taman and Kynovsky factories and more than half a million acres of land. Her mother Elizaveta Alexandrovna Zagryazhskaya was a lady in waiting and a famous beauty of Catherine II's court. At age 17 she married Count Nikolai Nikitich Demidov and they had two children - Pavel (Paul) (1798–1840) and Anatoly (Anatole) (1812–1869). They were of completely different characters and often lived apart. She was beautiful, light and witty, and her husband more introspective, and so they soon grew bored with each other and they separated and she returned to live in Paris, where she died in 1818 and was buried in the Père Lachaise where she rests in the cemetery's largest mausoleum.

Fun Fact:

Why is her tomb considered the most haunted of Père Lachaise?
According to legend, the Baroness did not want to be alone in her grave. She would die on April 8th, 1818, leaving a very strange will behind her. Her will allegedly read that, in order to inherit her fortune, a candidate should spend 365 days and 366 nights locked alone in her mausoleum (this is untrue).

Despite the unusual request, the fortune of Princess Demidoff was important enough to give it a try, and soon there were a few requests to attempt the quest! A few candidates agreed to be locked in the mausoleum, where they would be served food and be given a bucket that would be emptied daily for their own waste (this is also not true).

Not many survived the challenge for longer than a week, and they would usually be taken out after spending hours crying for help and knocking the doors, with a terrified look in their faces, often scratched and showing bruises (this is made up).

The witnesses declared that they felt how life abandoned them in the mausoleum. The body of Princess Demidoff had been placed in the centre of the mausoleum in a coffin made of crystal, and the room was said to be covered in mirrors, with intricate symbols surrounding the area. Some suggested that the Princess was a vampire, for her body didn’t show any signs of decomposition. Others that she was feeding on the energy of her visitors for when it was time to come back to life (again, completely false).

Be as it may, the mausoleum of Elisabeth Demidoff was locked by order of the city council after many incidents with those that attempted to inherit the fortune of the Princess, and her wealth remains unclaimed up to this day (a complete fabrication).

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Cimetière du Père Lachaise

16 Rue du Repos, 6ème division, Chemin Lesseps

Paris, , 75020

France

Europe

Map:

Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris, France

Grave Location:

Division 19

Grave Location Description

The spectacular tomb of Élisabeth Alexandrovna de Demidoff, the largest tomb in all of Cimetière du Père Lachaise, is located in the middle of Division 19 which is bordered by Chemin du Dragon (the top level of her grave) and Chemin des Chevres (the bottom level of her grave).

Grave Location GPS

48.859560, 2.395012

Visiting The Grave:

Photos:

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FAQ's

Élisabeth de Demidoff was born on December 1, 1776.

Élisabeth de Demidoff was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Élisabeth de Demidoff died on March 27, 1818.

Élisabeth de Demidoff died in Paris, France.

Élisabeth de Demidoff was 41.

The cause of death was Unkown.

Élisabeth de Demidoff's grave is in Cimetière du Père Lachaise

Videos Featuring Élisabeth de Demidoff:

The Mausoleum of Baroness Demidoff - A Portal of Nightmares

Nice tour of Pere Lachaise

Terrifying Ghost Footage Captured at Paris Cemetery!

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Charlotte Bridgwood

Eben Byers

popular name: Eben Byers

date_of_death: March 31, 1932

age: 51

cause_of_death: Cancer due to excessive radiation exposure

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: Eben Byers, popular Pittsburgh sportsman, socialite and industrialist, fell out of an upper berth in 1927 returning from a Yale-Harvard football game and injured his arm. His Pittsburgh physiotherapist, Dr. Charles Clinton Moyar, prescribed a patented drink called ''Radithor." Radithor, a popular and expensive mixture of radium 226 and radium 228 in distilled water, was advertised as an effective treatment for over 150 "endocrinologic" diseases, especially lassitude and sexual impotence. Over 400 000 bottles, each containing over 2 μCi (74 kBq) of radium, were marketed and sold worldwide between 1925 and 1930. Byers was drinking in excess of 3-4 bottles a day for years, claiming the elixir eased the arm pain and gave him a little energy boost. He enthusiastically recommended it to friends, sent them cases of it, even gave some to one of his horses. but stopped in October 1930 (after taking some 1400 doses) when that effect faded. Soon after he lost weight, had horrible headaches and his teeth began to fall out. In 1931, the Federal Trade Commission asked him to testify about his experience, but he was too sick to travel, so the commission sent a lawyer to take his statement at his home; the lawyer reported that Byers's "whole upper jaw, excepting two front teeth and most of his lower jaw had been removed" and that "All the remaining bone tissue of his body was disintegrating, and holes were actually forming in his skull." The death of the Pittsburgh millionaire sportsman Eben M. Byers, who was an avid Radithor user, by radium poisoning in 1932 brought an end to this era and prompted the development of regulatory controls for all radiopharmaceuticals. The grave of Eben Byers can be found at the historic Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Élisabeth de Demidoff