An exhibition about the fate of the Titanic has opened in Paris. Review

A huge exhibition has opened in the Parisian exhibition hall at the Versailles gates, telling about the fate of the Titanic, the famous ship that has become a symbol of the futility of human efforts. The history of the shipwreck, objects raised from the bottom of the ocean and large-scale scenery are shown, reproducing life-size interiors of the liner – a miracle of technology, architecture, applied art, now a mass grave. According to the correspondent of “Kommersant” in France Alexey Tarkhanov.

We saw it all in James Cameron’s movies: 111 years ago, on the night of April 15, the British transatlantic liner, the largest steamship in the world, ran into an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic in less than three hours, although it was considered “unsinkable”. There have been many more terrible catastrophes since then, but the Titanic was remembered because it was the embodied horror of the new age, an indication that steam and electricity, giant propellers and powerful motors, the convenience of life brought to a shine does not lead to freedom, as hoped passengers, but towards the next iceberg.

The Titanic was originally owned by the White Star Line, and now, lying at the bottom, has become the property of RMS Titanic Inc., which legally owns the remains of the ship. She is the organizer of a powerful traveling exhibition that moves from city to city, attracting crowds of Cameron, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio movie fans. Until the end of September, she stays in Paris in the halls at the Versailles gates. Here you will be told about why, how and due to the tragic coincidence of what circumstances the ship perished. The popular science side has been worked out completely. There is also archeology: a lot of items brought to the surface from the Titanic, including monogrammed plates, a washbasin from a first-class cabin, clothes, watches, jewelry, suitcases. This is the result of the work of several expeditions, many of which were led by the French submariner Paul-Henri Narjolet. He created the underwater research department of RMS Titanic Inc. and was supposed to be the guest of honor of the current exhibition, but turned out to be a new victim of the 1912 disaster. 77-year-old Captain Narjolet was a member of the crew of the Titan deep-sea submersible, which died on June 18 during another dive to the remains of the Titanic.

But the main lure of the exhibition is the life-size recreated interiors of the ship, including the front staircase, famous for Cameron’s film: there were two of these on the ship, by the way. There is a set table in the main restaurant, a radio room from where the Titanic’s belated cry for help was heard, a first class cabin, a third class cabin, an engine room with giant steel partitions that should have kept the ark completely safe, but never saved it. And yes, there is also the tip of the ship’s bow, where couples in love can take selfies, imagining themselves as DiCaprio and Winslet.

Of course, in these jerky quotations, in these pieces of space, there is no correct feeling of a huge ship, if only because the engine rooms here border on the dining room, and that – on the boat decks and cabins. For a passenger on the Titanic who suddenly appeared at the exhibition, it would be like a dream in which proportions and spaces are mixed. But the last survivor, Englishwoman Millvina Dean, died at 97 in 2009. In addition, she slept in the cabin all the way from Southampton to the iceberg, as it was supposed to be for a girl of two months old. She would not have remembered the decks, the showers, or the stairs, which, on a six-story house-high steamer, were as class-separated as the decks—stokers and machinists, for example, went down their own special, black one.

The English ship looked like a beautiful communist illustration, a real social pyramid. At the exhibition, however, there is no feeling that the rich bathed in gold, and the proletarians starved and froze in the holds. Although the “poor” cabins were below the water level, they do not look like the closets of the children of the dungeon. Firstly, because there were no beggars on the ship and could not be. A ticket even to an underwater cabin cost a fortune, for which you can now fly business class to America. Secondly, because mainly for the transportation of the third class and built three heroes – “Olympic”, “Titanic” and “Britanic”. It just seems like they were a first class flower garden. Businessmen, aristocrats, movie stars served as advertising, the face of the ship, while the main money of the steamship company was brought by hard workers – “third-graders”.

The steamship company was not at all interested in turning their titanic ship into a floating rooming house. The difference in amenities is not as noticeable as the price, which in the first class was a hundred times more. Yes, some had their own bathroom, while others had a shower in the hallway. But on the other hand, neat and clean, like in the compartment of the Red Arrow. First class had a la carte dinners and fried pigeons with foie gras, third class had hearty dinners with fruit and sweets: there is no doubt that third class passengers did not eat so well on firm ground.

They didn’t have enough boats, but the Titanic didn’t go out into the Atlantic to sink, they didn’t count on it. In the same way, organizers of underwater excursions to a depth of 3750 meters near Newfoundland did not count on this today. Their participants paid much more than a first-class ticket cost in 1912, but in the end they got the same thing. James Cameron said in horror: “I was struck by the resemblance to the Titanic disaster.” One cannot get rid of the thought at the exhibition: it was invented in order to commemorate the most famous disaster in the history of navigation to sell several hundred thousand more tickets to the Titanic.