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Russian VIP Coffins Offer a Last Journey for Big Spenders

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If you can’t take your money to the grave, why not spend it on a coffin?

A Moscow funeral home is offering a selection of “elite”caskets for the big spenders who are ready to pay thousands of dollars for the box in which they’ll spend eternity.

RSS Ritual, a funeral home based in Moscow, sells engraved and Italian-made wooden coffins that range in price from 68,000 rubles ($1,020) to 780,000 rubles ($11,700).

“Death is irreversible,” RSS Ritual says on its website. “We try to do everything we can to help you see off a worthy person on a worthy last journey.”

The collection on offer includes Ukrainian-made “Patriot” coffin engraved with the Russian coat of arms that sells for $8,500, and the Italian-made “Venezia America” olive wood coffin on sale for almost $10,000.

Russians have bought dozens of “Patriot” coffins in the 10 years the design has been on the market, the funeral home’s manager Andrei Dobrolyubov told The Moscow Times on Wednesday.

However, the company stopped importing the top-flight caskets for two years after taking a hit during the 2014 financial crisis.

“These caskets were much cheaper before the dollar crashed four years ago,” said Dobrolyubov.

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