Thursday, July 30, 2020

Russian cemeteries, here and there

The Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie
The "old" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
 The Russian Orthodox Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie


I present to you three Russian cemeteries, one in Moscow (Novodevichy), one in St. Petersburg (Tikhvin), and one in Sitka, Alaska (the Russian Orthodox Cemetery), each a gem, each with its own distinct characteristics, each to welcome its existence and revealing histories filled with the characters who occupy the grounds. 

The overgrowth and abundant greenery in Sitka is romantic to some. Tikhvin's age and remarkable count of hundreds of buried artists capture hearts. My favorite though is Novodevichy, a calming place, a soothing application to mental spirits with its parklike setting and individually sculptured grave markers. 

It's easy to spend hours at the cemetery, a common pastime of Russians who wander amidst the paths, greenery, and tall pines, admiring the artworks, considering the lives of famous Russians, many who led turbulent lives, but now lay quiet.

Compare Novodevichy to Arlington National Cemetery and its uniformity. Novodevichy is graves gone wild!  

It has 27,000 plots, and unlike our cemeteries, it's "alive" with graves of hundreds of artists, writers (Gogol, Chekhov), politicians (Andre Gromyko, Boris Yeltsin, Nikita Khrushchev), military leaders, actors, composers (Shostakovich, Prokofiev), and the great and not-so-great like Joseph Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva Stalina, who was 31 when she died. (Until I looked her up at "Find-A-Grave," I thought she was a suicide victim, but evidence points to her possible murder by... who else? Her husband who killed between six and 20 million of his own people. Where is her biography? Another story, one of many to be found in cemeteries.) (Why are Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Yeltsin not buried at the Kremlin?)

Here is a link to names of the dead in Novodevichy.

        Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow
The grave of the first president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, 1931-2007, Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018, near the entrance/Patricia Leslie  
The grave of Raisa Gorbacheva, 1932-1999, wife of Mikhail Gorbachev, Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
The grave of Premier Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971). (See his bust in the center,) Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  

Novodevichy's namesake is its neighbor, the Novodevichy Convent, on the other side of a "great wall" which separates the cemetery from the convent which was founded in 1524. It was the home of Eudoxia Fedorovna Lopukhina (1669-1731), first wife of Peter the Great (1669-1725), and Peter's half-sister, Sophia (1657-1704), both women whom Peter stashed in the convent to get rid of them. (Sophia plotted against Peter and died here.) 
Novodevichy Convent's wall borders the cemetery, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
Novodevichy Convent wall at the cemetery, near the confinement rooms of Sophia, Peter the Great's half-sister, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  
Grounds at Novodevichy Convent, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie  

Novodevichy Convent chapel, Moscow, 2018/Patricia Leslie 

          Tikhvim Cemetery, St. Petersburg
The entrance to Tikhvim Cemetery, St. Petersburg, where a small visitor's fee ($2, adults; 70 cents, children and students) is charged. (I often consider how much institutions rely on and appreciate these admission prices. Here, it 's well worth the "price of admission"!) On the left above is the "old" part of the cemetery and on the right, the "new" with the graves of TchaikovskyDostoevsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Glinka, Mussorgsky, and many more/Patricia Leslie

Tikhvim, called the "Necropolis of Masters of Arts," opened in 1823. During "Soviet times" in the 1930s, the bodies of many artists were exhumed from graves around St. Petersburg and re-buried here. It is part of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture.



The grave of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1840-1893, in the "new" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
The grave of Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-1881, in the "new" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
 In the "new" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
The grave of composer Mikail Ivanovich Glinka, 1804-1857, in the "new" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie


 In the "new" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
In the "new" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie

The "old" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
The "old" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
A child's tomb in the "old" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
The "old" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
The "old" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie
The "old" section of Tikhvin Cemetery, St. Petersburg, 2018/Patricia Leslie

     
Russian Orthodox Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska

A view of Sitka, Alaska from near the Russian Cemetery, 2019/Patricia Leslie

The Russians first came to Sitka, Alaska in 1741 but few have remained to take care of their 200-year-old cemetery with 1,500 to 1,600 graves,  most plots covered now by vegetation, trees, and weeds. A quick visual survey gives the impression that maybe 100 persons are buried in these creepy, hilly grounds which is romantic in its own way, but not a place for scaredy-cats like me, to spend Halloween or anytime here alone which is what I was at the cemetery that day. (Bear watch! Wherever you go in Alaska, bear warnings [and guns] are omnipresent, guns to ward off the bears. A museum employee told me he has wrangled with bears on shores over salmon he caught while standing to fish and with eyes turning constantly for...bear watch!) 
The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska with some headstones made from ballasts of Russian ships, according to Alaska.orgMost of the few visible headstones at the Sitka cemetery are broken and in disrepair/Patricia Leslie

Sitka is a beautiful community on an island along the outer coast of the Inside Passage, accessible only by plane, ship, or boat.  At Sitka you'll find the Fort Rousseau Causeway State Historical Parkthe World War II Japonski Island base, other islands and rental boats to row to extant bunkers, some where a machete would help weave a path through thick, five feet high weeds and still worth the effort to get there. (Budget cuts in 2015 led to Alaska's park service eliminating maintenance of a trail here.)


Some Sitka history: In the 1850s when Russian czar Alexander II needed money, the U.S. showed  interest in buying Alaska, but the U.S. was dealing with more important matters like the advent of the Civil War (1861-1865), and the death of a president before it could take a serious look at owning a territory about a fifth of the U.S.'s size then (375 million acres).  

But President Abraham Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, pursued the purchase, and in 1867, the U.S. bought Alaska for $7.2 million or about two pennies an acre.

Labeled "Johnson's Polar Bear Garden," and (you, no doubt remember from school days) "Seward's Folly," by a vote of only one or "by a wide margin" (based on the websites you visit), the U.S. Senate agreed to the treaty. 

In Sitka, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward represented the U.S. at the ceremony which is commemorated now with a hilltop memorial, flag, markers, and a wide viewing span of the town and waterways.



October 18, Alaska Day, is a state holiday to honor the purchase of the territory by the U.S. Every Alaska Day volunteers spend hours cleaning up the cemetery.  It needs it!
 The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie
 The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie
The grave of Earl Williams Sr., U.S. Marine Corps, 1939-2014, Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie
 The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie

 The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie
 The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019. What is that brown clump in the center?/Patricia Leslie
 The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie
 The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie
 The Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska, 2019/Patricia Leslie
Inside the white picket fence adjacent to Sitka's Russian Cemetery (on the right amidst the trees) is the grave of Princess Aglaida Ivanovina Maksoutoff (1834-1862), "wife of Second Rank," the last Russian governor, Dimitri Maksoutoff,/Patricia Leslie
 The grave of Princess Aglaida Ivanovina Maksoutoff (1834-1862) in the Lutheran Cemetery adjacent to the Russian Cemetery in the trees, Sitka, Alaska, 2019. You see how dark the cemetery is during the day/Patricia Leslie
The grave of Princess Aglaida Ivanovina Maksoutoff (1834-1862) in the Lutheran Cemetery adjacent to the Russian Cemetery, Sitka, Alaska. A historical marker outlines the care of the grave. In 1924 Foster Mills discovered the princess's grave which he and his wife, Louise, maintained for 25 years when their son, Russell, and his wife, Monica, took care of it until 1992 when the Sitka Lutheran Church assumed responsibility/Patricia Leslie

America's Russian cemetery is a fascinating place to visit which I highly recommend when you're in Sitka.  And the other cemeteries, too, when you travel to Russia.  None to miss!  I always wished I had had more time to explore these jewels of Earth.

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