Cemetery in Moscow, Russia
Novodevichy Cemetery
(
Russian
:
Новодевичье кладбище
,
romanized
:
Novodevichye kladbishche
) is a cemetery in
Moscow
. It lies next to the southern wall of the 16th-century
Novodevichy Convent
, which is the city's third most popular tourist site.
[1]
History
[
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]
The cemetery was designed by
Ivan Mashkov
and inaugurated in 1898.
[2]
Its importance dates from the 1930s, when the necropolises of the medieval Muscovite monasteries (
Simonov
,
Danilov
,
Donskoy
) were scheduled for demolition. Only the Donskoy survived the
Joseph Stalin
era relatively intact. The remains of many famous Russians buried in other abbeys, such as
Nikolai Gogol
and
Sergey Aksakov
, were disinterred and reburied at the Novodevichy.
A 19th-century necropolis within the walls of the Novodevichy convent, which contained the graves of about 2000 Russian noblemen and university professors, also underwent reconstruction. The vast majority of graves were destroyed. It was at that time that the remains of
Anton Chekhov
were moved outside the monastery walls. His grave served as the kernel of the so-called "cherry orchard" ? a section of the cemetery which contains the graves of
Constantin Stanislavski
and the leading actors of his company.
Interments
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]
During the
Soviet Union
, burial in the Novodevichy Cemetery was second in prestige only to burial in the
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
.
[
citation needed
]
Among the Soviet leaders,
Nikita Khrushchev
and
Mikhail Gorbachev
would be buried there.
[3]
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin Wall is no longer used for burials and the Novodevichy Cemetery is used for only the most symbolically significant burials. In 1997, former premier
Nikolai Tikhonov
was buried in the cemetery at state expense (since he didn't have any money of his own).
[4]
In April 2007, within one week both the first
President of the Russian Federation
Boris Yeltsin
and cellist
Mstislav Rostropovich
were buried there.
[5]
Today, the cemetery holds the tombs of Russian authors, musicians, playwrights, and poets, as well as famous actors, political leaders, and scientists.
[6]
[7]
More than 27,000 are buried at Novodevichy. There is scant space for more burials.
A new national cemetery
is under construction in
Mytishchi
north of Moscow. Notable burials include
Dmitry Shostakovich
,
Sergei Prokofiev
and
Anton Chekhov
.
[3]
The cemetery has a park-like ambience, dotted with small chapels and large sculpted monuments. It is divided into the old (Divisions 1?4), new (Divisions 5?8) and newest (Divisions 9?11) sections; maps are available at the cemetery office.
[8]
Monuments
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]
Notable graves
[
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]
The following noteworthy graves, among others, can be found at Novodevichy Cemetery:
1850s
1800s
1900s
1910s
1920s
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
See also
[
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]
References
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]
External links
[
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]