A forgotten graveyard. That’s what the Mitrofanievsky Cemetery in St Petersburg has become. Yet once it was one of the city’s largest Orthodox cemeteries. Hundreds of thousands were laid to rest there.
The Mitrofanievsky Cemetery. Established in 1831 it initially served as a burial ground for cholera victims. It later became a municipal cemetery. A beautiful stone church honoring St Mitrophan of Voronezh was constructed between 1830 and 1837. This church gave the cemetery its name.
By 1917 three Orthodox churches stood within the Mitrofanievsky Cemetery. They were St Mitrophan’s the All-Merciful Savior’s and the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. There were also many crypts and chapels. One housed the remains of Alexander Mikhailovich Krainev a respected elder and pilgrim.
The Mitrofanievsky Cemetery held the graves of many notable figures. Admiral V M Golovnin and his son are buried there. So is General N S Golitsyn a military historian. General P P Liprandi a Crimean War hero rests there too. The renowned pianist M Szymanovska found her final resting place there. Other notable individuals include P M Lvov an architect A M Sjogren a philologist and A A Yurkevich an academician. Many others from the worlds of science and art are also buried at the Mitrofanievsky Cemetery.
The cemetery was also a burial place for prominent merchants and philanthropists. Families like the Durdins Zhukovs Kekins and Ushakovs are interred there. Many World War I heroes and military leaders are buried there as well. Even priests martyred by the Bolsheviks rest within its grounds including Fr Alexander Kaminsky who died in 1918. On the cathedral’s altar feast day up to one hundred thousand relatives would gather to remember their loved ones.
In 1927 the Mitrofanievsky Cemetery was ordered to close immediately. Within two years all the churches were destroyed. Alexander Krainev’s chapel met a similar fate. Mass burials occurred there during the 1941-1944 blockade. However by the 1940s and 1960s all grave markers had been removed. Nothing remains to indicate its sacred past. The Mitrofanievsky Cemetery is now a sad testament to a forgotten history.