Monday 14 May 2007

Novodevichi Cemetery - Gogol

This in Nikolai Gogol, though I could have chosen from any number of other writers. Amongst the names whose graves I photographed, but have not got space to publish, are Stanislavsky, Shaliapin, Chekhov, Shostakovich, Scriabin, Sviatoslav Richter, Prokofiev, Galina Ulanova, Ilya Ehrenburg, Madame Furtseva, Khrushchev, Podgorny, Mikoyan, Gromyko, Madame Dzerzhinsky, General Panfilov, Polina Zhemchuzhina (Molotov's wife), General Lebed and Raisa Gorbachev. There were many I could not find, most grievously of all, Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, despite a helpful map of the cemetery's layout being on sale at the gate. Others were Kropotkin, Alessandra Kollontai, Isaac Levitan, Mayakovsky, Molotov himself, Ivan Maisky and the violinist (скрипач) David Oistrakh, whose music I remember listening to in far-away Johannesburg, from my father's small collection of classic music favourites. An interesting feature of the cemetery is the plots which contain memorials to the likes of "Самолёт Ил-18 (Югославиа 1961г)", or "Aircraft Ilyushin-18 (Yugoslavia 1961)". All the people on the flight are named and therefore remembered, even if none of their remains were identifiable, or even buriable.