The Novodevichy Cemetery is the national pantheon of Russia, adjacent to the Novodevichy Convent, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that originally housed the burial places of members of the royal family. In the 19th century, the graves of merchants, writers, musicians, scientists began to appear here - about 2000 graves. In the 1930s, the necropolis was almost completely destroyed, only some burial places of the heroes of the war of 1812 and the Decembrists, as well as famous professors and public figures, survived.
The modern territory of the Novodevichy cemetery, adjacent to its southern wall, was officially opened for burials in 1904. The cemetery has been expanded twice and today covers an area of ​​more than 7.5 hectares, where more than 26,000 people are buried. In addition to the monastery necropolis, 3 more sections stand out:
- The “old” territory, to which in the 1930s, during the liquidation of many church and monastery cemeteries, the graves of a number of famous people were transferred, in particular, the ashes of the writer N.V. Gogol. In this part of the Novodevichy cemetery there is a plot with the graves of A.P. Chekhov, K.S. Stanislavsky and the actors of his theater of the Moscow Art Theater, which is called the "cherry garden" because of the spring cherry blossoms.
- The "new" territory that arose after the expansion of the cemetery in 1949. Within its walls is a columbarium with 7,000 urns. Here is the grave of the first President of Russia BN Yeltsin.
- The "newest" territory, which arose as a result of another expansion of the cemetery to the southwest in the late 1970s. Many famous figures of Russian culture and art are buried in this part.
The Novodevichy Cemetery is included in many tourist routes as a popular historical and cultural monument of Moscow. The cemetery is famous for tombstones made by famous sculptors, such as: M.K. Anikushin, E.V. Vuchetich, S.T. Konenkov, V.I. Mukhina, E.I. .