tikhvin 1

Tikhvin Cemetery of Saint-Petersburg...

part of the Saint Alexander Nevsky Monastery...

During the early Soviet period...

a number of monuments were stolen or destroyed. The cemetery was officially closed for burials in 1927, though they continued until 1932, and it was decided to turn it into a necropolis museum, displaying historically and artistically significant graves. 

Alongside this was concept of gathering together the graves of the friends and contemporaries of Alexander Pushkin for the 1937 centenary commemorations of the poet's death. 

The architectural and planning department of Lensovet, the city administration, was tasked with creating a memorial park project. Plans were drawn up by architects E.N. Sandler and E.K. Reimers, with further input from the city's chief architect L.A. Ilyin.

The Funeral Affair Trust was established to run the necropolis museum, including removing abandoned gravestones for sale as building materials. It was authorised to acquire and transfer important graves and monuments from other cemeteries and churches across the city. Meanwhile, those existing graves in the cemetery that were not considered particularly artistic or historic were to be demolished to create space for those brought from other locations. 

A list of graves in the cemetery was compiled and work began in 1935, planned for completion on 15 August the following year. A 3 July 1935 resolution from the Presidium of Lensovet set out the vision for the future of the necropolis museums:

'The Tikhvin cemetery and the Literary Walk [in the Volkovo Cemetery], after the reconstruction will be turned into necropolis parks of a remarkable and revolutionary culture, with the appearance of parks. 

Freed from ordinary graves, they will not be of a graveyard nature at all, but will actually represent extensive, architecturally decorated green spaces, sometimes decorated with certain monuments standing on the graves above these wonderful people.'

The short timeframe allowed for completion of the work led to the hasty and unsystematic demolition of a number of monuments, with the bulk of the work only being completed by August 1937, with remedial work continuing for many years afterwards.

[wikipedia]