Moscow Afterlife (Mother Russia Part V)

One of the best places to visit in Moscow is the Novodevichy Cemetery. It may sound like a strange destination and it may not be the easiest to get to, an out of way metro station followed by a good 15 minute walk through an ordinary neighborhood, but it’s definitely worth the visit.

You see, if there is one place to see just how much the military was part of life in the Soviet Union, it’s in this place reserved for people who have moved on to the afterlife. A good percentage of the residents here were soldiers, sailors, pilots, grunts and officers buried here way back when the Soviet Union was still around. But how could I, without being able to read Cyrillic, tell? Well, every corner of the cemetery is filled with majestic tombstones decked out with missiles, anchors, pilots helmets and stars indicating the rank of the deceased.

Pris and I walked around for hours excitedly turning corner and rushing to guess which branch of the military the next resident came from. I know it sounds morbid but hey, we’re tourists and there were a lot of locals doing the same.

Some of the more famous people also buried there include Anton Chekhov, Nikita Khrushchev, and Boris Yeltsin. A map is available at the front office, opposite the place where they sell flowers but we found it more exciting going through the place trying to find them on our own.

The whole cemetery however is not reserved purely for politicians, the military or other well known Russians. Right next to Khrushchev was a family tending to their own recently departed family member. No huge gathering indicating it was someone of importance, just a small family and in the middle, a babushka directing just the right position for the pot of flowers. Another section of the cemetery, away from the curious onlookers and tourists is what I call the normal section where ordinary people are buried under ordinary tombstones.