Time Travel Thursday

Time Travel Thursday

May 2011 - Moscow Russia

We took the optional tour to the convent and cemetery.
Moscow Novodevichy Convent (AM)
The Novodevichy Convent was founded in 1524 to celebrate the taking of Smolensk from Lithuania, an important step in Moscow’s conquest of the old Kyivan Rus lands. From early on, noblewomen would retire to the convent, some more willingly than others. Novodevichy was rebuilt by Peter the Great’s half-sister Sofia, who used it as a second residence when she ruled Russia as regent in the 1680s. By this time the convent was a major landowner: it had 36 villages and about 10,000 serfs around Russia. When Peter was 17, he deposed Sofia and confined her to Novodevichy; in 1698 she was imprisoned here for life after being implicated in the Streltsy rebellion. 
For me the highlight was the cemetery. These were the most ornate and artistic gravestones I have ever seen.

Novodevichy Cemetery (Новодевичье кла́дбище) is the Moscow's third most popular tourist site. It has a park-like ambience, dotted with small chapels and large sculpted monuments. The cemetery was built next to the Novodevichy Convent immediately upon the convent's completion.

The cemetery was first used primarily as a burial place for Moscow's feudal rulers and church officials. Later it came to be used for Russia's intellectuals and merchants, while in the 20th century, it was the burial place for many of the Soviet Union's most well-known citizens. Today, the cemetery holds the tombs of Russian authors, playwrights, and poets, as well as famous actors, political leaders, and scientists. More than 27,000 are buried at Novodevichy.

Some of the famous Russians buried there are:

• Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalin, (1902–1932), "First Lady" of the Soviet Union
• Pavel Belyayev, (1925–1970), cosmonaut
• Georgi Beregovoi, (1921–1995), cosmonaut
• Sergei Bondarchuk, (1920–1994), actor/director
• Boris Bruinov, (1922–1997), actor
• Valery Bryusov, (1873–1924), writer
• Mikhail Bulgakov, (1881–1940), playwright and author
• Nikolai Bulganin, (1895–1975), statesman
• Anton Chekhov, (1860–1904), writer
• Georgi Chicherin (1872–1936), statesman
• Fyodor Chaliapin, (1873–1938), opera singer
• Ilya Ehrenburg, (1891–1967), writer
• Alexander Fadeyev, (1901–1956), writer
• Nikolai Gogol, (1809–1852), writer
• Raisa Gorbachev, (1932–1999), "First Lady" of the Soviet Union
• Nikita Khrushchev, (1894–1971), statesman
• Peter Kropotkin, (1842–1921), Russia's foremost anarchist
• Alexander Lebed, (1950–2002), soldier and politician
• Lev Davidovich Landau, (1908–1968), Nobel laureate in Physics
• Isaac Levitan, (1860–1900), painter
• Vladimir Mayakovsky, (1893–1930), poet
• Vyacheslav Molotov, (1890–1986), politician
• Nikolai Ogaryov, (1813–1877), writer/poet
• David Oistrakh, (1908–1974), violin virtuoso
• Aleksandr Oparin, (1894–1980), scientist
• Boris Polevoy, (1908–1981), writer
• Sergei Prokofiev, (1891–1953), composer
• Valentin Serov, (1865–1911), writer and artist
• Dmitri Shostakovich, (1906–1975), composer
• Vasily Shukshin, (1929–1974), writer, actor

Yeltsin's grave - by far the ugliest

Homage to a soccer player

A beloved member of the circus with his dog

 The show will go on

 Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalin

 Fyodor Chaliapin, (1873–1938), opera singer

 Nikita Khrushchev

 Raisa Gorbachyova