Danilov Cemetery
The Danilov Cemetery ( Russian Даниловское кладбище ) is an approximately 35-hectare cemetery in southern Moscow . It is located in the Donskoi district ( South administrative district ), not far from the Danilow monastery of the same name .
history
The Danilov Cemetery is one of several large Moscow cemeteries that were compulsorily laid out in 1771, during the great plague epidemic, because for hygienic reasons no plague dead were to be buried in the inner-city cemeteries and there was room for a total of up to 200,000 victims the epidemic would not have been enough there anyway. The then newly created plague cemeteries - including, for example, the Wagankowoer cemetery , which has also been preserved to this day - were all founded before the city limits at that time. The location for the Danilov cemetery (which, like the monastery of the same name, owes its name to the village of Danilowo, which was once located here) was chosen on a field behind the "Serpukhov customs border" ( Серпуховская застава ), near the road leading from Moscow in a southerly direction via Serpuchow to Tula .
The cemetery church, which is mainly used for funeral masses, was created with the layout of the cemetery and was originally made of wood. In 1832 it was demolished and today's Holy Spirit Apparition Church ( Храм Сошествия Святого Духа ) was built in its place , a relatively simple Orthodox church with an Empire bell tower. The new church was donated by the merchant Semjon Lepjoschkin, which was by no means coincidental: Due to its location relatively close to the historic Samoskvorechye district , which was heavily influenced by merchants, the Danilov Cemetery also developed into a traditional burial place of the Moscow entrepreneurship. This can still be seen today in numerous old hereditary burials of merchant families in old parts of the cemetery.
During the Soviet era , the Danilow Cemetery was transformed from the former burial place of merchants to an ordinary municipal cemetery, where Orthodox clergy often found their final resting place. In addition, the cemetery was significantly expanded, including a Muslim section. During the Second World War , an anti-aircraft battery was stationed in the cemetery due to its location on a hill. In 1965 a memorial was erected in the entrance area of the cemetery for the dead from World War II, buried here in a collective grave, on which an eternal flame burned well into the 1990s .
Graves of prominent people
Most of the old merchant burials in the Danilow cemetery can be found around the Heilig-Geist-Kirche near the cemetery entrance. However, most of the particularly magnificent and spacious tombs are no longer preserved today. The once most famous burial in the Danilow Cemetery - the family grave of the merchants Tretyakov, in which the art patrons Sergei and Pawel Tretyakov were buried, the latter known primarily as the founder of the Tretyakov Gallery - was dissolved after the Tretyakov Brothers were reburied in 1948 as deserving citizens of Moscow in the Novodevichy Cemetery of Honor , where they remain to this day.
Other well-known people who are buried or had lain in the Danilov Cemetery include the history professor of Lomonosov University Pyotr Nikolayevich Kudryavtsev (1816–1858), who was also one of the leaders of the so-called Western movement in Russia in the 19th century. in addition, the football player Valery Ivanovich Voronin (1939-1984) and the linguist Afanassi Matwejewitsch Selishchev (1886-1942). Probably the most visited place in the Danilow Cemetery is the former resting place of the Holy Matrya Dmitrijewna Nikonowa (1881-1952), who was reburied in the Pokrov nunnery in Moscow during her canonization. Regardless of this, the grave still attracts numerous pilgrims today, as the sand on this grave is said to have healing properties.
Web links
- Official Website (Russian)
- In-depth article on the cemetery (Russian)
Coordinates: 55 ° 42 '14.3 " N , 37 ° 36' 31.4" E