Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery (St. Petersburg): address and directions

In the Krasnogvardeisky district of St. Petersburg there is an ancient cemetery, the history of which has become part of the history of the city itself, it is so inextricably linked with it. Once he was called Georgievsky. It is only two decades younger than the city itself and remembers the times of Peter I. These days it is the biggest city necropolis. Its area is almost seventy hectares. It is called the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery. How to reach him and what interesting things can be seen there - that's what we will try to find out right now.

Wooden church on the coast of Chernavka

In order to start a conversation about his history, one should mentally return to the beginning of the XVIII century. A new capital was being constructed on the banks of the Neva , and craftsmen flocked from all over Russia, most of whom were free carpenters. For them, at the behest of the Emperor Peter Alekseevich, there was a place near the mouth of the Okhta River. Here they settled, lived and died.

But an Orthodox man can not be done without the church of God, and in 1725, according to the project of the architect Potemkin, a wooden church was built. It was consecrated in honor of the patron saint of carpenters - St. Joseph the Woodpecker. It was in this way that St. Joseph, the betrothed of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was called in Russia. He, as you know, was a carpenter. Soon, on the shore of a small river Chernavka - the tributary of Okhta - a cemetery was formed. They called him Okhtinsky - by the name of the river itself.

Construction of the Intercession Church

After a while the wooden building was dilapidated. And instead of it a new stone church was built. However, there was a blunder - they did not take into account the harsh St. Petersburg frosts. The temple was built "cold", that is without heating, and it was absolutely impossible to spend the services in it in the winter.

There was nothing left to do but to fork out again, and next to him to build another temple, this time taking into account our northern climate. So the Intercession Church appeared, the architect of the project was the architect M. Zemtsov. Petersburgers are well aware of his other work - the church of the saints and righteous Simeon and Anna at the corner of the streets of Belinsky and Mokhovaya.

Epidemics of the late 18th century

In the meantime, St. Petersburg was expanding, and more and more space was required for the last refuge to those who had completed their earthly journey in it. In this regard, in 1732, at the order of the Holy Synod, the Okhta cemetery received the status of a city cemetery and was used along with the rest of the cemeteries of the capital. But the Petersburgers of the Lord were angry, and at the end of the century he let the two terrible epidemics-smallpox and typhus-happen. Many residents were brought to the Okhta cemetery, and it turned out to be crowded.

In connection with these sad events in May 1773, a new - Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery was opened. It was located on the bank of the same river Chernavka and closely adjacent to Okhtinsky. The old cemetery, although considered closed, but there continued for a long time to bury the dead to the graves of their relatives. In the same year a new church was built at the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery. He was consecrated in honor of St. George the Victorious, which gave the name to the whole complex.

Construction of St. Nicholas Church

Petersburg was originally a city of shipbuilders and sailors. And they have their heavenly patron - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of the World of Lycia. Here in his honor in the cemetery in 1812 was laid a new church. It was built on the donations of the merchant Nikonov, and was just on the site of their family burial. Since ancient times there has been a pious tradition among Russian people - to bequeath the acquired things for charitable deeds.

In this church, many burial masters were singing before the burial, shipbuilders and seafarers, and a little later a special site was created for the burial of soldiers and officers who died from wounds in a military hospital. In official documents they were called "warriors tied up for the glory of the Fatherland".

Sites - Old Believers and the Institute of Noble Maidens

Around the same time, the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery, in its southern part, becomes the burial place of the Old Believers. In the area assigned to them in the middle of the XIX century, a monotheistic church in the name of Dimitry of Solunsky was erected on the project of architect KI Brandt. Up to now it has not survived, since along with many other temples it was destroyed during the Soviet period.

Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery was the place of resting the girls of the Institute of Noble Maidens who had died prematurely, a closed educational institution for girls from noble families. It was on the opposite bank of the Neva. There was still no existing bridge of Peter the Great in sight and in summer in boats, and in winter on the ice of the frozen river they crossed to the right bank, where the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery was located. How to get to it by the spring thawing ice or the first autumn - to us, modern people are hard to even imagine.

Familial tomb of the Eliseev family

In the early eighties of the XIX century, another church was built at the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery. It was built with the help of famous Russian entrepreneurs - the Eliseev brothers. The church was consecrated in honor of the icon of the Kazan Mother of God - a shrine especially esteemed by them. It is known that the elder brother - Stepan Petrovich - never started a working day without praying before her. Construction of the church cost a record for those times the amount - one million rubles, and since then it has become the family burial vault of the Eliseev family.

Many saints, shining on the banks of the Neva, glorious Petersburg. Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery is mentioned in the life of one of them - the holy blessed Xenia of St. Petersburg. It was there that she sent the daughter of an officer's widow who stayed in the girls and miraculously arranged her marriage with a young man who buried his wife. More than once about that cemetery we read in the life of another liturgy of Orthodoxy - the holy righteous John of Kronstadt.

Cemetery after the revolution

The revolution and the period of the hostility that followed it changed the appearance of the ancient necropolis in many ways. The temples with which the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery was so well known were destroyed. Monuments and crypts, tombs and gravestones - were barbarously destroyed in the years of atheistic obscurantism. Miraculously preserved only St. Nicholas Church.

In 1939, the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery became the site of a mass burial of Soviet servicemen who died during the Finnish war. For their graves were taken significant sites in the southern part of the cemetery, and a few years later the vast territories occupied the burial of the fallen defenders of Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War.

Cemetery in our days

The scheme of the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery, cited at the end of the article, shows what this largest urban necropolis is today. It is clear that it consists of two parts. The Energetikov Prospect built at the end of the seventies of the last century separated the site from old graves, from the territory where the victims of the Leningrad blockade lay. It should be noted that as a result of the fact that during the forties and seventies a very large number of city residents were buried, many sites with old graves were reused, and now ancient tombstones can only be seen around the St. Nicholas Church.

Many guests of St. Petersburg, wishing to get the most complete idea of the city, try to visit the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery. How to get there? You can take a trolleybus number 16 or bus number 132, departing from the metro station "Alexander Nevsky Square", as well as a trolleybus No. 18 from the metro station "Novocherkasskaya". His address: Metallistov Avenue, 5.