Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Protesters Dressed as Mummies Call For Lenin's Burial

Mummies to meet at Red Square to call for Lenin burial
MOSCOW, January 21 (RIA Novosti) - Some 50 people dressed as mummies are due to gather in Moscow's Red Square on Wednesday to call for the burial of Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin.


"Our demonstration will call on the government and communists to bury Lenin in a humble grave at the Volkovskoye Cemetery in St. Petersburg," representatives of the yet-unregistered organization, who identify themselves as Orthodox monarchists, said.
Lenin said he wanted to be buried in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg.
On Wednesday Russia celebrates the 85th anniversary of Lenin's death. His embalmed body has been on public display in a glass case in a mausoleum in Red Square since he died following a series of strokes in 1924.
His continuing presence in the heart of Moscow has been an ongoing source of controversy since the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991.



Some 50 young people wrapped from head to toe in white bandages, and carrying coffins with Lenin's name, are due to join a procession of thousands of communists, who will lay wreaths at the mausoleum on Red Square.
"There will be no crowd standing and chanting slogans... The mummies will join the procession of communists," a spokesman for the organization said, promising that "the mummies will be quiet, just the way mummies should be."

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090121/119728669.html


The organization previously held a demonstration in support of Lenin's burial near the graves of his mother and sisters at the Volkovskoye Cemetery, where the group erected a headstone with the name of the communist leader.
An opinion poll has shown that two thirds of Russians believe that the embalmed body of the architect of the 1917 Russian Revolution should be removed from its mausoleum on Red Square and buried.
Demands to transfer the Russian communist leader's body to a regular cemetery have consistently been countered by Russian communists, who insist that the tomb on Red Square remain his final resting place.

-story form the Russian News Agency Novosti http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090121/119728669.html

Thursday, October 16, 2008

At Novodevichy Cemetery, the Ordinary Trumps the Grand

Raisa Gorbachov Monument at Novodevichy Cemetery with Columbarium niches in background
Novodevichy Convent

Novodevichy Cemetery (Новодевичье кла́дбище) is 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. -from http://www.sacred-destinations.com/russia/moscow-novodevichy-convent.htm

Nikita Kruschev monument at Nvodevichy cemetery in Moscow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Grave_N._S._Krushchev.jpg
The Grave of Nikita Kruschev "We will Bury You!"

While the monuments of the famous and powerful provide a wonderful history and art lesson, these photos of the niches of lesser known Russians, taken by Dedushka Nomto at Novodevichy Columbarium, are quite striking as well. The changes brought about by time and the elements give these portraits the haunting quality of distant memories. Perhaps this documentation of ordinary life can teach us more important lessons than the broad sweep of history.


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