В Кладбище (At the cemetery)

Yesterday we went to a famous cemetery a few metro stops from our university. Novodevichy Cemetery. The cemetery used to be a convent for the wives of Czars. Long story short, when Czars would get tired of their wives, they would announce that she has honorably decided to "devote herself for the rest of her days to God" and then send her to this convent. So happy it's the 21st century.

Stalin decided that all the famous people of Russia should be buried in the same place in order for people to visit them, so he turned the convent into a cemetery, dug up all the bodies of the most famous Russian artists, writers, composers, generals, etc. and buried them in Novodevichy. I can't remember who it was now, but one famous person and his wife were buried next to each other in another cemetery. When workers went to remove him, they saw that their skeletons had been intertwined in a tree's roots. One tree was growing out of their graves, connecting them for years to come. How sweet is that? 

So, naturally, the workers uprooted the tree and took as much of his skeleton as they could and left his wife there. Stalin...great guy. I'll hand it to him, though, the cemetery is beautiful. So here are some pictures! I accidentally uploaded them in reverse, so the pictures start at the end of the day.

My roommate and I decided we had enough Russian experience for the day, so we went to the market by the Academy and bought some "wine tasting foods" and The Laughing Magpie Shiraz. (heard of it, dad?) Good stuff. Potato stuffed bread gets tiring after a while...

Boris Yeltsin's gravesite.



Gorbachev's wife's gravesite. Apparently he visits her every week (Trent, you could pitch a tent and wait for him??)



You can't really tell, but there's a bird's nest! It was feeding time.



Khrushchev's gravesite.



Just looked cool with the hands holding a 'heart'. He was a doctor.



Famous bassist. Apparently he was quite the diva.



Stalin's wife.








Outside of the convent. Couldn't exactly escape.