history Volkov cemetery dates back to 1756.Then, at the suggestion of the Empress Elizabeth, existing since 1710, the city cemetery at the Church of St. John the Baptist, located in Yamskaya Sloboda, closed.Instead, the decree of the Senate was created Volkovskoye cemetery.
new necropolis took its name immediately.According to legend, as it was called at the time the locals, who argued that this place is haunting many wolves.Some storytellers did not hesitate to invent stories about corpses eaten by that greedy or poor relatives left unburied.And such a situation, frankly, in the 18-19 century was not such a rare occurrence.
Despite the fact that Volkovskoye cemetery from the beginning of its existence, it was considered very poor, were buried on its territory more and more people.Designated burial gave little or nothing.There was no order graves.And public institutions, and individuals buried their dead where bother to dig the grave, without notifying the authorities of the cemetery.
This, in turn, in spite of obvious negligence in terms of control over the operation of the necropolis, gave great importance to the construction of Churches in its territory.Volkovskoye cemetery in its history had several wooden and then made of stone temples.One of the first, which, unfortunately, has not survived to the present day - Church of the Resurrection.Odnoprestolny wood with stone foundation of the temple was founded in 1756 simultaneously with the opening of the necropolis.Volkovskoye cemetery was spreading without any ups and downs, as long as Russia is not the revolution broke out.It dramatically changed the appearance of the main burial site of St. Petersburg.In the 20-30-ies in its territory and closed the church demolished, ruined and destroyed the tomb of the famous monuments of the nobles, who by then was buried in the cemetery is already very much.The so-called "five-year plan of godlessness", which began in 1932, destroyed the Church of All Saints and the Assumption of the necropolis, and in 1935 the premises of the Church of Our Saviour identified as a warehouse.When the Soviet Union Cemetery is very lost in their territory, many monuments and gravestones lost forever.
officially are not buried since 1933, and the necropolis has the status of a museum.But as an exception to the oldest cemetery in St. Petersburg today to bury famous people or those locals who have a positive "mark" in the history of the city.At the time Volkovskoye cemetery (St. Petersburg) was the resting place of Belinsky, Dobrolyubov, Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mendeleev, Pavlov and many other intellectuals, science and medicine.
By the way, in Russia there is another cemetery of the same name.Volkovskoye Cemetery (Mytishchi) is located thirty kilometers from the capital.It is not as old as the St. Petersburg.It was opened in the 30s of the last century, and still is considered valid.
