Shirokorechenskoe Cemetery

I try to find the most unusual places in the new cities I visit. However, I know that when I travel with certain people suggesting an abandoned building might seem like a lot to ask. So, for me, I feel like a cemetery is a happy medium. I dragged Karina to Shirokorechenskoe Cemetery. I should just say that we dressed and packed for cold and rainy weather only to meet hot and humid weather. It was too hot to walk to the cemetery (with what we were wearing), so I suggested we take the bus. However, once on the packed bus of an interior temperature of at least 90F I noticed that we weren't following the right route. We were stuck in traffic for at least 30 minutes, yet Karina didn't complain. I thought, at first, the bus wasn't going to take us to the cemetery, but I didn't say anything to Karina because I thought she might kill me. Luckily, we ended up where we needed to be, but she did a good job of not openly telling me she hated me!

The cemetery is famous for a number of gang members buried here. Unfortunately, like I will probably mention in later posts, I did a terrible job of planning because I was so busy in the time leading up to our trip, and with the free time I had on the train I didn't have wifi. I wanted to go to this cemetery, but I didn't do research to find where the tombs of the former mafia lie. To make up for that you can read this post or this post. I suggest checking those blogs out because some of the tombstones are amazing, and by amazing I mean kind of hilarious.

One thing I've noticed about all the cemeteries I've been to in Russia is that they are very heavily wooded. It's common for trees and plants to be growing in and around the grave site. I even saw some graves that looked like someone literally just threw dirt over a body, although, I'm pretty sure it was a coffin. I, fortunately, haven't experienced much death in my own family *knock on wood* so I don't frequent cemeteries to pay respect to my dead relatives, but when we were there I noticed a number of people cleaning the headstones or pulling weeds. Maybe it's because the cemetery is literally in the middle of a forest that they get dirty more frequently or maybe it's just because I don't go to cemeteries enough to notice the same things in the USA. Also, you will notice all the bright, artificial flowers. I don't know why they do this, but it's kind of cute especially when you see people placing them among real flowers.

I didn't take many pictures because we didn't spend very much time in this cemetery. It was bigger than I thought, and I felt bad making Karina come with me. I felt guilty that I didn't look to see where the famous people were buried, if there were any. Also, it started to rain after we left, so it was probably a good thing that we didn't spend too much time there. There were also a lot of people visiting the cemetery that I felt kind of awkward taking photos of tombstones. I kind of wish we had walked further back though because, based on the other blogs, it looks like we missed a lot of the "interesting" graves.

Are Russian cemeteries surprising to you?