Karpovskoe cemetery (St. Petersburg)

It is known since the time of Peter I ^[2] . Initially, from the founding of the city, it was determined for the burial of Christians of other faiths (non-Orthodox). However, often the buried were found dug and robbed, since this cemetery place at that time was quite deaf, surrounded by forests, which was used by numerous thieves and robbers convicted of hard labor, but avoided it, because they were collected “by all orders, town halls and cities” in the amount of 2,000 people according to the written order of Peter I, given to Prince F. Yu. Romodanovsky on September 23, 1703, and sent to Petersburg in the summer of 1704 to build the city ^[3] . To prevent such robberies, it was allowed, until 1710, to bury Gentiles at the houses where they were dying ^[4] .

Subsequently, it was proposed to erect an Orthodox church in the cemetery; however, in January 1740, the Holy Synod decided instead of the church to build a chapel "for the offering of dead bodies" of the dead and their funeral ^[1] . However, this decree came into conflict with the Decree of Empress Anna Ioannovna of July 10, 1734 against the chapels, therefore they did not build a chapel, they did not enclose the place for the cemetery, they didn’t dig channels and did not make the pond, and they used other cemeteries for burials ^[5] .

The city authorities returned to the issue of arranging the Orthodox Karpovskoye cemetery at the end of the 18th century: it was opened on September 15, 1794 for the burial of the deceased (chap. Arr., Merchants and officials ^[6] ) in spring and autumn, in ice-making and ice-free ^[6] , when communication of the Petersburg side with other parts of the city was difficult due to the lack of permanent bridges. In all likelihood, the Orthodox cemetery was established elsewhere, since P.N. Petrov in his work ^[7], when describing the plan of St. Petersburg, indicates two sections: p.137 - “The first cemetery of the Gentiles” and p.139 - “The cemetery established at the time of debauchery. "

A plot of 10 thousand square meters was allocated for the cemetery. Sazhen (100x100), built a small wooden chapel on it, surrounded the entire site with a wooden fence ^[8] and assigned it to the Church in honor of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God on Vasilievsky Island ^[8] , under the guardianship of Fr. George Petrov ( for more details see the Karpovskoye cemetery section of the article about Father George ).

In 1816, at the request of Fr. George Petrov, Karpovskoe cemetery was transferred under the control of the clergy of the Peter and Paul Cathedral ^[9] . After the construction of the permanent Tuchkov bridge, the burial in the cemetery ceased. Goppe and Kornfeld ^[10] , with reference to the urban St. Petersburg surveyor you. Dm Putilin, it is reported that the area of ​​the abolished cemetery was 4 tithes of 571 square meters. fathom.

From earlier years, in the 1860s, a wooden chapel, which fell into disrepair, and several slabs and granite tombstones were preserved ^[9] . At the beginning of the XX century, according to the work of V. I. Saitov, there were no tombstones at the site of the abolished cemetery ^[2] .

• Gribanov and Lurie make an unreasonable assumption ^[6] that in his poem “When I wander outside the city,” written in 1836, Pushkin describes the Karpovskoye cemetery, then “out-of-town”, and located not far from Frol Osipovich Dolivo-Dobrovolsky’s dacha, where the poet and his family spent the summer months of 1834 and 1836. There were also dachas where other Pushkin's acquaintances lived, whom he could also visit:

Merchants, officials of the deceased mausoleums.

A cheap incisor is ridiculous

Above them are inscriptions in prose and poetry.

About virtue, about service, about ranks ... ^[11]

• Vadim Burlak in his book tells the legend of a crimson crimson tree hook and an old woman who, having visited the cemetery, did not find her son’s grave, hidden by gardeners and gardeners renting empty sections of the Karpovskoye cemetery. And for that she cursed the heartbroken old woman of all gardeners and gardeners of St. Petersburg, promised to grow a poisonous tree, and cut out a stick from it, which will go around the city by itself “let death beat, until the wanderer declares in St. Petersburg that he will leave this a destroyer away, away to distant lands ... ” ^[12] .

• Ustryalov, Nikolai Gerasimovich . The history of the reign of Peter the Great . - SPb. : type of. 2nd Sep. Own. E.I.V. Chancellery, 1863. - T. IV.
• Dmitry Florinsky. II - Diocesan cathedrals and churches in St. Petersburg // Cathedral in the name of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in the St. Petersburg Fortress. - Historical and Statistical. information about St. Petersburg. dioceses. - SPb. : St. Petersburg. diocese. historical statistical committee, printed by V. Golovin, 1869. - T. I. - S. 114-115.
• P.N. Petrov. Explanation of the plan of St. Petersburg (1703-1782) // The history of St. Petersburg from the founding of the city to the entry into force of the elected city administration, for institutions about the provinces. 1703-1782. - SPb. : Glazunova, 1884 .-- S. 205-246. - 1094 s.
• V.I.Saitov (compiler), on behalf of. Led. Prince Nikolai Mikhailovich . Petersburg necropolis. - SPb. : typ. M.M.Stasyulevich , 5 lines. IN. 28, 1912.- T. I (A-D). - S. IX.
• Victor Ivanovich Gribanov, Lev Yakovlevich Lurie. Apothecary Island / Bondarevskaya T.P., D. and. n .; I. Yu. Polenov, architect. - L .: Lenizdat , 1988 .-- 174 p. - ("To the tourist about Leningrad"). - 50,000 copies. - ISBN 5-289-00119-0 .
• Vadim Niklasovich Burlak. Mysterious Petersburg. Story. Legends. Traditions. - M .: Veche, 2008 .-- ISBN 978-5-9533-2769-5 .