Pogost is not only a place for burial of deceased people. If its roots go back many centuries, there are significant architectural structures on the territory, then it may well become a historical monument, like the Baikovo cemetery in Kiev.
It got its name from the name of the area, which was named after the name of Sergey Baykov, who has a summer house nearby. At the beginning of the 19th century, when the graveyard was opened, only Catholics and Lutherans found peace on it. But three years later, Christians were immediately buried. Over time, Baikovo cemetery grew. Currently, its new part is three times larger than the old, and the total territory is about 73 hectares.
What's so interesting
People come to Baikovo cemetery not only to visit deceased relatives and friends, but also out of scientific interest or simple curiosity. On tombstones, especially old ones, one can read the original funeral inscriptions or obituaries. Someone is interested in seeing the graves of celebrities at the Bike cemetery. Some love horror stories and want to fall into crypts, many of which are now destroyed and plundered. In total there are about twenty of them at the Baykovsky cemetery in Kiev.
Tombs are also of historical and architectural interest. Some of them are the fruit of the work of famous masters. In addition, they have an original exterior design. It is impossible to find identical tombs, since each family built them according to their taste and traditions. During the war, Jewish families hid in crypts from fascist invaders, in peacetime, homeless people often hide here.
The crematorium at the Baykovsky cemetery in Kiev is also receiving people's attention, because it is the only one in the city. On its territory there is also a functioning church in honor of the Ascension of the Lord, built at the end of the 19th century. The Kiev crematorium at the Baykovsky cemetery also has its own temple. This is a small wooden chapel of the Resurrection of the Word. It was built in our century, in 2008. The crest of the Baykovoye cemetery was built in 1975. Nearby is a columbarium.
Merciless time
Currently, there is a lot of greenery at the Baykovsky cemetery in Kiev, paths have been laid. But at the very beginning of the burial were located randomly. Krause took up order in the 40s of the XIX century. The territory was expanded, ennobled. Even a room was built for the convenience of the cemetery workers and a chapel was erected. Now that mass graves are not being conducted, the trees that were planted by order of Krause have grown and the churchyard has begun to resemble a forest. Monuments and crypts are in dilapidated condition. This is especially true of those that were set when the Baykovo cemetery was just beginning to exist. In total there are about 190,000 burials.
After death - in its place
An interesting fact is that the cemetery is divided into certain sectors. People related to certain societies during life and after death should lie nearby. For example, there are sites where only professors and teachers of the Kiev Scientific University were buried. Others are intended for participants in the Great Patriotic War and other wars. On the main alley are the graves of famous statesmen, as well as artists, writers and other no less famous personalities.
There are sectors in which burial was carried out on a national basis. Among them there are plots of land on which Jews, Poles, Germans rested. The architecture of monuments and tombstones is interesting, which also has its own national characteristics, as well as epitaphs in various languages. Pass to the territory of the cemetery, depending on religion, you can through one of the gates. They resemble temples of various religious faiths in their appearance. There are three entrances in total: for Catholics, Lutherans and Orthodox.
Monuments of the Bike Cemetery
People often come to large graveyards not only to remember loved ones. They want to pay tribute and respect to famous people with whom they could not communicate personally in life. Famous artists, doctors, scientists, military personnel, writers, statesmen, artists, church officials, musicians buried at the Baykovoye cemetery often receive the attention of strangers. Flowers are brought to their graves, and the monuments that perpetuate their memory are often sculptural masterpieces. But some of them are quite simple.
It happens that the monument decorating the burial of a wealthy citizen looks more chic than the one that stands on the resting place of a person who made a significant contribution to the development of culture or art. The graves of celebrities at the Bike cemetery, the photos of which are presented in this article, are located in large numbers here. It is the leader in the graves of famous people in Kiev.
We knew them too
Famous in Soviet times, and even now popular actor and director Leonid Bykov. He is familiar from the films Maxim Perepelitsa, Aleshkina Love, where he played the main roles. They also became beloved for several generations of people: “Bunny”, “Only old people go into battle,” “Aty-bats, soldiers went,” which he directed as a director and played in them as an actor.
He died in a car accident in 1979 at the age of 51. The place of his last resting place was the Baikovo cemetery. How to get there Come there and find the plot at number 33. To do this, go through the main entrance, rise to the crematorium. Then turn right and follow the road until a monument appears.
Currently, a bust is installed on the grave - the head of an actor who looks thoughtfully into the distance. They say that he himself was a very modest person and would consider such a “decoration” too pompous. But be that as it may, many people come to his grave, bring flowers, light candles.
On site number 49, there is a monument erected in honor of the popular actor Borislav Brondukov. Many people know him from the films "Afonya", "Garage", "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson" and many others. The life end of the film artist was sad. He lay motionless and bedridden for seven years. Brondukov absolutely could not move and talk. But retained a clear mind. It made it even harder for relatives and friends to look into his tear-filled eyes. A stone cross was erected on his grave three years after his death in 2007. Now everyone wants to visit the artist and leave flowers near the monument, symbolizing immortality and salvation.
People familiar to many
At the old cemetery is the grave of Lesya Ukrainka. This is a famous poetess, writer and public activist of Ukraine. All her life she struggled with diseases that began to overcome her from the age of ten. It is hard to imagine how a person who is constantly in pain could have such a strength of mind that he not only lived, but created and gained fame. But no matter how hard Lesya tried, the disease defeated her in 1913, when she was only 42 years old. Her real name was Larisa Petrovna Kosach. It is knocked out on a pedestal under a pseudonym. The relatives of the writer are buried nearby. The grave is still visited by fans of her talent, although more than 100 years have passed since her death. The monument is a high podium and a semi-figure of a Ukrainian woman standing on it, which holds a book in its hands.
From afar, the figure of a man leaning on an umbrella is noticeable. This is the first monument that was installed in the new cemetery in full growth. In order to make it, the widow of the famous actor Nikolai Grinko sold all the jewelry. She did it not in vain, fans visiting his grave are pleased to see the well-kept area and a solid monument. The children also loved this artist, because he played Papa Carlo in the movie “The Adventures of Pinocchio” and engineer Gromov in “The Adventures of Electronics”.
Surgeon Nikolai Amosov was buried in the Baykovsky cemetery . He is famous for his work on improving the methods of operating the lungs, heart, and blood vessels. He headed one of the departments of the Kiev Institute, wrote several books. His literary work Voices of Time has been translated into several languages of the world. The monument to the surgeon is his figure in white, which, as it were, grows out of a column mounted on a granite slab. Behind him is a ball with a cardiogram embossed on it.
As an everywhere
There are a lot of interesting monuments at the Baykovsky cemetery. Lovers of antiquity, sculpture, architecture or those who prefer to think about the meaning of life and the eternal, walking in silence among the graves, should definitely visit it. During such travels, very interesting and unusual monuments erected by ordinary people to their relatives come across. For example, figures of people repeating a person’s appearance in life. Some are waiting for their loved ones, stretched out to their full height, others are sitting, waiting for them to sit down to remember. Monuments to dancers depict them in a dance, pilots here with their planes or parts from them, writers with heroes of their work. On the other graves are full-length angels, crosses, candles, flowerpots, etc.
Crypts at the Bike Cemetery
Perhaps this is the most unusual for our time, mysterious, attracting attention and at the same time the most frightening of everything that can be seen here. Ancient structures made using various techniques were to be preserved for posterity as interesting examples of the funerary architecture of past years. But, oddly enough, in the Baykovo cemetery, they gradually collapse and become desolate.
They don’t even keep an account of them and don’t even know to whom some of them belonged, whose names were erased from time to time. The most unpleasant thing is that coffins with decaying remains of people who during their lifetime took care of resting in a beautiful, prestigious place disappeared from the crypts. The inside is empty and dirty. Informal youth, homeless and homeless people are not afraid to come here. They spoil and stain what remains of the former decoration.
But before (as far as one can judge by what remains), the crypts looked decent. After all, to build them, funds were needed, and not every family could afford it. But it happened that those who decided to take this step even invited famous architects of their time to erect a tomb according to a special project. Moreover, at Baikovo cemetery, one can find crypts made in various styles. Here there is a classic, and Gothic, and a mixture of directions, in accordance with the taste of the owners. Inside the tombs had two rooms. The first was intended to commemorate the deceased, and the second, in which there were coffins with bodies, went underground.
Tomb of Luck
There is one crypt in the cemetery that has its own legend. It belonged to the famous Kiev sausage producer Mikhail Aristarkhov. On the facade of the tomb is a bronze bas-relief depicting the Archistratig, in whose honor Michael was named. It is known about him that he defeated Lucifer himself.
If, standing in front of the crypt, you see a burn mark on the shoulder of the sculpture, a place from which an all-conquering ray of light hit, then the help of the Archistratig will not take long, and he will patronize the one who showed attention near the tomb of his namesake.
In addition, Michael of Kiev is considered the patron saint of the whole city. And Aristarkhov himself owned a sausage factory, was engaged in politics to promote his interests in the Duma, and was a church headman. But wealth, as you know, is not a panacea for troubles and illnesses, and in 1912 he died and was honored to be buried here in his own crypt, made in the Gothic style.
Crematorium at the Baykovsky cemetery in Kiev
Seeing this building for the first time, not everyone can immediately guess what it is. No wonder the famous architects Avraam Miletsky, Ada Rybachuk and Vladimir Melnichenko worked on its creation from 1968 to 1981. The building resembles something futuristic. Entrance to the unknown and unknown.
The spouses Melnichenko and Rybachuk just imagined the crematorium. He should not have reminded of death as the final stop in the existence of man. On the contrary, to those present at the cremation ceremony this architectural refinement reminded that life goes on and the movement does not stop for those who have suffered an irreparable loss.
The architects made sure to make moments of farewell less sad and psychologically facilitate parting with a deceased relative or friend. Since they had to create at a time when all actions had to be coordinated with the party, they were not able to realize all the ideas. And some have become technically impossible. For example, colored stained glass windows, which were supposed to be located all over the concrete walls.
The creation of the Wall of Memory was banned by order of the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Shcherbitsky. The party leadership was confused by the non-Slavic noses of the sculptures, which were supposed to be installed on it. It was decided to fill the wall with concrete. The leadership was not even embarrassed by the fact that the craftsmen worked on it for 10 years. During this period, they made life-size sculptures, welded frames for them, laid the first layer of soil. But then the architects managed to achieve a feeling of lightness, which is difficult to do when erecting buildings from reinforced concrete. The aboveground part is just the entrance to the ground, where the crematorium itself is located, where there is also a hall for parting.
How to get to Baikovoye Cemetery (Kiev)
It is very easy to do. You need to get to the metro station "Palace Ukraine", and from there go on foot. The journey takes 15-20 minutes. It is impossible to get lost, as the cemetery is located on a hill that you have to climb and, in addition, is fenced with a red brick fence. Excursions are held on its territory, during which the guide interestingly and in detail talks about everything that is here and about the people who are resting here. For those who want to visit the Baykovo cemetery on their own, the address for help is: st. Baykovaya, 2. It is not recommended to go deep into the depths, as you can easily get lost among the overgrown graves.
Save for posterity
Old-timers say that before the revolution it was customary to look after even those graves that were abandoned by relatives or belonged to single people. Here a watchman worked, there were signs for the burial places of famous people, special guides for cemeteries were issued. It is a pity that many monuments and tombs in our time are destroyed.
One can only guess what is going on in the heads of people who are able to relieve the need for a crypt or grave. But the fact remains. There is a lot of rubbish and thickets on the Bike cemetery. Here gather drug addicts, Goths and other informals who do not care about who is buried here. Therefore, they do not hesitate to behave inappropriately and desecrate monuments and tombstones.
But there are those who are interested in the history of people who have found peace here. Moreover, many of those who are buried here are known not only in Ukraine, but also abroad.