Kuzminskoe cemetery is one of the oldest in the Leningrad region. It inherited its name from the settlement of the same name, which was located near the Kuzminka River in the 18th century. Then, in the fifties of the same century, it became Tsarskoye Selo, thereby indicating an increase in the number of “inhabitants” of the latter. For the same reason, the churchyard was moved several times, forbidding burial within the summer imperial residence. In the era of Catherine the Great, the Kuzminskoe cemetery was moved across the river.
Paul did not favor the man-made brainchild of his mother, and the city of Sofia, which, according to the plan of the empress, was to become a model for the whole power, came to desolation. This does not mean that life in Tsarskoye Selo has completely ceased. People still lived here, and the place of their last repose became, after the funeral in the Church of the Sign, the Kuzminskoe cemetery. The same applies to priests who served in this temple, which for a long time was considered a court.
The architects who built Tsarskoye Selo and created its architectural ensemble deserve special mention. The first of them lay in the consecrated land in 1782, Vasily Ivanovich Neyelov. His grave is protected by the state as a historical monument. The architects of the late period, Alexander Romanovich Bach and his son, who continued his father's business, were buried in the late thirties of the XX century.
Although the ancient, but not very famous Kuzminskoe cemetery. The list of burials almost does not contain surnames, which a modern person, as they say, is “by ear”, although this is not always deserved. Visitors should pay tribute to Niktopolion Svyatsky - a poet, a disabled hero of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, a real Russian nobleman. He was overwhelmed by paralysis, could not write with his hands, and created his wonderful works, full of piercing feelings of love, holding a pen in his teeth.
The publisher Petr Petrovich Soikin also deserves respect as a man who has done a lot for culture and enlightenment in our country. It is to him that we owe the three-volume book by A. Brehm “The Life of Animals”, the first editions of science fiction novels by Jules Verne and Charles Dickens in Russia.
Kuzminskoe cemetery was visited by Nikolai Gumilev, his father was buried here.
Then the October Revolution took place, and cruelty to their memory was added to the ruthlessness of the new government. The Kuzminskoe cemetery was no exception. Pushkin - the so-called Tsarskoye Selo since 1937. For the Bolsheviks, the old graves were of no value, and, guided by a materialistic worldview, they allowed to destroy tombstones using valuable breeds of stone repeatedly. During the years of atheism, crosses were massively destroyed at the cemetery, and the temple was looted in 1923. In 1939 it was closed - forever, as the then masters of life thought.
During the Great Patriotic War, the line of defense of besieged Leningrad passed here. Kuzminskoe cemetery took victims of battles and bombings. The dead were buried in mass graves.
Then there were decades of desolation. In the eighties of the XX century, the city grew, they remembered the old cemetery, and here they began to bury again. On the basis of the Church of the Annunciation destroyed during the fighting in 2007, a chapel was erected that overshadowed everyone lying in this land, both known and unknown. May they have eternal memory and eternal rest!