Пискарёвское мемориа́льное кла́дбище

Over the weekend I made my way to the Пискарёвское мемориальное кладбище you can see what Wiki has to say about the cemetery by clicking on the link above or you can go to the cemetery's official site here. My opinion may be skewed because I live in the city center and have to see all the parade rehearsals for Victory in Europe day but I am amazed at how much of a big deal this holiday is here. Of course when you think about it and imagine the lack of words fit to describe the depravity suffered by the citizens of Leningrad during the siege the significance of the holiday makes a little more sense. The cemetery is not the only one where victims of the siege were buried, but it is the largest. It holds roughly 500,000 of the estimated 1.2 - 2 Million victims of the siege. Arguably the battle of Stalingrad 42-43 produced more casualties, but did not drag on for almost three years with the utter demoralization of the population that occurred at Leningrad.
The memorial was finished in 1960, and was built over the 186 Mass graves that were dug in a gravel pit during the war. Below is a picture of the entrance.Here is the view from the entrance, up front you can see an eternal flame, on the right is one of the mass grave markers and in the distance you can barely see the statue of Mother Russia at the other end of the memorial grounds Below are pictures of the grave markers, the ones marked with the stars symbolize that the grave contains soldiers of the Red Army, the hammer and sickle symbolizes civilian casulaties.Like most monuments and memorials in Russia I was struck by the shear enormity of the graves, look at how far they extend. I know 500,000 victims is hard to imagine. I think today on CNN the pandemic alert is out for a couple hundred swine flu deaths worldwide, I am certainly not marginalizing the fate of victims of this disease, but trying to imagine the suffering of this city.Here is the statue of Mother Russia, holding a garland of oak and laurel leaves. All throughout the cemetary funeral music plays over loudspeakers to hep set the somber tone.

Behind the statue on a wall are inscribed some words, the first paragraph is pictured below, the translation is below the picture.

Here lies Leningraders
Here are the Townspeople (residents), Men Women, Children.
Besides them the Red Army soldiers
With their entire lives
They defended you Leningrad,
cradle of the revolution.
Number their noble names here we cannot
So many there are under the eternal granite guard
But know when honoring these stones
No one and nothing is forgotten.
Engravings on the wall behind the statue.

Soldiers maintain the grounds, I couldn't resist snapping a picture of this one with his water bucket.

File this picture under "so many things cross all boundaries." If I had a dollar for everytime I saw a soldier with a rake I would be able to bail out chrysler..