🏛 Smolensky Cemetery and Chapel of St Xenia of Petersburg

Камская ул., 26

One of the city's oldest cemeteries, with the Church of the Smolensk Icon, shady paths and old gravestones.

The cemetery was established by the Synod in 1738 and confirmed by a Senate decree of 1756; today it covers 51.7 hectares.
Around 1803 Xenia of Petersburg was buried here; she was canonised in 1988.
The stone Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God was built by 1790 to a design by Alexey Ivanov.
In 1861 Taras Shevchenko was first buried here; later his remains were taken to Kaniv, and a boulder was placed on the grave site in 1989.
Alexander Blok was buried at the cemetery in 1921; in 1944 his remains were moved to the Literatorskie Mostki.
A plaque at the entrance says that Pushkin's nanny Arina Rodionovna lies here, although the exact place of her grave is unknown.

Part of these routes