Kremlin Wall Necropolis
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The Kremlin Wall Necropolis (Russian: Некрополь у Кремлёвской стены) is a part of the Kremlin Wall, which surrounds the Moscow Kremlin and overlooks Red Square. Soviet governments buried many prominent local and international Communist figures here.
The first burial in the Red Square was performed on November 10, 1917 by the order of the Military Revolutionary Committee. The Soviets buried 238 Red Guards and soldiers who had died during the October Revolution in two common graves. In the autumn of 1919 they buried the secretary of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party, Vladimir Zagorsky, and a few other victims of a terrorist act performed by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries on September 25.
The victims of an explosion in the building of the Dorogomilovsky Soviet, People's Commissar of the Postal Service and Telegraph Vadim Podbelsky, American journalist John Reed, secretary of the Moscow Committee Feodor Artyom, diplomats Vaclav Vorovsky and Peter Voikov and others were also buried in the necropolis.
In 1924, Lenin's Mausoleum became the center of the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Behind the mausoleum and at the foot of the Senatskaya Tower of the Kremlin, there are the graves of Yakov Sverdlov, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Mikhail Frunze, Mikhail Kalinin, Georgy Zhukov, Andrei Zhdanov, Joseph Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov, Semyon Budyonny, Mikhail Suslov, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, with monuments. On both sides of the Senatskaya Tower, the Soviets placed urns with the ashes of CPSU members and members of foreign Communist parties, statesmen, military and political leaders, prominent people of science and culture between 1925 and 1984. Several cosmonauts, including Yuri Gagarin and the victims of the Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 disasters, are buried in the necropolis, as well as Sergei Korolev, chief designer of the Soviet space program.
In 1967, the Soviets opened a memorial called the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin Wall in the Alexander Garden.
[edit] Individual tombstones
- from left to right
- Konstantin Chernenko
- Semyon Budyonny
- Kliment Voroshilov
- Andrei Zhdanov
- Mikhail Frunze
- Yakov Sverdlov
- Leonid Brezhnev
- Felix Dzerzhinsky
- Yuri Andropov
- Mikhail Kalinin
- Joseph Stalin
- Mikhail Suslov
[edit] See also
 Moscow Kremlin  |
|---|
| Dormition Cathedral | Archangel Cathedral | Annunciation Cathedral |
| Church of the Twelve Apostles | Church of the Virgin's Robe | Church of the Saviour |
| Chudov Monastery | Ascension Convent |
| Ivan the Great Bell Tower | Tsar Bell | Tsar Cannon |
| Grand Kremlin Palace | Palace of Facets | Terem Palace | Amusement Palace | Patriarchal Chamber |
| State Kremlin Palace | Senate | Arsenal | Armoury | Diamond Treasury |
| Hill | Sobornaya Square | Ivanovskaya Square |
| Wall | Towers | Armorial Gate | Necropolis | Stars | Chiming Clock |
