The graveyard is not only a place for the burial of dead people. If its roots go back many centuries ago, there are significant architectural structures on the territory, then it may well become a historical monument, like the Baikovo cemetery in Kyiv.
It got its name from the name of the area, which was named after Sergei Baikov, who has a dacha nearby. At the beginning of the 19th century, when the churchyard was opened, only Catholics and Lutherans found rest in it. But three years later they immediately began to bury Christians. Over time, the Baikovo cemetery has grown. At present, its new part is three times larger than the old one, and the total area is about 73 hectares.
What is interesting here
People come to the Baikovo cemetery not only to visit their dead relatives and friends, but also out of scientific interest or simple curiosity. On tombstones, especially old ones, one can read the original funerary inscriptions or obituaries. Someone is interested in seeing the graves of celebrities at the Baikove cemetery. Some love horror stories and want to get into the crypts, many of which are now destroyed and looted. There are about twenty of them at the Baykove cemetery in Kyiv.
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 external design. It is impossible to find identical tombs, as each family built them according to their own taste and traditions. During the war years, Jewish families hid in the crypts from the fascist invaders; in peacetime, homeless people often hide here.
The crematorium at the Baykove Cemetery in Kyiv 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 Kyiv crematorium at the Baikove cemetery also has its own temple. This is a wooden small church-chapel of the Resurrection of the Word. It was built in our century, in 2008. The crematorium of the Baikove cemetery was built in 1975. There is a columbarium nearby.
Merciless time
Currently, there is a lot of greenery at the Baykove cemetery in Kyiv, paths have been laid. But at the very beginning of the burial were located randomly. Krause undertook to put things in order in the 40s of the 19th 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 there are no mass graves, the trees that were planted on the orders of Krause have grown and the churchyard has begun to resemble a forest. Monuments and crypts are in a dilapidated state. This is especially true of those that were placed when the Baikovo cemetery was just beginning to exist. In total, there are about 190,000 graves on it.
After death - in its place
An interesting fact is that the cemetery is divided into certain sectors. People belonging to certain societies during life, and after death, should lie side by side. For example, there are plots where only professors and teachers of the Kyiv 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 equally famous personalities.
There are sectors in which the 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. You can enter the territory of the cemetery, depending on the religion, through one of the gates. They resemble in their appearance temples of various religious denominations. There are three entrances in total: for Catholics, Lutherans and Orthodox.
Monuments of Baikovo Cemetery
People often come to large graveyards not only to commemorate their loved ones. They want to pay tribute and respect to famous people with whom they could not communicate in person during their lifetime. Famous artists, doctors, scientists, military personnel, writers, government officials buried at the Baikovo cemeteryfigures, artists, church ministers, musicians often receive the attention of strangers. Flowers are brought to their graves, and the monuments that immortalize their memory are often sculptural masterpieces. But some of them are quite simple.
It happens that the monument that adorns the burial of a we althy citizen looks more luxurious than the one that stands at the resting place of a person who has made a significant contribution to the development of culture or art. The graves of celebrities at the Baikovo cemetery, the photos of which are presented in this article, are located here in large numbers. It is the leader in burials of famous people in Kyiv.
We knew them too
Famous in Soviet times, and even now popularly loved actor and director Leonid Bykov. He is familiar from the films "Maxim Perepelitsa", "Aleshkin's Love", where he played the main roles. And also became favorite for several generations of people "Bunny", "Only old men go to battle", "Aty-bats, there were soldiers", 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. His final resting place was the Baikovo cemetery. How to get there? Arrive there and find the site at number 33. To do this, go through the main entrance, go up to the crematorium. Then turn right and follow the road until the monument appears.
Currently, a bust is installed on the grave - the head of an actor who looks thoughtfully into the distance. It is said that he himself was a very modest man andsuch a "decoration" would be considered too pompous. But be that as it may, many people come to his grave, bring flowers, light candles.
A monument erected in honor of the popular actor Borislav Brondukov is located at site number 49. 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 whole years. Brondukov was absolutely unable to move or talk. But he kept a clear mind. This made it even harder for relatives and friends to look into his tearful eyes. A stone cross was erected on his grave three years after his death in 2007. Now everyone can visit the artist and leave flowers near the monument, symbolizing immortality and salvation.
People familiar to many
The grave of Lesya Ukrainka is located in the old cemetery. This is a well-known poetess, writer and public figure 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 fortitude that he not only lived, but created and became famous. 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 carved on a pedestal under a pseudonym. 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.years. The monument is a high podium and a half-figure of a Ukrainian woman standing on it, holding a book in her 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 a well-groomed site 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".
The surgeon Nikolai Amosov was also buried at the Baikove cemetery. He is famous for his work on improving the methods of operating the lungs, heart, blood vessels. He headed one of the departments of the Kyiv Institute, wrote several books. His literary work "Voices of the Time" was 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 balloon with a cardiogram stamped on it.
Like everywhere else
There are many interesting monuments at the Baikove 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 here. During such travels, one comes across very interesting and unusual monuments erected by ordinary people to their relatives. For example, human figurescompletely repeating the appearance of a person in life. Some are waiting for their loved ones, stretched out to their full height, others are sitting, waiting for someone to sit next to them to commemorate. Monuments to dancers depict them in a dance, pilots here with their aircraft or parts from them, writers with the heroes of their work. Other graves have full-length angels, crosses, candles, flowerpots, etc.
Crypts at Baikove Cemetery
Probably, this is the most unusual for our time, mysterious, attracting attention and at the same time the most frightening of all that can be seen here. Ancient buildings made in various techniques should have been preserved for posterity as interesting examples of funerary architecture of the past. But, oddly enough, at the Baikove cemetery they are gradually being destroyed and derelict.
They don't even keep track of them and don't even know who owned some of them, the names of which have been erased from time to time. The most unpleasant thing is that coffins with the decayed remains of people who, during their lifetime, took care to rest in a beautiful, prestigious place, disappeared from the crypts. Inside is empty and dirty. Informal youth, homeless and homeless individuals are not afraid to come here. They spoil and soil what is still left of the former decoration.
But before (as far as you can judge by what is left) 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 dared to take this step even invited famous architects of their time to buildtomb according to a special project. Moreover, at the Baikove cemetery you can find crypts made in various styles. There are classics, and gothic, and a mixture of trends, in accordance with the taste of the owners. Inside the tomb had two rooms. The first was intended to commemorate the dead, and the second, which contained the coffins with the bodies, went underground.
Fortune Tomb
There is one crypt on the territory of the cemetery, which has its own legend. It belonged to the famous Kyiv sausage manufacturer Mikhail Aristarkhov. On the facade of the tomb there is a bronze bas-relief depicting the Archangel, after whom Michael was named. It is known about him that he overcame Lucifer himself.
If, standing in front of the crypt, you see a trace of a burn on the shoulder of the sculpture, the place from which the all-conquering ray of light struck, then the help of the Archangel will not take long, and he will patronize the one who showed care near the tomb of his namesake.
In addition, Mikhail of Kyiv is considered the patron saint of the entire city. And Aristarkhov himself owned a sausage factory, was involved in politics in order to promote his interests in the Duma, and was a church warden. But we alth, as you know, is not a panacea for troubles and diseases, and in 1912 he died and was honored to be buried here, in his own crypt, made in the Gothic style.
Crematorium at Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv
Seeing this building for the first time, not everyone can immediately guess what it issuch. It is not for nothing that the famous architects Avraam Miletsky, Ada Rybachuk and Vladimir Melnichenko worked on its creation from 1968 to 1981. The building looks like something futuristic. Entering the unknown and unknown.
Spouses Melnichenko and Rybachuk just imagined the crematorium. It was not supposed to be a reminder of death as the final stop in human existence. On the contrary, for 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.
Architects have taken care to make the 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 did not manage to realize all the ideas. And some have become technically impossible. For example, colored stained-glass windows that 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 Shcherbytsky. The party leadership was embarrassed by the non-Slavic noses of the sculptures that were supposed to be installed on it. It was decided to fill the wall with concrete. The management was not even embarrassed by the fact that the craftsmen had been working on it for 10 years. During this period, they made life-size sculptures, welded frames for them, laid the first layer of soil. But on the other hand, the architects managed to achieve a feeling of lightness, which is difficult to do when erecting reinforced concrete buildings. The above ground part is just the entranceunderground, where the crematorium itself is located, where there is also a farewell hall.
How to get to Baikove cemetery (Kyiv)
It's very easy to make. You need to get to the metro station "Palace Ukraine", and from there walk. The journey will take 15-20 minutes. It is impossible to get lost, since the cemetery is located on a hill, which you have to climb and, in addition, is fenced with a red brick fence. Excursions are held on its territory, during which the guide tells interestingly and in detail about everything that is located here, and about the people buried here. For those who want to visit the Baikovo cemetery on their own, the address is to help: st. Baikovaya, 2. It is not recommended to go far inland, as you can easily get lost among the overgrown graves.
Keep 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 lonely people. A watchman worked here, there were pointers to the burial places of famous people, special guides to cemeteries were issued. It is a pity that many monuments and tombs have been destroyed in our time.
One can only guess what is going on in the minds of people who are able to relieve themselves in a crypt or on a grave. But the fact remains. There is a lot of garbage and thickets at the Baikove cemetery. Drug addicts, Goths and other informals gather here, 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 also those who are interested in the history of people who have found rest here. Moreover, many of those who are buried here are known not only in Ukraine, but also abroad.
