Kamskaya St., 24, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 199178
Surprisingly, there are two graves of Alexander Blok in Saint Petersburg. Fans of the poet visit both of them, as no one is still certain where his remains are actually buried. Initially, Blok was buried at the Smolensky Orthodox Cemetery, next to other family members. According to his will, the tombstone was made in the form of a simple wooden cross. In 1944, it was decided to move the grave to the Volkovo Cemetery, to the prestigious Literatorskie Mostki (Writers' Footpaths). Biographers of Blok saw no sense in this action, considering it unnecessary. The new burial site caused many discrepancies regarding where admirers of Blok’s work should make their pilgrimage. Historians claim that only the skull was moved to Volkovo Cemetery, while the rest of the ashes remained in place. This version was confirmed by the art historian, academician Dmitry Likhachyov. Today, at the Literatorskie Mostki, one can see a beautiful memorial in the form of a black stele with the poet’s name and years of life. Fans love this place and willingly come to honor the memory of the outstanding Russian symbolist.
Although Alexander Blok accepted the October Revolution and wished to live and work in difficult times alongside his country, the authorities treated him with distrust. This did not prevent them from overloading him with work in various committees and commissions, offering almost no moral or material support. By the summer of 1921, in the conditions of a hungry and cold revolutionary Petrograd, Blok’s physical and mental strength was almost completely exhausted, and life lost its meaning for him. Some believe that treatment in a sanatorium in Finland could have saved him, but the decision to leave with his wife was delayed for several months and was obtained practically on the day of his death.
Blok was prescribed various medicines, medical councils were held, but throughout the summer of 1921 his condition steadily worsened, with a progressive increase in heart weakness. The cause of death was named as inflammation of the heart valves. According to modern doctors, it was subacute septic endocarditis, a subtly developing disease that most often affects men aged twenty to forty. It is assumed that in Blok’s case, the endocarditis was caused by chronic tonsillitis, meaning that an operation to remove the constantly inflamed tonsils should have been performed much earlier. To this day, septic endocarditis is not always correctly diagnosed and treated, and not always successfully, even with the use of antibiotics, which only began to be widely used starting from the 1940s.
Alexander Blok died on the morning of August 7. It became known only the day before that the funeral would take place on the morning of August 10, so there was no time to publish an announcement in newspapers. Only posters announcing the funeral were put up. Nevertheless, about a thousand mourners gathered, which was surprising for the depopulated Petrograd of the post-revolutionary years. For six kilometers from Dekabristov Street (formerly Officers’ Street), where Blok lived, to the cemetery, the open coffin with the body was carried by hand. There was no music or farewell speeches.
The funeral service took place in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, which stood on the bank of the Smolenka River, near the cemetery gates. The deceased was buried on the Ginterovskaya (now Blokovskaya) path of the Smolensky Cemetery next to the graves of his relatives. In the following years, all who wished to honor the poet’s memory came to the grave located deep in the cemetery, marked by a simple wooden cross and a bench standing nearby.
On the twentieth anniversary of Alexander Blok’s death, it was planned to reinter his remains in the “Literatorskie Mostki” section of the Volkovo Necropolis. However, this was prevented by the outbreak of war and the tragic blockade period in Leningrad’s history. During the blockade, the grave cross and the bench next to it disappeared, and the grave itself was almost completely leveled with the ground. Just two years later, Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky with great difficulty found this place. The cause was not so much oblivion as the hard years of survival. In 1937, instead of the cross, a standard concrete basin was installed. Lyubov Dmitrievna was still alive at that time; she managed to insist on restoring the grave’s former appearance — a mound with a cross.
During the blockade, the cross disappeared; in its place, an iron rod with the inscription “Blok” was stuck into the grave. After the blockade was lifted, it was decided to reinter the remains at the Literatorskie Mostki. At the end of September 1944, the remains of Alexander Blok and his relatives were exhumed from the Smolensky burial ground, transported by cart to the Literatorskie Mostki, and buried there on a plot formerly belonging to the Shvakhgeim family. Two years later, a simple black marble obelisk with a bas-relief portrait of the poet and a commemorative inscription was installed on the new grave. The resting place of the poet and his relatives is surrounded by a decorative metal fence.
As contemporaries claim, Blok’s remains were not fully transferred to the new location; it is said that only his skull was moved. Thus, Alexander Blok now has two places of final rest — at the Smolensky and Volkovo cemeteries in Saint Petersburg. And all those who cherish the work of the outstanding Russian symbolist poet come to honor his memory and lay flowers at both graves.
How to find Blok’s grave? The Smolensky Orthodox Cemetery in Petersburg is located at 26 Kamskaya Street. If you enter the necropolis from the Kamskaya side, through the Epiphany Gates, and walk along the Petrogradskaya path, on the right-hand side you will see the Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God. Then you need to continue walking straight through several paths without turning — the Straight, Speransky, and Trinity paths. Beyond them is an open area without paths. At the end of it is a sign “Blokovskaya path.” This trail will lead you to the poet’s grave.
Sources:
https://spb.ritual.ru/poleznaya-informatsiya/stati/mogila-a-bloka-v-peterburge/
https://spbgorritual.ru/religiya-i-traditsii/dve-mogily-aleksandra-bloka/
