Bugrovskoe Cemetery is an active municipal cemetery in Artelny Street area, located in Nizhegorodsky District, Nizhny Novgorod. The cemetery's address is 34 Pushkina Street, in Sovetsky District of Nizhny Novgorod; its red brick enclosure wall is listed in the register of cultural heritage sites.[1] The cemetery serves as one of the reference points for locating the geographic center of the city: the coordinates 56°18′ N and 44°00′ E correspond precisely to this block, just beyond the cemetery. The cemetery was effectively established during the First World War, funded by Varvara Mikhaylovna Rukavishnikova, a member of the well-known Nizhny Novgorod merchant family.[2][1]

History and Significance

The cemetery is counted among the principal historic necropolises of Nizhny Novgorod, alongside the Vsesvatsky (Petropavlovsky) Cemetery and Maryina Roscha Cemetery. The name "Bugrovskoe" became attached to the cemetery owing to its proximity to a former Old Believer hermitage on whose grounds the merchant and philanthropist Nikolay Bugrov was buried; the hermitage itself was demolished in the 1930s, no reburials were carried out, and Bugrov's grave has been irretrievably lost.[3][2] Bugrovskoe Cemetery holds a handwritten inventory of graves that has made it possible to establish the life dates of individuals not reflected in other sources. The cemetery went by several official and unofficial names: New Municipal, Red (after the color of the brick enclosure), Old, Old Believer; before the founding of Maryina Roscha Cemetery in 1938 it was also known as the cemetery near Maryina Roscha.[2] In particular, the necropolist Moskvin discovered here a plaque bearing the life dates of the historian and linguist Fyodor Vyacheslavovich Rzhiga (1848–1925/1926), although from newspaper sources (Nizhegorodskaya Kommuna) he established that the scholar died on 5 March 1926 — the cemetery date proved to be erroneous. Rzhiga's grave, treated as ownerless, was subsequently destroyed.

The cemetery contains a mass grave of victims of the air raid on the Avtozavod during the years of the Great Patriotic War. Among those buried at the cemetery are: former Governor and former Mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Ivan Sklyarov (d. 2007), Honored Master of Sports and Torpedo and USSR national team forward Aleksandr Skvortsov, as well as Hydromash Plant president Vladimir Luzyanin (d. August 18, 2021).[1]

Location and surroundings

The cemetery is situated near Pushkina Street and Lyadov Square. The main entrance is framed by a semicircular arch decorated with crosses and white floral and star ornaments; the arch is popularly known as the "Gate with Two Guardsmen".[1][3] Artelnaya Street, which runs behind the cemetery, serves as a topographic reference point when describing the geographic center of Nizhny Novgorod.[1]

Sources

  1. V gorode N — The cemetery is located at 34 Pushkina Street, in the Sovetsky District of Nizhny Novgorod; the red brick fence is listed in the register of cultural heritage sites (archive)
  2. Wikipedia (ru) — The cemetery had several official and unofficial names: Novoye Gorodskoye, Krasnoye (after the color of the brick fence), Staroye, Staroobryadcheskoye; before the founding of the cem (archive)
  3. NewsNN — The name "Bugrovskoe" became associated with the cemetery due to its proximity to a former Old Believer hermitage, on whose grounds the merchant and philanthropist Nik (archive)
Materials from articles (5) were used

Vsesvyatskoye Cemetery, Pushkina Street, Coordinate, Air Raid of November 4, Moskvin, the Necropolist