Tikhvin Cemetery () is a historic cemetery in the centre of Saint Petersburg. It is part of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and is one of four cemeteries in the complex. Since 1932 it has been part of the , which refers to it as the Necropolis of the Masters of Art ().
Opened in 1823 after the monastery's first cemetery, the Lazarevskoe, had become overcrowded, the cemetery was initially called the "New Lazarevsky". It acquired its name after the building of its cemetery church, consecrated to the icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God. It soon superseded the Lazarevskoe Cemetery and became a popular and prestigious burial ground. The first literary figure, Nikolay Karamzin, was buried in the cemetery in 1826, followed in 1833 by Nikolay Gnedich, an associate of Alexander Pushkin's. Several other friends of Pushkin were later buried in the cemetery. Particularly significant interments were those of Mikhail Glinka in 1857, Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1881, Modest Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin in the 1880s, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1893.
During the Soviet period the cemetery was earmarked for development into a museum necropolis, envisaged primarily as a landscaped park, with strategically placed memorials to important figures of Russian history. With several notable artists having already been buried in the cemetery, it was decided to designate it as the "Necropolis of the Masters of Art". During the 1930s many important Russian composers, painters, sculptors, writers and poets were exhumed from their original resting places across the city, and brought, with or without their monuments, to be reburied in the Tikhvin cemetery. At the same time the monuments of those figures deemed not in keeping with the artistic theme of the cemetery were removed or destroyed. Several more burials of particularly important artists took place during the Soviet period, as the cemetery established a role as a kind of national pantheon.
Establishment
The cemetery is located close to Alexander Nevsky Square, to the right of the pathway leading from the Gate Church to the . This land had previously been occupied with ornamental and vegetable gardens. The first cemetery in the monastery, the Lazarevskoe Cemetery, had been established in 1717, and by the early nineteenth century was becoming overcrowded. In March 1823 the monastery authorities proposed the creation of a new burial ground opposite the St. Petersburg Theological Consistory. The new cemetery, initially called the "New Lazarevsky" (), was established in the eastern part of the plot of land, between the pathway to the monastery, and the consistory building, enclosed with a wooden fence. Over time it expanded to the west, into the areas formerly occupied by monastic gardens, and in the 1870s it was enclosed with a stone wall.
Cemetery church
The brothers D. M. and N. M. Polezhaev, wealthy merchants, funded the construction of a cemetery church, laid down on 26 September 1869 and built to the design of architect N. P. Grebyonki. The church was consecrated on 2 February 1873 in the name of the icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God, which from about 1876 became the common name of the cemetery. Two icons, one of Saint Dimitry of Rostov, and one of Saint Mary of Egypt, were painted by Pavel Pleshanov for the church. In 1825 the church and cemetery were visited by Emperor Alexander I, prior to his journey to Taganrog.
The burial vault of Polezhaev family was in the crypt of the church, and in 1901 the church underwent renovations. In 1918 archpriest Peter Skipetrov of the Gate Church, who had been shot and killed during an early attempt by the Bolsheviks to requisition the monastery on 19 January 1918, was buried under the church's altar. The church was closed in 1931 and between 1935 and 1937 it was converted into a post office, with the destruction of its facades and interiors. With the establishment of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture, the building housed its scientific department, and now houses an exhibition hall as part of the museum.