Paper short abstract:

My report focuses on the analysis of every-day life at the Novodevichy cemetery, which has become a cultural and educational site and a popular tourist destination: which actors exist in the cemetery, what is their role in the maintenance of the cemetery space, how the cemetery space is understood.

Paper long abstract:

My report focuses on the analysis of Novodevichy cemetery – Moscow necropolis, which has become a cultural and educational site and a popular tourist destination. The cemetery contains the largest number of famous people burials in Russia (the burial sites are allocated by the government only) and has a tour bureau and a souvenir shop. I conducted my research using qualitative methods: observation and go-along interviews. I will be interested in how the every-day life at the cemetery goes: which actors exist in the cemetery, what is their role in the maintenance of the cemetery space, how the cemetery space is understood within its special status. I will discuss the tourist category in detail to show some important aspects. The first is that some cemeteries in the modern world is not only becoming a touristic place but also combines several different groups of visitors in its space. I suppose that the separation of the cemetery as a memorial space and as a tourist space is not limited to one of these models, excluding the rest. I will show it by the example of a funeral situation, which I managed to witness during my fieldwork. Second, each of these groups regulates the cemetery as memory space, also in terms of their responsibility that defines their practices, but these narratives overlap and interfere with each other. These narratives, which fix the cemetery as certain memory space, are in many ways determined by the physical characteristics of the cemetery and buried status.