Piskaryovskoe cemetary #1

You have to reach it by autobus: there are no trolleybuses or tramways in this part of town. Actually, the metro line was closed at first because of a landslide; when I went, it was still closed between two stations, so people packed onto an autobus to the next station. The bus goes past Iskrasoft, a "modern" office building standing alone, which is the kind of place a company must site itself at if it wants good telecommunications links.

Now the somber part. These are the 500 000 people who died during the Siege of Leningrad in WWII. Each plot, almost as big as a tennis court, is marked only with the year. There are twelve plots for 1942, then another twelve for 1943, and a few more for 1944. Slava's grandfather died during this siege.

St Petersburg, Russia -- September 1995