Lively interest

The authorities of St. Petersburg are trying to regulate the funeral business

The administration of St. Petersburg has decided on a policy for the development of city cemeteries. Despite the fact that the territory needed for the ritual needs of the population of the northern capital is five to six times less than it is now, the city is not going to close any graveyards or build up them. Moreover, it is planned to open three new ones - in the Kolpinsky, Kurortny, Petrodvortsovy districts, as well as to resume burials at the Smolensk cemetery.

The process of regulating ritual issues began in St. Petersburg in 2004. A couple of years earlier, after the massive capitalization of the nineties, officials saw that the ritual business was completely out of their control. State enterprises, which always service cemeteries, seem to remain, but have turned into extras. The churchyards were rented out, and the tenants did what they wanted with them.

We are no longer talking about the cynical extortion of money from ordinary people who followed the hearses to graves that had not yet been dug, or about drunken “wordsmiths” who increased the cost of the monument with each arrival of clients. This practice became commonplace and is still preserved in some places. It made my hair stand on end that in the memorable Smolensk cemetery (not to mention others) ten meters from the grave of Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko, next to the chapel of Blessed Xenia, the legends of “gangster Petersburg” killed in criminal showdowns found their final resting place. Because at the cemetery “In Memory of the Victims of January 9”, without any permits or approvals, a plot for a pet cemetery was laid out. And one can imagine what the elderly woman felt when she came to her husband’s grave, straightened the lopsided cross, painted with oil paint more than once, and looked at the black and gold monuments to Tuzik and Bobik. The ritual business has become one of the most criminalized sectors of the urban economy.

The city authorities could not turn a blind eye to this. How, however, to fight this. Attempts to break lease agreements with “cemetery tenants” only led to lengthy litigation without much hope of success, since this area of ​​activity was not clearly regulated. Then the officials took a rather dubious but effective move. They turned to the intelligence services, and at the federal level. In particular, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Federal Security Service.

Some decisions were made at the highest level. And the process began. Two ways. Obviously, the Ministry of Internal Affairs raised a number of high-profile cases and imprisoned a number of criminal authorities who controlled the cemetery market. And secretly - a number of former FSB employees (and, as we know, there are no former employees in this department) created and headed the Russian Association of Funeral Services with seemingly independent associations at the regional level. All this was told to the Vremya Novostey correspondent at the St. Petersburg Association of Funeral Services.

This was a dubious but forced step by the authorities. The “formers” still don’t need criminal chaos. Bandit tenants were disposed of by all possible legal means. And those who agreed to accept the rules of the new game were left in business, forcing their activities into strict limits. And now we can say that the sphere of funeral services has returned to normal. To a state of moral and financial balance that suits both the state and its citizens.

Then the subjects of the ritual industry managed to fight off the builders, who saw under the crosses only another site for compaction construction. Investors, however, managed in many cases to overcome the 500 “sanitary” meters that should separate cemeteries from the rest of the city. But they have not yet succeeded in rolling the graveyards into asphalt. And it probably won't succeed. Previously, city authorities specifically lobbied for the idea that 88 St. Petersburg cemeteries were not enough. Now they are saying that for the needs of the population of a city of five million, five to six times less ritual space is needed. But at the same time they declare that not a single graveyard will be closed, and announce the opening of new ones.

There are and will be problems, as the head of the funeral services department of the said committee, Vladimir Rodkin, told Vremya Novostei. But they are no longer the same as before. Almost all existing problems boil down to a lack of funds and the lack of culture of visitors. In this regard, the protection of cemeteries from vandals is very concerning.

Let us recall that St. Petersburg experienced several ritual pogroms. The most notorious case was the desecration of graves at the Preobrazhenskoye Jewish cemetery in 2004. Vandals damaged more than a hundred monuments. They painted them with white and black paint with a fascist swastika, SS symbols and the numbers “88” (numerical designation of the initials of the Fuhrer). The scum was not stopped even by the fact that some of the graves were military mass graves. They also destroyed the ablution house and toppled and smashed about 50 tombstones. In other cases, vandals visited the Serafimovskoye and Shuvalovskoye cemeteries, where military graves were also damaged. One day, unknown vandals painted swastikas on the steles - the tombstones above the mass grave around the Eternal Flame on the Champs de Mars. St. Petersburg residents were especially offended by the incident at the cemetery “In Memory of the Victims of January 9,” when the slabs of the columbarium were split, and broken urns, pulled out of their cells, lay on the ground.

This year, two incidents were recorded - in May, at the Petrodvortsovo cemetery, vandals painted and toppled about 70 monuments and 30 crosses, and in June, at the Strelninskoye cemetery, they damaged 20 tombstones. It is practically impossible to ensure the protection of territories, in some cases exceeding 300 hectares, like the Northern Cemetery, and without fences. Or rather, security companies are ready to take on this matter, valuing their services at 400 thousand rubles. per month, but without giving guarantees - again due to the immensity of the territories and the lack of fences. And if you multiply this fee by the number of cemeteries, you get about 35 million rubles. per month. Despite the fact that the city allocates 63 million rubles for the maintenance of all churchyards. per year.

The city authorities have calculated that this is categorically unprofitable, private security companies will simply suck into the budget. And they decided that it would be easier and cheaper to restore tombstones desecrated and destroyed by other circumstances at the expense of the city. They calculated again - 8754 rubles. compensation to the owner of the site should be sufficient. And most often it’s enough. As a result, over the past eight months, about 150 graves have been restored, spending 750 thousand rubles. True, no one knows how many graves are destroyed every year. Firstly, no one will consistently go around all the corners of all cemeteries, and secondly, the mechanism for allocating compensation can only be launched upon the application of the owner of the damaged tombstone. And no one appears at some graves for decades.

The process of new burials at abandoned graves also began to be regulated. Rumors that for money you can always find your beloved deceased relative or friend a good place from abandoned graves closer to the entrance or to the temple, were previously justified. Recently, police and prosecutorial checks have not confirmed such suspicions. Violations of sanitary and epidemiological norms and rules were revealed when a new grave was inserted into a path, pressing the old ones, or taken out close to asphalt or paved paths. But no burials in other people's graves were recorded. True, such an initiative comes from the city and is at the stage of legal investigation.

“So far, cemetery administrations,” Stanislav Borinov, general director of the company servicing the Preobrazhensky Pogost, tells Vremya Novostey, “cannot give abandoned graves, excuse me, a new life. Federal legislation provides for this kind of procedure, but does not prescribe it. But even without details, it is very complicated. The directorate of the cemetery is obliged to install a sign on an abandoned grave asking its owner to come to the administration. If for three years no one from the relatives of the buried person comes, the directorate goes to court, which can declare the burial ownerless and transfer it to the balance sheet. the district administration, which in turn transfers it to the cemetery administration. Only after this can a second burial be carried out. But as long as the city has free burial places, the court refuses such requests.”

Mikhail TELEKHOV, St. Petersburg