A 'special funeral operation'

How St. Petersburg officials, police, and Wagner mercenaries kept the media's eyes off Yevgeny Prigozhin's funeral

On August 29, a closed memorial service was held in St. Petersburg for Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died last week when his private jet crashed in Russia’s Tver region. The details of the funeral were kept under wraps until the last minute, and police officers as well as people who appeared to be Wagner Group members showed up at multiple other cemeteries simultaneously. Journalists from the outlet Bumaga who spent all day stationed at the city’s graveyards published a report about how the Russian authorities conducted their “special funeral operation.” With their permission, Meduza publishes an English-language version of the story.

9:00

From the early morning, there’s standstill traffic outside of St. Petersburg’s Serafimovskoe Cemetery; police have cordoned off the site from hundreds of meters away.

Journalists have already crowded around the cemetery gates, which are blocked off by security officials. Police officers are checking people’s bags, stopping anybody with any recording equipment from entering, and stopping every other person for a miniature interrogation.

“For what purpose are you trying to enter?”

“This is a public space.”

“What’s your purpose?”

“I’m going to see distant relatives.”

There are currently no freshly dug graves in the cemetery, according to one employee. It seems likely that Prigozhin’s potential burial site would be in one of the spots with the best views — in the center, among the decorated veterans. The grave plots here are pre-marked and the grass is carefully mowed.

“Yesterday, they wouldn’t let us go home. We stayed here and cleaned everything up,” a landscaper says. He insists that “neither the employees nor the director know anything about any upcoming funerals for Yevgeny Prigozhin or his assistants.”

Three men in business suits are leisurely strolling past the monuments in a well-manicured area: Vasily Vlasov, a State Duma deputy from the ultraconservative Liberal Democratic Party of Russia; Dmitry Gryzlov, the son of United Russia Supreme Council chairman Boris Gryzlov; and LDPR member Sergey Abeltsev, who’s known for having organized an attack on human rights advocates Lev Ponomarev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva in 2008.

When asked about the time and location of Prigozhin’s funeral, Vasily Vlasov shrugs his shoulders.

“Why did you come here?” Bumaga’s correspondent asks.

“We’re just out walking around. We came to attend an event that will be held nearby, not at the cemetery,” Vlasov responds.

Just days earlier, the lawmaker proposed renaming St. Petersburg’s Zolnaya Street, the former site of the PMC Wagner Center building, in honor of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Policemen, OMON (riot police) officers, and demining workers have been patrolling the cemetery grounds since morning. By noon, they get tired and start chatting with visitors.

“We don’t know anything ourselves. I just came here between shifts,” says a man in a police uniform.

Elsewhere, a man in a military uniform with a Wagner patch is walking around the cemetery with a bouquet of carnations. He avoids journalists and declines to give a comment.

“You can wait here until 6:00 p.m. If the director gets a call, they can dig a grave here quickly at a moment’s notice,” one person is overheard saying.

People gather around the church in the center of the cemetery. Around lunchtime, a hearse arrives. People with flowers can be seen walking around. Then, in the chapel, a funeral is held not for Prigozhin but for an unidentified local man.

12:00

Around lunchtime, as media sources predicted yesterday, the funeral of Valery Chekalov, Prigozhin’s associate in business and mercenary activity, begins in St. Petersburg’s Severnoye Cemetery. About 100 people crowd around the cemetery church as a memorial ceremony is held inside. No officials or police officers attend the event.

Unidentified people in black uniforms order journalists to put away their cameras and phones, threatening them.

The funeral itself is over quickly and doesn’t contain any speeches or processions. Neither Chekalov’s widow nor his close friends speak to the press.

It’s around this time that members of the media notice a motorcade outside of the Manege of the Cadet Corps on St. Petersburg’s Vasilyevsky Island. People from the facility say that a “private event” is being held there and that “people are mourning.” A hearse drives right up to the doors, as if a coffin is being unloaded from it, and a procession begins.

Dozens of reporters and photographers speculate about where the procession is headed. The prestigious Smolensk Cemetery, where a commander of the Leningrad Regiment who was killed in Ukraine was buried, for example, is much closer.

“Gravediggers and funeral employees wait to receive the go-ahead at both the Serafimovskoe Cemetery and the Smolensk Cemetery,” the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel VChK-OGPU reports, citing its own sources.

A new term for the secretive funeral proceedings begins circulating among journalists: “Special funeral operation.”

It soon becomes clear that the procession at the Manege of the Cadet Corps was just a performance. The outlet Fontanka publishes images of the premises that show an empty room with no signs of a public event.

“It’s quiet at at Smolensk,” journalists report.

3:00 p.m.

Soon after that, the procession of black cars that was parked at the Manege is spotted at the Beloostrovskoye Cemetery. At the Serafimovskoe Cemetery, people begin discussing how ironic it will be if Prigozhin is buried next to Dmitry Menshikov, who was recruited to Wagner Group from prison. Late last year, the paramilitary group founder spent a long time lobbying with city authorities (unsuccessfully) to get his fighter a spot in the cemetery’s “Alley of Heroes” and a burial with military honors. In December 2022, Menshikov was given a theatrical funeral at Beloostrovskoye — much like the one being held there now.

Large men wearing black clothing and carrying flowers step out of vehicles. They leave carnations on the graves of six Wagner Group fighters and then leave.

Meanwhile, at Serafimovskoe Cemetery, the police are gradually dispersing. Visitors ask them about what’s happening.

“Have Prigozhin’s relatives made any announcements? In the last news update, it said that everything was at the discretion of his relatives,” asks one woman.

“Of course — because they’re known for being so public,” the officers retort.

5:00 p.m.

In the evening, the liturgy begins in the center of the Serafimovskoe Cemetery. The police leave the gates. The Telegram channel “Prigozhin’s Press Service” sends out a message: “The farewell ceremony for Yevgeny Prigozhin was held in private [...] at the Porokhov Cemetery.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried earlier in the day, without “pomp and circumstance,” next to his father.

“Even after his death, Prigozhin is trolling journalists,” one media figure says.

Some of the outsmarted journalists take pictures next to the Serafimovskoe Cemetery sign for memory’s sake.