PISKARIOVSKOYE MEMORIAL CEMETERY

This sobering place conveys the scale of tragedy that St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad) lived through during the Second World War (the 900-day Siege of Leningrad). For over 2 and a half years the Nazis kept Leningrad under siege, but its heroic defenders, both soldiers and civilians, did not surrender. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the city (mostly of cold and starvation) during the siege. About half a million, including 420,000 civilians, are buried in the Piskarevskoe Cemetery's 186 mass graves. The slightly raised mounds are marked by year and a long alley leads the visitor to a monument with a statue of the Motherland, portrayed as a grieving woman.

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