Editing Novodevichy Cemetery (section)

== History ==
The cemetery was designed by [[Ivan Mashkov]] and inaugurated in 1898.<ref name=pass>{{cite news|title=Novodevichy Cemetery|url=http://www.passportmagazine.ru/article/1099/|access-date=12 September 2013|newspaper=Passport Magazine|date=April 2008}}</ref> Its importance dates from the 1930s, when the necropolises of the medieval Muscovite monasteries ([[Simonov Monastery|Simonov]], [[Danilov Monastery|Danilov]], [[Donskoy Monastery|Donskoy]]) were scheduled for demolition. Only the Donskoy survived the [[Joseph Stalin]] era relatively intact. The remains of many famous Russians buried in other abbeys, such as [[Nikolai Gogol]] and [[Sergey Aksakov]], were disinterred and reburied at the Novodevichy.

A 19th-century necropolis within the walls of the Novodevichy convent, which contained the graves of about 2000 Russian noblemen and university professors, also underwent reconstruction. The vast majority of graves were destroyed. It was at that time that the remains of [[Anton Chekhov]] were moved outside the monastery walls. His grave served as the kernel of the so-called "cherry orchard" – a section of the cemetery which contains the graves of [[Konstantin Stanislavski]] and the leading actors of his company.