William Lahue (Russian Studies Program, College of William and Mary)
For abstract of the paper in Russian click here. Чтобы прочитать краткое изложение статьи по-русски, нажмите кнопкой мышки здесь.
Smolensky cemetery is the oldest continuously operating cemetery in St. Petersburg. It is located on Vasilievsky island banking the Smolensk river to the North and Maly prospect to the South. It is divided into Lutheran, Orthodox, and Armenian sections. Over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries the cemeteries’ identities were closely linked with religious identities of communities living around it. In the 20th century after the October revolution new atheistic authorities wanted to close the cemetery and viewed this effort as part of their war on the old regime. The story of the cemetery in the twentieth century is the story of the communities with religious identities resisting the official atheistic ideology enforced by the state authorities. The post-Soviet story of the cemetery, especially of its Orthodox section, is about the Orthodox Church restoring its symbolic control over the cemetery. In the face of this transition of power and values the Goth subculture has emerged and asserted itself in dialogue with the new dominant ideology.
The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow (Khram Khrista Spasitelia), Russia represents a site which has undergone much change over the past two centuries. Subject to the whims of Russian rulers, both imperial and soviet, both the Cathedral and the land on which it is built have provided not only opportunities for rulers to flex their political muscles and display their wealth but also a lasting reminder of their failures. 
Located just off of Nevsky Prospekt, the Holy Resurrection Church (Spas-na-krovi) was originally erected in memory of Tsar Alexander II by his son, Alexander III. As the Great Reformist Tsar, Alexander II became a symbol of the new, liberal Russia, legally free of serfdom and moving ever closer to Westernization. Ironically enough, Alexander II was assassinated by a terrorist group, the People’s Will (Narodnaya volia), in a planned bombing. 
Dominating the skyline of St. Petersburg, St. Isaac’s Cathedral (Isaakievskii sobor) is an unmistakable landmark: its gold dome and proximity to the Neva River and Nevskii Prospekt make it hard to miss. The interior of the second largest Russian Orthodox church is richly decorated with exotic marbles and designs from both Europe and Russia.