Where Peter's ashes are buried. What is now in the royal graves? In "Helping the Hungry"

Peter I (May 30, 1672 - January 28, 1725) - the last tsar and the first emperor of Russia, the son of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.

White marble sarcophagus in the fence. On the upper face there is a bronze gilded cross, in the corners there are 4 double-headed eagles. On the side face there is a bronze plaque with an epitaph. Near the wall is the St. Andrew's flag, the banner of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment and a bronze bust by the sculptor K. Albagini.
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Death and funeral of Peter the Great

The sick emperor especially struck everyone when, on January 6, in frost, he marched at the head of the Preobrazhensky Regiment along the banks of the Neva, then went down to the ice and stood throughout the church service, while the Jordan, an ice-hole cut in the ice, was holy. All this led to the fact that Peter caught a bad cold, went to bed and from January 17 began to experience terrible torment. This illness was the last in his life.

There are several versions of the diagnosis of Peter's fatal illness. The French ambassador to Russia, Campredon, reported to Paris: the tsar "summoned an Italian doctor, my friend (Dr. Azariti - V.B.), with whom he wished to consult alone." Further, Campredon wrote that, according to Azariti, "urinary retention is the result of an old venereal disease, from which several small ulcers formed in the urinary canal."
The German doctors who treated Peter, the Blumentrost brothers, were against surgical intervention, and when the English surgeon Gorn nevertheless performed the operation, it was already too late and Peter soon began to have “Anton fire”, as gangrene was called in Russia at that time. Convulsions followed, followed by delirium and deep fainting. For the last ten days, if the patient regained consciousness, he screamed terribly, for his torments were terrible.
In brief moments of relief, Peter prepared for death and received communion three times in the last week. He ordered the release of all debtors from prison and covered their debts from his sums, ordered the release of all prisoners, except for murderers and state criminals, and asked to serve prayers for him in all churches, not excluding churches of other faiths.
Catherine sat at his bedside, not leaving the dying man for a minute. Peter died on January 28, 1725 at the beginning of the sixth morning. Catherine herself closed his mouth and eyes, and having done this, she left the small room-study, or "desk", as she was called, into the next room, where they were waiting for her to proclaim Peter's successor.

Peter I died without leaving a will. The heirs to the throne could be considered: firstly, the son
executed Alexei - Peter, secondly, the daughters of Peter I and Catherine - Anna and Elizabeth, thirdly, the nieces of Peter I, the daughters of his older brother Ivan Alekseevich - Anna, Catherine and Praskovya. Anna occupied at that time the ducal throne in Courland, Catherine was a duchess in Mecklenburg, and Praskovya lived in Moscow, not being married. Fourthly, Ekaterina Alekseevna crowned with the imperial crown.
For three weeks Peter lay in bed, and every day access to the late Emperor was open to all people. As a result, the corpse turned green and stank strongly. Then it was decided to embalm him, put him in a coffin and put him in the hall until Easter. A huge coffin the size of an oblique sazhen (the Russian measure of length - an oblique sazhen - was 216 cm) was squeezed with difficulty into the cramped office where Peter died, unfolding and tilting it in all directions. For forty days, all Petersburg, dignitaries, clergy and merchants from Moscow and cities close to the new capital, said goodbye to the embalmed body of the emperor.
And three weeks after Peter's death, on February 22, the youngest of his daughters, six-year-old Natalya, died, and there was one more coffin in the Winter Palace.
When preparing the funeral ceremony, it turned out that the coffin with the body of the emperor did not pass through the door, and then, on the orders of the chief funeral director, General Feldzeich-meister, senator and cavalier, Count Jacob Bruce, one of the windows was turned into a door, and a spacious platform was erected to the window from below , on both sides of which there were wide stairs draped with black cloth. They didn’t make it to Easter, the corpse rapidly decomposed, and on the fortieth day it was decided to bury it in two days, and declare an annual mourning in Russia.
... At noon on March 10, 1725, three cannon shots announced the beginning of the emperor's funeral. Past the regiments lined up along the banks of the Neva, Peter's coffin was carried down the stairs to the embankment, and eight horses covered with blankets of black velvet drove the coffin to the berths of the main pier, and from there to a wooden platform specially built on the ice of the Neva, leading to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

More than thirty banners were carried behind the coffin. And the first of them were: the yellow standard of the Russian
fleet, the imperial banner black with a golden double-headed eagle and the white flag of Peter with the emblem depicted on it - a sculptor's steel chisel carving an unfinished statue from stone.
And in front of this famous group were members of the family of the deceased and two "first senators." The order in which they followed the coffin spoke a lot to both dignitaries and foreign diplomats, for he, this order, accurately reflected the alignment of forces and the importance of each of these people at court.
The first was the now Dowager Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna. On both sides, she was supported by Field Marshal and His Serene Highness Prince Menshikov and the Grand Chancellor, Count Golovkin.
They were followed by the daughters of Peter and Catherine - seventeen-year-old Anna and fifteen-year-old Elizabeth, then Peter's nieces - Princess Praskovya Ivanovna and Duchess Ekaterina Ivanovna of Mecklenburg, and behind them - relatives by the mother of the deceased - the Naryshkins. Together with them was the nine-year-old grandson of the deceased, the son of the executed Alexei - Peter and the fiancé of Anna Petrovna, Holstein Duke Karl-Friedrich. From the fact that the duke was in this procession, it should be assumed that he was considered a member of the royal family, although the wedding had not yet taken place.

... In less than ten years, almost all of these people will die. Only Grand Chancellor Golovkin and the daughter of Peter I - Elizabeth will be long-livers ...
The coffin of Peter was placed in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, which was still under construction, and he stood there unburied for six years. And only after that the coffin with the body of the deceased was buried ...

P.S. In addition to kidney disease, he suffered from asthma, epilepsy and alcoholism.

During the turbulent history of Petropavlovka, not only its external architectural appearance, but also the memorial one was formed. In fact, today it is a whole necropolis with facade, half-open and not yet explored sides.

Who is buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress

Official burials on the territory of the fortress appeared even before the completion of the construction of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, which became known as the Peter and Paul Cathedral. In a temple made of wood in 1708, Catherine, the daughter of Peter I, was the first to be buried in infancy. In 1715-1717, the graves of three more young children of the sovereign appeared in the unfinished cathedral - daughters Natalia, Margarita and son Pavel. At the same time, Queen Marfa Matveyevna also found her last refuge here.

Despite interfamily strife and accusations of conspiracy, at the behest of Peter the Great, his disgraced eldest son Alexei (died under unclear circumstances in 1718) and sister Maria (March 1723) rested in the imperial tomb. Their graves are located under the bell tower in the aisle of St. Catherine. In 1725, the body of the reposed Peter I was transferred to the church.

Peter the First

The last Tsar of All Russia (since 1682) and the first Emperor of All Russia (since 1721) died at the age of 52 in January 1725 in the Winter Palace. In accordance with the regulations of the ceremonial, developed by him, the body for parting was originally exhibited in the same place in the mourning hall. The sovereign was in a coffin in lace-embroidered brocade clothes with a sword and St. Andrew the First-Called on his chest.

After a month, he was embalmed and transferred to a temporary wooden church specially erected in honor of the sad case, installed right in the unfinished Cathedral of Peter and Paul. And only six years later, in 1731, at the behest of Anna Ioannovna, who reigned at that time, Peter the Great, together with his wife Catherine I, who reposed two years later than the sovereign, were buried in the imperial tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Their tombs-crypts, the chambers of which are located under the floor, are located at the southern entrance to the temple. As evidenced by inscriptions and crosses made of pure gold.

Tombs in the Peter and Paul Fortress

The fortress temple became the last home for almost all the sovereigns of Russia, including Alexander III.

Catherine II

The tomb of Catherine the Great, located in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, lacks an epitaph, which the Empress herself composed during her lifetime. “Having ascended the Russian throne, she wished well and tried to bring happiness, freedom and property to her subjects,” the empress wrote about herself. Her death was as turbulent and gossip-shrouded as her life.

But the most tragic thing is that the son Pavel, who inherited the crown, ordered to bury his mother next to the body of the murdered Peter III brought from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and crowned by him personally. The cocooned former spouses lay side by side in the mourning tent of the Winter Palace for 4 days in early December 1796, and then were moved to the cathedral to be interred.

“Just think that these spouses spent their whole lives together on the throne, died and were buried on the same day,” Nikolai Grech wrote about this event.

The general list does not include only Peter II, who was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin, as well as John VI Antonovich, who was killed in the Oreshek fortress. After the burial in 1831, at the request of Nicholas I, his brother Konstantin Pavlovich, members of the imperial family began to be buried on the territory of the temple.

Ekaterina Mikhailovna, Grand Duchess

The granddaughter of Paul I found her last refuge in the cathedral on May 4 (16), 1894, having died after a long illness. The Grand Duchess was known for her philanthropic work in Russia, her promotion of women's education, and her conservative views.

After death, the funeral litiya was held in her house - the Mikhailovsky Palace. Alexander III took part in the burial in the imperial tomb. The name of Ekaterina Mikhailovna went down in history as an example of philanthropy and care for one's neighbor.

In connection with the overcrowding of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, in 1897 - 1908, the Grand Duke's tomb was erected nearby, connected to it by a covered gallery. During the period from 1908 to 1915, the graves of 13 people appeared in it, 8 of which were reburied from the cathedral. Since 1992, the tradition has been resumed, and so far 4 burials of members and those close to the imperial family have been added.

Still buried in the Peter and Paul Fortress

Near the cathedral there was a commandant's cemetery, where almost all the chiefs of the fortress were laid to rest. In addition, from the moment the first prisoners appeared in Petropavlovka in 1717 and until the official closure of the Trubetskoy Bastion prison in 1923, cases of suicide and natural death were repeatedly recorded here. Therefore, it is possible that not all the dead were taken outside the citadel for burial.

Periodic random finds since the end of the 80s of the last century of the so-called execution pits with the remains of those killed in 1917-1921 indicate that these little-studied graves are chronologically the last in the history of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Russian Emperor Peter the Great died in the Winter Palace in January 1725 at the age of 52. The cause of death was called inflammation of the bladder, which turned into gangrene. The emperor's body was exhibited in the funeral hall of the Winter Palace so that everyone could say goodbye to him. The period of farewell continued for more than a month. Peter lay in a coffin in a brocade jacket with lace, in boots with spurs, with a sword and the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called on his chest. As a result, the corpse began to decompose, an unpleasant smell began to spread throughout the palace. The emperor's body was embalmed and transferred to Petropavlovsky. However, only 6 years later the body of the emperor was buried in the Royal tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, before that the coffin with the embalmed body simply stood in the temporary chapel of the cathedral still under construction.

The wife of Peter I Catherine survived her husband by only 2 years. Balls, entertainments and revels, which the Dowager Empress indulged in day and night, greatly undermined her health. Catherine died in May 1725 at the age of 43. If Peter I, by birthright, was to rest in the Tsar's tomb, then his wife could not boast of a noble origin. Catherine I, born Marta Skavronskaya, was born into a Baltic peasant family. She was captured by the Russian army during the Great Northern War. Peter was so fascinated by the captive peasant woman that he even married her and crowned her. The body of the empress, like that of her husband, was betrayed only in 1731 by order of Anna Ioannovna.

Royal tombs

In the pre-Petrine era, all members of the ruling dynasty in Russia were buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. All Moscow princes and tsars are buried there, starting with Ivan Kalita. During the reign of Peter I, there was no specific burial place for royalty. Members of the imperial family were buried in the Annunciation Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1715, the youngest daughter of Peter and Catherine, Natalya, died. The emperor ordered her to be buried in the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, which at that time had not yet been completed. Since that year, the Peter and Paul Cathedral has become the new royal tomb.

All Russian tsars rest within the walls of the Peter and Paul Cathedral: from Peter I to Alexander III. The graves of Peter and his wife Catherine are located near the southern entrance to the cathedral. Their graves are small crypts, which are located under the stone floor. In these crypts there are metal arks with coffins. Above the graves are marble slabs, decorated with inscriptions and golden crosses.

History of the Peter and Paul Cathedral

The construction of the Peter and Paul Cathedral began in 1712, Emperor Peter personally laid the first stone in its foundation. The work was led by the Italian architect Domenico Trezzini. The interior of the temple was striking in its luxury and splendor. The vaults were decorated with 18 paintings depicting scenes from the New Testament. The cathedral had a special royal place under a canopy, which was occupied by the monarch during divine services. With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, the cathedral and the tomb were closed and sealed. All church valuables were confiscated to help the starving. In 1998, the remains of Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their daughters Tatyana, Olga and Anastasia were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

The custom of burial of rulers and high dignitaries in the church came to Russia from Byzantium, it formed the basis of the tradition of erecting grand ducal temples-tombs for representatives of one dynasty. The Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin is such an ancestral necropolis. Representatives of Moscow's ruling dynasties, the Rurikids and the Romanovs, were buried here.

The Archangel Cathedral of Ivan Kalita became the first grand ducal tomb. By the beginning of the 16th century, Ivan III decided to disassemble the great-grandfather's tomb and build a new, more spacious one. Four years later, the stone tombs of the ancestors were returned to the newly built tomb. But first, its founder, Ivan III, who died on October 27, 1505, was laid in the cathedral.

The burial places of the Rurik princes are located along the walls of the cathedral in a certain order. Along the southern wall are buried mainly the great Moscow princes; along the western - specific, close relatives of the grand dukes; along the north - the princes who fell into disfavor and died a violent death. At the northwestern and southwestern pillars, representatives of the Tatar nobility who converted to Orthodoxy and were at the Russian court were buried.

Under Ivan the Terrible, a royal tomb was built in the deacon's room - the southern part of the altar room of the cathedral. The creation of a special tomb was dictated by the adoption of the royal title by Ivan IV. In addition to the tomb of Grozny himself, there are the burial places of his sons - Ivan Ivanovich, who suffered from his father's anger, and Fyodor Ivanovich, who ruled after his father's death. The youngest son of Ivan IV, Tsarevich Dmitry, who died in Uglich in 1591 at the age of less than nine, also rests in the Archangel Cathedral. Since 1606, the shrine with the holy relics of Tsarevich Dimitry has been located at the southeastern pillar of the cathedral.

The tombs of the royal Romanov dynasty are located near the pillars in the central part of the cathedral. The founder of the dynasty, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, as well as tsars Alexei Mikhailovich, Fedor Alekseevich and Ivan Alekseevich found peace here. Russian emperors, starting with Peter I, were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Only Emperor Peter II, the grandson of Peter I, who died in Moscow in 1730 from smallpox, rests in the Archangel Cathedral.

Burials were made in white-stone sarcophagi, they were lowered under the floor into the ground. Brick tombstones with white stone slabs, decorated with fine carved floral ornaments and epitaphs made in Slavic script, were erected over the graves. At the beginning of the 20th century, the tombstones were placed in glazed brass cases with superimposed crosses and inscriptions. In total, there are fifty-four graves in the cathedral under forty-four tombstones and two commemorative plates.

In the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, as you know, the remains of the Russian tsars of the Romanov dynasty are buried. According to the official version, no one has ever disturbed the burial place. However, a number of sources claim that the graves of the monarchs were looted after the revolution ...

Values ​​for the Provisional Government

The tomb in the Peter and Paul Cathedral appeared during the time of Peter I. He was also the first to be buried here. Subsequently, other deceased Russian rulers and members of the imperial family were also buried within the walls of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

The looting of the royal tombs began after the February Revolution. In September-October 1917, by order of the Provisional Government, all the valuables in the tomb - icons in precious salaries, lampadas, medals and wreaths made of gold, silver, bronze and porcelain - were removed from the graves. They were loaded into boxes and sent to Moscow. The further fate of these objects remained unknown.

In "Helping the Hungry"

They say that the Bolsheviks who came to power in October 17 remembered the tomb only in 1921. Allegedly, under the pretext of confiscating valuables in favor of Pomgol (committee to help the starving), they blasphemously opened the graves. True, this was not documented anywhere, but there are testimonies of eyewitnesses.

For example, the Russian émigré Boris Nikolaevsky in his notes cites the text of a letter from one of the prominent members of the St. Petersburg GPU, published in the Krakow newspaper "Illustrated Courier Zodzenna":

“Mechanics open the tomb of Alexander III. The embalmed corpse of the king was well preserved. Alexander III lies in a general's uniform, richly decorated with orders. The ashes of the king are quickly removed from the silver coffin, the rings are removed from the fingers, the orders studded with diamonds are removed from the uniform, then the body of Alexander III is transferred to the oak coffin. The secretary of the commission draws up a protocol, which lists in detail the jewels confiscated from the deceased king. The coffin is closed, and seals are placed on it ... "

The same procedure was done with the coffins of Alexander II and Nicholas I. But the tomb of Alexander I, according to the narrator, turned out to be empty. This can be seen as an indirect confirmation of the legend that the real emperor did not die in Taganrog, but ended his days in Siberia under the name of the hermit elder Fyodor Kuzmich. It is possible that they simply did not dare to bury the “usurper” who played his role along with members of the royal family.

When the tomb of Emperor Paul I was opened, the members of the commission felt uneasy. Although the uniform in which the murdered tsar was buried was perfectly preserved, the wax mask put on him before the funeral melted, and from under its remnants the disfigured face of the unfortunate man was visible ... But the tomb of Catherine II pleased, in which there was a large amount of jewelry.

The tomb with the remains of Peter the Great was opened with great difficulty: the construction of the coffin turned out to be somehow cunning. “They started drilling the tomb,” says the author of the letter, “and soon the lid of the coffin, placed vertically to facilitate work, opened before the eyes

Bolsheviks appeared in full growth Peter the Great. The members of the commission recoiled in surprise in fear. Peter the Great stood as if alive, his face was perfectly preserved. The great tsar, who during his lifetime aroused fear in people, once again tried the power of his formidable influence on the Chekists. But during the transfer, the corpse of the great king crumbled to dust. The terrible work of the Chekists was completed, and the oak coffins with the remains of the kings were transported to St. Isaac's Cathedral, where they were placed in the basement ... "

Where did the valuables extracted from the tomb go? Most likely, they were sold abroad, like other national treasures - from the Kremlin, the Hermitage, the Tretyakov Gallery.

There is also other evidence of the looting of the imperial tombs, collected by the candidate of philological sciences, associate professor of the history department of St. Petersburg University, deacon Vladimir Vasilik. For example, Professor V.K. Krasusky writes: “While still a student, I arrived in Leningrad in 1925 to my aunt Anna Adamovna Krasuskaya, an honored worker of science, professor of anatomy at the Scientific Institute. P.F. Lesgaft. In one of my conversations with A.A. She is Krasuskaya

I was told the following: “Not so long ago, the opening of the royal tombs was carried out. The opening of the tomb of Peter I made a particularly strong impression. Peter’s body was well preserved. He really looks very much like the Peter depicted in the drawings. very many. Values ​​were confiscated from the royal tombs."

What lies in the graves?

No official evidence that someone touched the tombs, however, has survived. The most suspicious fact in this story is the reburial of the remains in St. Isaac's Cathedral. Wouldn't it have been easier to leave them where they were? Maybe there are no remains at all, only tombstones? Moreover, on April 12, 1918, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the removal of monuments erected in honor of the tsars and their servants, and the development of projects for monuments of the Russian Socialist Revolution" was adopted. Representatives of the new government tried in every possible way to destroy the historical past of Russia...

Employees of the Peter and Paul Fortress claim that no one has ever opened the graves of Russian emperors, these are just empty rumors... chip marks. However, the coffin with the remains was in place. So the information about the opening of the imperial tomb by the Bolsheviks is still just a historical legend.