Gangsta Like Me

Today I went on the best cultural excursion!  (Side note: Russians use the word “excursion” to mean just about any outing; where we say “field trip,” “tour,” “visit,” anything, they say “excursion.”)  You may know that one of Ekaterinburg’s claims to fame is being home to the largest organized crime circuit in Russia.  As it turns out, all the men who made it so, along with their families, are buried in one place.  The “Mafia Cemetery” is a must-see for anyone with a macabre gangster fascination, or anyone who likes gaudy decorated tombstones.  I went today with my friend Liz, a Fulbright research fellow based in Petersburg.  Actually, we tried to go yesterday, walked all over the city trying to find transport to this neighborhood, only to discover today that the busses we needed stop right by Liz’ interim apartment.  We were very un-Russian (read: emotional) when we found the bus, and even worse when we saw the cemetery through the window and started clapping.

I’m no expert on the Russian mob, and it’s not as if I know these guys’ names.  So what makes this place so fascinating?  The gangsters spared no expense on their eternal resting places, and some of them really dropped a pretty kopeck.  The trend in modern Russian cemeteries is to have the departed’s likeness laser-printed on the tombstone.  Sometimes the man’s face juts out, hewn in the living rock.  Now imagine that done for a guy who looks, quite deliberately, like Tony Soprano or Michael Corleone.  Many of the men had life-size memorials, showing off their leather jackets and BMW keys.  They did the same for their wives, who are displayed in high heels and tight dresses, apparently on the dance floor.  One particularly prominent gangster built a stunning angel-like monument of his wife, after he whacked her for suspected infidelity.  Some times the men were depicted doing their favorite activites, like boxing or book-keeping.

What’s more, the cemetery was huge!  It looked small from the bus, but extended for kilometers into the forest.  There was no order to older or newer graves, though they were all post-Revolution.  The graveyard was immaculate, with well-plowed paths between all the sections.  We saw no grave-diggers or groundskeepers, but there were a few dogs keeping watch and keeping warm on the plots.  There were foot-trodden paths to most graves, and most of them were decorated with day-glo silk flowers.  One grave had been visited very recently: lying on the marble slab were a becrumbed-plastic plate and a shot glass with the remnants of drink.

Luckily, no mourners were visiting today.  Serious people would have ruined our schadenfreudy fun.