Old Jewish Cemetery, Nikolayev

In the Korabelniy district of the city of Nikolayev the wasteland near the aqua park " Vodoley" formerly housed the old Jewish cemetery. This is indicated by the notation on the map dating from 1997. Passing through the wasteland, now and then you can stumble upon tombstones and bits of other monuments. This is all that remains of a small cemetery, which was previously intended for the burial of Jews.

The Old Jewish cemetery comprised more than 600 graves, most of which are completely gone. In 1972, burials on this territory were officially stopped, and the cemetery was closed. In the 90s the city authorities decided on reburial and distributed all the graves to the operating cemeteries of Nikolayev. Now, in place of the old Jewish burial place, a multi-story residential building is standing. However, even now the wasteland is full of remnants of graves that were.

The oldest graves in this cemetery date from 1930-1960. Local residents of the Korabelny district still remember the glorifying monuments and tombstones with stories about the life of the deceased that stood here. Locals say that there was also a mass grave of military pilots. Recently all those graves were said to be moved, although many things suggest otherwise. It should be said that Nikolayev's history remembers such cases when some modern building ware built on alleged burial grounds, for example, the Zoo, the maternity home number 2, “Kolos” marketplace, Trolley Park.

In the wasteland, remains of graves can still be found: some of them are just "buried under the ground", some of them only have a fence, and here and there you can even see monuments and tombstones, though the inscriptions on them are either severely damaged or completely erased. Not far from the wasteland there is a monument to the Liberator Warriors, which the aboriginals call the "mass grave of military pilots".

Until 1990, the cemetery was partially cataloged, but it was impossible to complete it. At that time the state of the burial places already left a lot to be desired. The territory of the cemetery was completely overgrown with tall grass and shrubs, the monuments began to crumble, and inscriptions began to disappear from the tombstones. In addition, this place was chosen by local homeless people and they literally began to take them apart to equip their dwellings. It hasn't exactly gone unnoticed by vandals too.

From the end of 1997, various mass events have been held on the site of the old Jewish cemetery: holiday celebrations, a circus, attractions being set up, etc. All this took place literally "on the bones". Now, the city authorities are talking about building a stadium and a skatepark in this wasteland, which is hampered in every way by the city's activists, since the old Jewish cemetery, or rather what’s still left of it, is a national treasure and the memorial to people who were buried here.