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Jewish cemeteries in Moscow, Russia

Jews have lived in Moscow since the end of the 17th century. The Jewish population lived mainly in the German and Meshchanskaya slobodas. It is not known for certain about the burial places of Jews before the 18th century.

In the 1770s, after a plague epidemic, the authorities created the Dorogomilovskoye cemetery. Moscow Governor-General P. Eropkin ordered to allocate 800 square fathoms of land away from the Orthodox cemetery for burial of Jews. This is how the Dorogomilovskoye Jewish cemetery appeared, which was separated from the Orthodox one by a wooden fence. The first burial took place on it in 1788. From the middle of the 19th century, Moscow Karaites were buried at the Dorogomilovskoye Jewish cemetery.

In 1857, the Jewish community asked the authorities to expand the territory of the cemetery. 17 years later, the cemetery commission of the Moscow City Duma studied the issue and came to the conclusion that the Dorogomilovskoye Jewish cemetery was overloaded. Another 14 years later, in 1888, the city authorities gave permission to the community to purchase an additional piece of land.

Simultaneously with the solution of the issue of expanding the cemetery in the 1880s, the process of its improvement was going on. A barrier appeared on the territory of the Dorogomilovskoye Jewish cemetery, a prayer house was erected.

During the First World War, Jewish refugees from the frontline regions of the country and Jewish soldiers who died in Moscow hospitals were buried in the cemetery.

By the 1930s, the authorities stopped burials at the Dorogomilovskoye cemetery, which by that time had entered the city limits. A plot of land in the village of Vostriakovo was allocated for the needs of the community. This is how the Vostriakovskoye cemetery appeared, which received the unofficial name New Jewish.

The graves of famous people, for example I. Levitan, I. Abelman, were transferred by the authorities from Dorogomilovskoye to the Novodevichye cemetery. Fences and burials were used by the local population for economic needs.

According to eyewitnesses, the liquidation of the Dorogomilovskoye cemetery took place quickly and not all relatives managed to transfer the burials to the Vostriakovskoye cemetery.

A residential area was built on the territory of the Dorogomilovskoye cemetery.

Since the 1960s, the Vostriakovskoye cemetery has been within the city limits. Its territory came close to the Moscow Ring Road. In 2017, the territory of the Jewish cemetery was expanded by 5.8 hectares. The site received the unofficial name Vostriakovskoye southern Jewish cemetery.