This constructivist funerary sculpture on the Communist Section of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra marks the 1921 grave of Nikolay Vasilyevich Bakhvalov, remembered in Petrograd lore as one of the pioneer automobile drivers and motor mechanics of early revolutionary Russia. In the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War, professional chauffeurs and mechanics formed an indispensable technical corps operating transport trucks and armored vehicles, prompting local authorities to allocate Bakhvalov a burial site within the monastery s inner courtyard. Eschewing stone stelae and traditional Orthodox funerary emblems, the memorial was fabricated by fellow workers from authentic mechanical components representing the deceased s trade. The structure rests on a concrete plinth anchored by paired cast-iron spoked wheels, surmounted by horizontal spur gears and transmission rings. Heavy roller drive chains--the type utilized in early chain-driven motorcars and industrial machinery--extend upward in a triangular pyramid to meet a central vertical shaft and finial that originally displayed a metal nameplate. Created during the War Communism era, the monument represents a rare surviving specimen of early Soviet Productivist and Proletkult memorial art. By assembling discarded industrial hardware into an emblem of proletarian labor and mechanized modernization directly opposite baroque monastic architecture, the work embodied the early Bolshevik effort to replace religious mourning traditions with a secular cult of the machine. Saint Petersburg, Russia, May 25, 2011
Firing squad executing a group of orthodox priests for political reasons on a wall icon "Novomucheniki Petrogradskiye" (Petrograd martyrs) in Kazanskaya Church in Novodevichiy Cathedral. Saint Petersburg, Russia, June 26, 2010
This grave marker on the Communist Section of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra commemorates Pyotr Petrovich Petrov (1883-1925), an early Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet worker-cadre buried during the First Five-Year Plan s formative years. Like many party functionaries interred along the courtyard s central avenues, Petrov died in the mid-1920s during the arduous post-Civil War reconstruction of Petrograd . The memorial consists of a weathered concrete and stone stele characteristic of the modest, egalitarian funerary aesthetic favored for early Soviet party members . Flanked by iron railings and spring greenery, the unadorned headstone preserves an austere, secular tribute to an early Soviet activist laid to rest within the historic monastery courtyard. Saint Petersburg, Russia, May 29, 2014
Monument of heroes of Great October Socialist Revolution. It is a mass grave monument dedicated to Red Guards who died during the 1917 October Revolution and the subsequent Civil War. The site originated in 1917 as a burial ground for workers and Red Guards from the nearby Novy Lessner Plant (now the Karl Marx Machine-Building Plant). These fighters were killed in battles against the troops of General Pyotr Krasnov near Pulkovo during the defense of Petrograd. In 1953, a wooden structure was replaced by the current grey granite obelisk seen today. It was designed by architect Yuri Wiesenthal. This monument is a solemn reminder of the intense revolutionary history of the Vyborg Side, a district historically populated by industrial workers who were pivotal to the Bolshevik cause. Lesnoy Park (Lesotekhnicheskiy Universitet), Saint Petersburg, Russia, October 14, 2025