‘Sacrilege without Punishment’ – Desecration of Graves Spreads Across Russia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 3 – Thefts from graves and vandalism of grave markers has flourished in Russia for many years, with people stealing bronze letters and even marble grave markers, desecrating such monuments, or even opening graves to get at valuables. The graves of prominent soldiers are quite often broken into by those who want medals or uniforms.

            But recently, this plague appears to have spread if one is to judge from discussions online following reports of vandalism and grave robbing at Moscow’s Vakhtangov Cemetery, Irina Mishina writes in Novyye izvestiya (newizv.ru/news/society/03-05-2019/svyatotatstvo-bez-nakazaniya-pochemu-oskvernenie-mogil-stalo-obychnym-delom).

The Vakhtangov is one of the most honored in Russia, but it is also almost unprotected against vandals and thieves. It has only six guards to cover the 66 hectares of burial sites, and it does not have a single video camera which might discourage or help catch those who engage in this form of sacrilege to the dead. 

Officials at the Ritual Services office of the city of Moscow say that family members are responsible for insuring against such losses or, if they lack insurance, can appeal directly to the managers of the cemetery. But Mishina says they answered her inquiry on this point so formally that she suspects many turn to the office in hopes of something better.

Some of the vandalism may be the work of hooligans, but participants in the online discussion suggest that other factors are at work including criminal groups who sell brass or marble or what they can steal from graves or even funeral services company who take ready-made grave markers from a cemetery and sell them others.

But an interior ministry official says that “besides this cemetery mafia,” those who engage in such attacks on cemeteries include those who are drunk or those who need money for drugs. And he adds that sometimes people attack graves “consciously, for example out of ethnic or family hatred or because of political convictions.”

Prior to 1996, such violence was treated as a form of hooliganism and punished as such. In that year, Mishina reports, new laws were put on the books imposing work requirements up to 360 hours, detention for as much as three months and dispatch to labor camps for as much as a year.

But experts say few are punished severely making this a crime many assume they can commit with impunity. The last time the Russian government published statistics on this crime was in 2007 when Rossiiskaya gazeta reported that 515 cases had been opened, 148 people sentenced, and one sent to the camps  (https://rg.ru/2007/09/25/vandaly-delo.html).

Since that time, the Novyye izvestiya journalist says, official sources have only spoken about “an increase in such kinds of crime. How many have been convicted and sentenced remains a mystery.”  Clearly, the recent online discussion indicates, the number of such crimes is going up despite any punishments being imposed.