Why online burial databases matter
These databases hold names, life dates, grave coordinates and photographs of headstones. They let you find not only a direct ancestor's grave but distant relatives, people with the same surname in the same region. That often gives new leads for further archive work.
Regional databases available now
Several Russian regions already have online burial databases:
- St Petersburg — gravlov.com/grave-search
- Moscow region — rgis.mosreg.ru (the 'Burial places' section)
- Nizhny Tagil — rekviemnt.ru/info/poisk
- Kazan — cemetery.kzn.ru
- Primorsky region — primritualservis.rf
- Altai region, Kemerovo and Arkhangelsk regions — municipal administration databases
If your region is not in the public databases, send a written request to the local administration. Russia plans to inventory all cemeteries by the end of 2025, and many municipalities have already built their registers.
A single burial database through Gosuslugi
At the federal level there are plans for a single burial database with access through the Gosuslugi portal. Some regions have already fed their data into the pilot. In a few years finding a burial place should become much simpler: a name and rough life dates will be enough.
The St Petersburg necropolis: a source of its own
For burials in St Petersburg and its surroundings there is a rare source: the four-volume 'St Petersburg Necropolis', covering up to 80% of the burials that once existed. If an ancestor died before the revolution and was buried in the city, you can find the date of death, the burial place, and even the parish the body was brought from. For some cemeteries, such as the Novodevichy, the plot-purchase books survive with a full list of those buried.
When the databases do not help: what next
Online databases mostly cover marked graves from the Soviet and post-Soviet period. Nineteenth-century peasant graves rarely appear. In that case genealogists turn to parish registers, which recorded the date of death, age and cause. That at least establishes the fact of death, the burial place and the parish.
Looking for an ancestor's grave, or wanting to reconstruct your family's burial history? The genealogists at Family Relic can help. More at myrodoslovie.ru
