LYCHAKIV CEMETERY
Our first trek was to the famous historic necropolis created in 1787. Originally located on several hills in in the borough of Lychakiv outside the city limits, it was expanded in the mid-1850s in a design of alleys and round-abouts and quickly became the main cemetery for the city as most others closed. Denominations here include all Christian sects, Roman Catholics, Eastern Rite Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox. After WWII, Lviv was annexed by the Soviet Union and many of historical monuments were destroyed as well as many sculptures - and this devastation continued well into the 70s. However, in 1975 the cemetery was declared a national historic monument and this stopped the vandalism. Today is it one of the main tourist attractions in the city. Some of the famous Ukrainian people buried in the cemetery include:
- Ivan Franko - Ukrainian poet
- Oleksandr Tysowkyj - founder of Ukrainian scouting
- Jacques Hnizdovsky - painter, printmaker, sculptor, bookplate designer and illustrator of numerous books both in English and Ukrainian
- Veterans of WWI and WWII
- Victims of the NKVD
Many parts of the cemetery seem to have been forgotten, with the plots overgrown with vines, moss and tall wild ferns. We were able to meander down the side aisles where it felt like you were in a jungle and some tombstone were completely covered over and could no longer be read or, sometimes, even be seen.
If not for the tour groups I could have been there all day.
JEWISH CEMETERY
Although they don't put a name to this cemetery on the complete other side of town in our guidebook - it was recommended as a place to go to see what was left of the Jewish cemetery which had been destroyed in the war and to see several soldier's memorials. Somewhere near there was also supposed to be a marker for a former concentration camp, which we were never able to find.
This cemetery was also quite beautiful, with the same above ground tombstones and old metal and stone statuary. Although many of the plots were also overgrown with moss and vines, you could tell that many more people were coming in here and taking care of the plots than in the other cemetery. Everything was a bit cleaner and well maintained.
We spent quite a long time just wandering around, looking for the resting places of the Soviet soldiers (kind of found), Ukrainian soldiers (found), German soldiers (really tried to find and couldn't), and victims of the NKVD (nope).
As we were winding our way out towards the back entrance we made it into the small Jewish section of the cemetery. It was an interesting sight. The tombstones, both old and new, were in both Ukrainian and Yiddish, and were quite beautiful. They were both old and new, spanning design styles from modern shiny marble to the old stone with inset cameos. What was different in this section, something that we had not seen anywhere else, were the cages. Many of the tombstones and memorials were in cages surrounding the entire plot - some as large as about 6' x 6'. The doors were locked and you could not get close. This seemed so odd to us and then we came upon a memorial that had been defaced - the name was missing and the engraved face looked like it had been gouged out. We think that perhaps it is from fear of this type of defacement and vandalism that this section has resorted to putting protective cages around their loved one's memorials. If so, it is sad that people have to do this in order to protect their memories.
It's been a long day, we walked from the middle of the city to one end, the back and to the other end, then back again. My dogs are barking big time.
Tomorrow is our last day in Lviv as we head back to Kyiv for a last hurrah before our flight back to Canada. I will miss this city of the Nouveau Art.
