A cluster of sparkling domes behind turreted walls on the Moscow River, Novodevichy Convent is notorious as the place where Peter the Great imprisoned his half-sister Sofia for her part in the Streltsy rebellion. The oldest and most dominant building in the grounds is the white Smolensk Cathedral , its sumptuous interior covered in 16th-century frescoes. Adjacent to the convent, the cemetery is among Moscow’s most prestigious resting places – a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Russian politics and culture.
You will find the tombs of Chekhov, Gogol, Mayakovsky, Stanislavsky, Prokofiev, Eisenstein and many other Russian and Soviet notables. The most recent notable addition was former president Boris Yeltsin, who died in 2007.
