Novodevichy Convent and Cemetery

Lonely Planet review

Founded in 1524 to celebrate the retaking of Smolensk from Lithuania, the Novodevichy Convent (New Convent of the Maidens), gained notoriety as the place where Peter the Great imprisoned his half-sister Sofia for her part in the Streltsy Rebellion. The cemetary, cluster of 16 sparkling domes behind turreted walls, is the resting place of Chekhov, Eisenstein, Gogol, Khrushchev, Kropotkin, Mayakovsky, Prokofiev, Stanislavsky and Shostakovich.

In Soviet times Novodevichy Cemetery was used for very eminent people whom the authorities judged unsuitable for the Kremlin wall. Other famous remains were reinterred here when their original cemeteries were destroyed under Stalin.

The convent itself was originally popular with noblewomen, who would often retire here, but it was also used as a prison for rebellious royals, including Peter the Great's half-sister and his first wife.

You enter the convent under the red-and-white Moscow-baroque Transfiguration Gate-Church. The oldest and dominant building in the grounds is the white Smolensk Cathedral (1524-25). Sofia's tomb lies among others in the south nave. The bell tower against the convent's east wall, completed in 1690, is generally regarded as Moscow's finest.