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In the summer of 2005, I had the opportunity to travel to a number of cities (including Moscow, Pamplona, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Washington, D.C. and Providence, R.I.) to interview and photograph various colleagues as part of a presentation at the 2005 SPSS Directions Users Conference. Here is a selection of 24 photos taken at the Novodevichy Convent Cemetery in Moscow, one of the few places I had time to visit as a tourist.

The Novodevichy Convent is a very popular tourist destination in Moscow, but I was more interested in the adjoining cemetery where many famous Russians have been laid to rest. There were a few notables who I knew were buried there and to whom I wanted to pay my respects, such as Sergei Prokofiev and Dimitri Shostakovitch, but I didn't realize how impressed I would be with the funerary art there. I have a special liking for sculpture and one of the best places to find it is in cemeteries, especially places like the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Pere-Lachaise in Paris and, now that I know, the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. The sculptures are almost universally secular in nature, as you might imagine, and typically represent the person buried there.

Because it was a very gray, overcast day and the colors were drab and unsaturated, I have decided to present these images in sepia tones. Only a handful of the photos on these pages are identified, and I welcome any identifications you may be able to provide. The link to my e-mail address can be found on this page.

Andrei-Gromyko-Inverse Dimitri-Shostakovich Feodor-Shaliapin Galina-Ulanova
Leonid-Kogan Nikita-Kruschev Nikolai-Gogol Novodevichy-01