Anna Akhmatova's Grave

Here we are the grave site of modernist poet Anna Akhmatova, famous for her brilliant poetry as well as her resistance to oppression. Her reputation flourished abroad and underground even as the Soviet authorities denounced her for her "eroticism, mysticism, and political indifference." A vocal critic of Stalinism, she saw her work banned for many years and was expelled from the Writer's Union, condemned as "half nun, half harlot." Nevertheless, she is still one of Russia's most beloved poets and is famous world wide. She is buried near Komarovo, a small village of dachas north of St. Petersburg. The dachas at Komarovo belonged mostly to academics and writers like Akhmatova, since the State organized dacha villages by profession. The statue is a rendition of Akhmatova in the Fountain House, where she lived in central St. Petersburg, secretly writing poems in a bugged apartment. --Scott