Kremlin Wall Necropolis

The Kremlin Wall Necropolis was the national cemetery for the Soviet Union. Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution in Moscow were buried in mass graves at Red Square. The improvised burial site gradually transformed into the centerpiece of military and civilian honor during the Second World War. It is centered on both sides of Lenin's Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930. After the last mass burial made in 1921, funerals in Red Square were usually conducted as state ceremonies and reserved as the last honor for highly venerated politicians, military leaders, cosmonauts, and scientists. In 1925–1927, burials in the ground were stopped; funerals were now conducted as burials of cremated ash in the Kremlin wall itself. Burials in the ground resumed with Mikhail Kalinin's funeral in 1946.