Murmanskoye Novoye Britanskoye Kladbishche

Kind of strange to give this very small graveyard a "rating" but I gave four stars for these reasons: 1. To get to Murmansk is already not an ordinary task. 2. The city is littered with pathetic Soviet/Russian heroes' memorials/grave sites so this one is quite Different. 3. To find this graveyard is hard; obviously the city fathers have shown their strange disrespect to this place (it is next to open dump and no signs to show its location). 4. When you enter through the gate you enter into a different world, not part of Murmansk in so many ways. 5. Those soldiers are gone but not forgotten! How moving those lines in the gravestones are! Obviously the British remember their own no matter where they are. Which is the hallmark of a civilization.

There is a special place on the eastern outskirts of Murmansk: the English cemetery. Monuments without portraits, names, epitaphs. A plate with a memorial inscription - "For the glory of the Lord and in memory of those British officers and soldiers who fell during the Great War and are buried somewhere in northern Russia." The Murmansk New British Cemetery (as it goes through the CWGC - British Commonwealth Military Grave Commission) lists 83 graves. 40 “real” graves, they are in the center of the cemetery: concrete rectangles with slabs of black granite. 41st - memorial: to those who fell in battles and are buried in the cities and towns of Murman and Karelia. And two symbolic ones with the inscriptions “Soldier of the Great War” and “Sailor of the Great War”. On both tombstones - the same epitaph: "His name is known to the Lord." The British have no unknown soldiers. This signature, “Known unto God,” was invented by the great poet Rudyard Kipling, who lost his 18-year-old lieutenant boy in World War I.

Historical place, makes you think! Be sure to visit and honor the memory of fallen warriors.

A sad but beautiful place.