Military Cemetery (Minsk)
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The Military Cemetery was opened and consecrated in 1895 when a nearby older cemetery for military personnel was closed for further interments. In 1898, an Orthodox church was built in the cemetery – conceived as a monument to the soldiers who gave their lives in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877–1878. Inside the church there are plaques with the names of 118 Belarusians who perished recapturing the Bulgarian city of Pleven from the Turks.
in the interwar period the cemetery became the burial place of prominent statesmen, soldiers, scientists and people of creative professions.
Soviet authorities closed the church before World War II but during the German occupation services were resumed. After World War II the city authorities considered converting the church into a coffin workshop but the plans did not materialise and the church remained one of the few functioning places of worship in Soviet Minsk.[1][2]
