# List of burials and memorials in the Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra

The Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra (Russian: Благовещенская церковь Александро-Невской лавры) is a historic church in the centre of Saint Petersburg. It is part of the monastic complex of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and contains a large number of burials dating back to the founding of the city, as well as monuments and memorials to notable figures that were brought to the church from other locations during the Soviet period.

## Design and construction

Construction of the church, designed by Domenico Trezzini, began in 1717. It was initially planned that the ground floor would house the monastery's refectory, but this was altered to instead create a burial space for members of the royal family and prominent dignitaries. As completed the building contained two churches. The upper, dedicated to Saint Alexander Nevsky and used to hold his relics on their arrival into the city, was consecrated in 1724. The lower, dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, was consecrated in 1725. Underneath the building was a burial vault constructed in 1720.

## Imperial burials

The first interment was that of Tsarina Praskovia Saltykova, the wife of Tsar Ivan V, on 24 October 1723. On Peter's orders the remains of his sister, Natalya Alexeyevna, and his infant son Peter Petrovich, who had originally been buried in the monastery's Lazarevsky Church, were transferred to the burial vault. Several other members of the imperial family were later buried in the church, including those who had lost their positions through palace coups. Among them were Anna Leopoldovna, mother of Tsar Ivan VI and regent during her son's brief reign; and Emperor Peter III who was deposed and killed in a palace coup that brought his wife to the throne as Empress Catherine II. Peter III was quietly interred in the church in July 1762, thus denying him burial in the traditional resting place of the post-Peter the Great rulers, the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. Peter III's remains were later removed from the church and reburied in the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral on the orders of his son when he ascended to the throne as Paul I. Other members of the imperial family buried in the church include Catherine Ivanovna, Peter the Great's niece; Natalia Alexeievna, Paul I's first wife; and several children who died in infancy, including two daughters of Emperor Alexander I and Elizabeth Alexeievna; Olga Pavlovna, daughter of Emperor Paul I and Maria Feodorovna.
Those with close connections to the imperial court were also buried here. Among them were courtiers Yevdokiya Yusupova, Anastasiya Trubetskaya, and Anna Matyushkina; as well as Alexei Razumovsky, lover and rumoured husband of Empress Elizabeth; and Maria Rumyantseva, mistress of Peter the Great. Members of several important noble families were also buried here, including the Shuvalovs, Betskoys, Vyazemskys, Naryshkins, and Yusupovs. On 12 May 1800 the hero of the French Revolutionary Wars Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov was buried in the church, under a white marble slab with the simple inscription, chosen by the Generalissimo himself, "Here lies Suvorov". An extension along the south-eastern part of the church was built in 1783, which came to house the family monuments of several noble houses, including the Shuvalovs, Betskoys, Vyazemskys and Naryshkins. A small sacristy was attached to the eastern side of the church, which later housed the Yusupov family's monuments. In the 1860s the Yakunchikov family had a small crypt built in the church's north-western corner, and in 1871 P. D. Sokhansky built a marble tomb for the Bobrinsky family under the staircase annex.

## Soviet museum

Closed in 1933, the church was divided between office space and the forerunner of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture [ru] during the early Soviet period. During this period, some of the funerary monuments from the Lavra's Nikolo-Fyodorovskaya and Isidorovskaya churches, which had been closed in 1931, were moved to the lower Annunciation Church. In 1940, the entire building was transferred to the State Museum of Urban Sculpture. The memorials of Napoleonic military leaders Mikhail Miloradovich and Dmitry Senyavin were placed in the church after the closure of the Dukhovskaya Church, while those of Ivan Lazarev and Gerasim Lebedev were brought from other locations as part of a general clearing of cemeteries and the concentration of funerary monuments into centralised museum necropolises. In other instances parts of memorials, such as plaques and reliefs from the monuments of Alexei Turchaninov and Anna Vorontsova in the Lavra's Lazarevskoe Cemetery were installed in the church. In the case of sculptor Mikhail Kozlovsky, his monument was transferred from the Smolensky Cemetery to the Lazarevskoe in 1931, with some of the reliefs installed in the Annunciation Church.
On 15 May 1950, the building opened as a museum display of historic funerary monuments under the auspices of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture. On 7 April 2013, the 300th anniversary of the monastery, it was announced that the Annunciation Church would be returned to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The return of the church to the monastery authorities has however been complicated by questions around the ownership of the memorials.

## Originally buried in the church
### House of Romanov

| Name | Born | Died | Occupation |
| Anna Leopoldovna | 1718 | 1746 | Daughter of Tsarevna Catherine Ivanovna, mother of Emperor Ivan VI, regent of Russia. |
| Anna Petrovna [ru] | 1757 | 1759 | Daughter of Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich, the future Emperor Peter III, and Grand Duchess Yekaterina Alekseyevna, the future Empress Catherine the Great. |
| Catherine Ivanovna | 1691 | 1733 | Daughter of Tsar Ivan V and Praskovia Saltykova, eldest sister of Empress Anna of Russia, niece of Peter the Great, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. |
| Natalya Alexeyevna | 1673 | 1716 | Daughter of Tsar Alexis and Natalya Naryshkina, sister of Peter the Great. Originally buried in the Lazarevskoe Church in 1717, reburied in the Annunciation Church in 1723. |
| Natalya Alexeyevna | 1755 | 1776 | Wife of Tsarevich Paul Petrovich, the future Tsar Paul I, daughter in law of Empress Catherine the Great. |
| Peter III | 1728 | 1762 | Emperor of Russia, son of Anna Petrovna and grandson of Peter the Great. Wife of Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, who succeeded him as Catherine the Great. Remains transferred to the Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1796. |
| Praskovia Saltykova | 1664 | 1723 | Wife of Tsar Ivan V, mother of Empress Anna of Russia. |
| Elizabeth Alexandrovna | 1806 | 1808 | Daughter of Emperor Alexander I and Elizabeth Alexeievna. |
| Maria Alexandrovna | 1799 | 1800 | Daughter of Emperor Alexander I and Elizabeth Alexeievna. |
| Olga Pavlovna | 1792 | 1795 | Daughter of Emperor Paul I and Maria Feodorovna. |
| Peter Petrovich | 1715 | 1719 | Son of Peter the Great and Ekaterina Alekseyevna. Originally buried in the Lazarevskoe Church in 1719, reburied in the Annunciation Church in 1725. |

### Georgian royalty

| Image | Name | Born | Died | Occupation | Monument | Reference |
| | Vakhtang | 1761 | 1814 | Son of King Heraclius II and Queen Darejan Dadiani. | | |
| | Darejan Dadiani | 1738 | 1807 | Queen Consort of King Heraclius II. | | |

### Orthodox clergy

| Image | Name | Born | Died | Occupation | Monument | Reference |
| | Vasilije Petrović | 1709 | 1766 | Metropolitan bishop of Cetinje, Prince-Bishop of Montenegro. | | |

### Nobility

| Name | Born | Died | Occupation |
| Ivan Betskoy | 1704 | 1795 | School reformer, advisor on education, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, architect of Russia's first unified system of public education. |
| Alexander Bezborodko | 1747 | 1799 | Grand Chancellor of Russia, chief architect of Catherine the Great's foreign policy. |
| James Bruce | 1732 | 1791 | General, Commander of the Finland Division, Governor-General of Moscow and Saint Petersburg Governorate. Grave lost. |
| Ivan Chernyshyov | 1726 | 1797 | Diplomat, military leader, Field Marshal and General Admiral, Chief Plenipotentiary in London, vice-president of the Admiralty. |
| Mikhail Dolgorukov | 1780 | 1808 | Military leader, general. Finnish War, Battle of Virta Bridge. |
| Peter Dolgorukov | 1777 | 1806 | Military leader, general. Napoleonic Wars. |
| Vasily Dolgorukov | c. 1667 | 1746 | Military leader and politician, Field Marshal, member of the Supreme Privy Council, president of the College of War. Grave lost. |
| Alexander Golitsyn | 1718 | 1783 | Field marshal, governor of Saint Petersburg, Seven Years' War, Russo-Turkish War |
| Ekaterina Golitsyna | 1720 | 1761 | Noble woman, maid of honour to Elizabeth of Russia. |
| Anna Matyushkina | 1722 | 1804 | Maid of honour to Elizabeth of Russia, lady in waiting to Empress Catherine the Great, chief lady in waiting to Empress Maria Feodorovna. |
| Lev Naryshkin | 1733 | 1799 | Courtier, Ober–Shtalmeyster, Naryshkin family, court joker and rake. |
| Lev Naryshkin | 1785 | 1846 | Military leader, general, Napoleonic Wars. |
| Yekaterina Naryshkina | 1729 | 1771 | State Lady, Order of Saint Catherine, wife of the last hetman of the Zaporizhian Host, Kirill Razumovsky |
| Ekaterina Orlova | 1785 | 1846 | Courtier, lady in waiting to Empress Catherine the Great, wife of Grigory Orlov. |
| Nikita Panin | 1718 | 1783 | Statesman, political mentor to Catherine the Great, Northern Alliance. |
| Tatiana Potemkina | 1797 | 1869 | Noblewoman, philanthropist. Daughter of Boris Golitsyn wife of Alexandr Potemkin. Funded restoration of Sviatohirsk Lavra. Grave lost. |
| Alexei Razumovsky | 1709 | 1771 | Registered Cossack, lover and rumoured husband of Empress Elizabeth of Russia. |
| Maria Rumyantseva | 1699 | 1788 | Lady in waiting, royal mistress of Peter the Great. Grave lost. |
| Ivan Shuvalov | 1727 | 1797 | Russian Enlightenment, first Russian Minister of Education. |
| Alexander Suvorov | 1730 | 1800 | Military leader, Generalissimo, Seven Years' War, Bar Confederation, Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792, French Revolutionary Wars. |
| Anastasiya Trubetskaya | 1700 | 1755 | Noblewoman, courtier, princess of Moldavia and landgravine of Hesse-Homburg, honorary member of the Imperial Russian family. Lady in waiting to Empress Elizabeth, noted philanthropist. |
| Sava Vladislavich | 1669 | 1738 | Merchant-adventurer and diplomat in the employ of Peter the Great. Treaty of Kiakhta. |
| Alexander Vyazemsky | 1727 | 1793 | Prosecutor General of the Senate. |
| Matvei Wielhorski | 1794 | 1866 | Cellist, patron and friend of Mikhail Glinka, and Robert and Clara Schumann. |
| Pavel Yaguzhinsky | 1683 | 1736 | Statesman and diplomat, associate of Peter the Great, Chamberlain, Ober-Stallmeister, General-in-chief, Attorney General. |
| Sergey Yaguzhinsky | 1731 | 1806 | Chamberlain, lieutenant general, industrialist. |
| Tatiana Yusupova | 1769 | 1841 | Courtier, maid of honour to Empress Catherine the Great, salons, jewel collector. |
| Yevdokiya Yusupova | 1743 | 1780 | Courtier, Duchess consort of Courland. |

## Memorials transferred from other sites during the Soviet period

| Name | Born | Died | Occupation |
| Ivan Abamelik | 1768 | 1828 | Armenian nobleman, Abamelik family. Major general of artillery, Napoleonic Wars, battles of Austerlitz and Borodino. Monument transferred from the Smolensky Armenian Cemetery [ru] in 1936. |
| David | 1767 | 1819 | Georgian prince, writer and scholar, regent of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti. Monument transferred from the Feodorovskaya Church in 1930. |
| Mikhail Kozlovsky | 1753 | 1802 | Sculptor, teacher, Professor of the Imperial Academy of Arts, Russian classicism. Originally buried in the Smolensky Cemetery, monument and remains transferred to the Lazarevskoe Cemetery in 1931, with part of relief to the Annunciation Church. |
| Ivan Lazarev | 1735 | 1801 | Jeweler, patron, Catherine the Great. Monument originally in the Smolensky Armenian Cemetery [ru]. |
| Gerasim Lebedev | 1749 | 1817 | Adventurer, linguist, translator, musician and writer. Pioneer of Indology. Monument originally in the Bolsheokhtinskoe Cemetery [ru], tablet transferred in the 1930s. |
| Mikhail Miloradovich | 1771 | 1825 | Military leader, general, Napoleonic Wars, Italian and Swiss campaigns of 1799, Governor General of Saint Petersburg, Decembrist revolt. Monument transferred from the Dukhovskaya Church in 1937. |
| Dmitry Senyavin | 1763 | 1831 | Military leader, admiral, Napoleonic Wars, Second Archipelago Expedition. Monument transferred from the Dukhovskaya Church in 1937. |
| Alexei Turchaninov | c. 1774 | 1787 | Business magnate and industrialist, metallurgist, philanthropist. Originally in the Lazarevskoe Cemetery, remains and monument still in there, two bronze reliefs to the Annunciation Church. |
| Anna Vorontsova | 1722 | 1775 | Lady in waiting, salonist and noble, cousin of Elizabeth of Russia. Wife of Chancellor Count Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov. Originally in the Lazarevskoe Cemetery. |