My visit of the Smolenskoye Lutheran Cemetery (in German Smolenski Friedhof) on Dekabristov Island in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Is there correlation between the National cemeteries condition and the country cultural  level? 
Does the national cemeteries condition reflect the county cultural development?

The Smolenskoye Lutheran Cemetery (in German Smolenski Friedhof) is a Lutheran cemetery on Dekabristov Island  in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is one of the largest and oldest non-orthodox cemeteries in the city. Until the early 20th century it was one of the main burial grounds for ethnic Germans.

The Lutheran cemetery on Dekabristov Island is known to have existed in 1747. The Smolenka River divides it from the Smolensky Orthodox Cemetery on Vasilievsky Island.
 This cemetery contained the burials of the parishioners of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Katarina and the Catholic Church of St. Catherine, including Leonhard Euler, Xavier de Maistre, Germain Henri Hess, José de Ribas, Moritz von Jacobi, Agustín de Betancourt, Jean-François Thomas de Thomon, Ludvig Nobel, Fyodor Litke, Georg Friedrich Parrot, Karl Nesselrode, and Vladimir Lamsdorf.

Some tombstones of notable people were transferred to the necropolis of famous people at  Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Among them are Thomas de Thomon (relocated in the 1930s), Euler (1956), Betancourt (1979), and others.


This cemetery contained the burials  of some other notable people too. (In Russian).
Авелан, Фёдор Карлович (1839—1916) — генерал-адъютант, адмирал, в 1903—1905 годах — управляющий Морским министерством.

Авенариус, Василий Петрович (1839—1923) — широко известный до революции детский писатель.

Арендт, Николай Фёдорович (1785—1859) — крупный врач-практик, хирург, лейб-медик Николая I, облегчал страдания А. С. Пушкина последуэли с Дантесом.

Вогак, Ипполит Константинович (1829—1889) — русский адмирал, последний градоначальник Таганрога.

Брюллов, Фёдор Павлович (1793—1869) — художник, старший брат знаменитого живописца.

Буш, Иван Фёдорович 1771—1843) — известный в своё время хирург и профессор петербургской медико-хирургической академии.

Вольф, Маврикий Осипович (1825—1883) — издатель, основатель журнала «Вокруг света».

Вреден, Роман Романович (1887—1934) — основатель отечественной хирургической ортопедии.

Грейг, Алексей Самуилович (1775—1845) — адмирал, главный командир Черноморского флота.

Гримм, Давид Иванович (1823—1898) — известный архитектор и художник.

Докучаев, Василий Васильевич (1846—1903) — выдающийся русский естествоиспытатель, геолог и ученый-почвовед.

Капица, Леонид Петрович (1864—1919) — отец лауреата Нобелевской премии по физике (1978) Петра Леонидовича Капицы, генерал-майор инженерного корпуса; мать Капица, Ольга Иеронимовна (1866—1937). Здесь же похоронены жена П. Л. Капицы — Надежда Кирилловна Черносвитова и двое её детей, умерших в эпидемию испанки зимой 1919—1920 гг. Иероним (22.06.1917-13.12.1919) и Надежда (06.01.1920-08.01.1920). Здесь покоится, также родной брат Петра Леонидовича — Леонид Леонидович, умерший в 1936 г.

Купфер, Адольф Яковлевич (1799—1865) — академик, метролог, основатель Депо образцовых мер и весов и Главной физической обсерватории России.

Ламсдорф, Владимир Николаевич (1844—1907) — дипломат, государственный деятель, в 1900 - 1906 годах — министр иностранных дел Российской Империи.

Литке, Фёдор Петрович (1797—1882) — русский мореплаватель, географ, исследователь Арктики, адмирал, президент Академии Наук в 1864—1882.

Макферсон, Артур Давидович (1870—1919) — деятель спорта, предприниматель, первый председатель Российского Футбольного Союза и председатель лаун-теннисной лиги (кенотаф).

Нессельроде, Карл Васильевич (1780—1862) — канцлер Российской империи.

Нобель, Людвиг Эммануилович (1831—1888) — российский промышленник, старший брат Альфреда Нобеля.

Парланд, Альфред Александрович (1842—1919) — русский архитектор, автор петербургского собора Воскресения Христова «на крови».

Паррот, Георг Фридрих (1767—1852) — первый ректор возрожденного в 1802 году Дерптского университета.

Радлов, Эрнест Леопольдович (1854—1928) — директор Императорской публичной библиотеки, историк философии, филолог и переводчик.

Редкин, Пётр Григорьевич (1808—1891) - русский правовед, историк философии, ректор Санкт-Петербургского университета.

де Рибас, Хосе (1749—1800) — один из основателей Одессы, герой штурма Измаила, принявший в России имя Осипа Михайловича Дерибаса.

Сюзор, Павел Юльевич (1844—1919) — граф, крупный русский архитектор и общественный деятель, педагог, академик архитектуры, действительный статский советник.

Фрей, Александр Яковлевич (1847—1899)) — врач психиатр, директор больницы, судебный эксперт.

Чинизелли, Гаэтано (1815—1881) — основатель Санкт-Петербургского цирка. [3].

Шауб, Василий Васильевич (1861—1934) — архитектор, академик архитектуры.

Шиллинг, Павел Львович (1786—1837) — физик, академик.

Шперк, Фёдор Эдуардович (1872—1897) — литературный критик и философ.

Шперк, Эдуард Фридрихович (1837—1894) — врач венеролог и первый директор Института экспериментальной медицины.

Эйлер, Леонард (1707—1783) — выдающийся математик. В 1955 году прах великого учёного был перенесён на Лазаревское кладбище Александро-Невской лавры.

Энгельгардт, Егор Антонович (1775—1862) — директор Царскосельского лицея.

Эссен-Стенбок-Фермер, Яков Иванович (1807—1866) — основатель «Пассажа» (кенотаф на стене у входа на кладбище).

Якоби, Борис Семёнович (1801—1874) — изобретатель первого в мире практического электродвигателя, гальванопластики и телеграфных аппаратов.

In the last  years of the Soviet Period two parts of the cemetery were destroyed. The first was a large section in the far north west corner of the cemetery which was entirely flattened to make way for a building for a local  fire department. This part was destroyed  in 1985. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensky_Lutheran_Cemetery

 The old  entrance to the cemetery was destroyed in the early 1990s. There is a petrol station now. This station use a small section of the cemetery too. The entrance  was replaced.

Еhis cemetery is often used by homeless people now.

The feeding centers for homeless people are  organized near the cemetery now.

  

This is a picture of the big old apartment house number 99A on  14 Lines of Vasilevsky Island, which is located in the Kamsky  Garden on the right  bank of the  Smolenka River  opposite to the Smolenskoye Lutheran Cemetery.  

Some other pictures of June 2013 from the Smolenskoye Lutheran Cemetery are below.

The famous Nobel family had their business in St.-Petersburg in the beginning of XIX century.

Many representatives of this family were buried on this cemetery.

But now there is only one grave of Mary Lorna Nobel, left.

The Nobel family is a prominent Swedish family closely related to the history both of Sweden and of Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its legacy includes its outstanding contributions to philanthropy and to the development of the armament industry and of the oil industry. Some of its foremost members are Immanuel Nobel, the younger, engineer developer of underwater naval mines and inventor of the rotary lathe used to produce plywood,Ludvig Nobel, the founder of Branobel and one of the richest and most important men in Russia at his time, and Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamitewho left the major part of his estate to the creation of the Nobel Prizes.

Members of the Nobel family are known not only for their interest in art but also for their inventive ability, which is sometimes referred to as aRudbeckian trait, inherited from their ancestor Olaus Rudbeck, the elder.^[2] Immanuel Nobel pioneered the development of underwater mines, designed some of the first steam engines to power Russian ships, installed the first central heating systems in Russian homes and was the first to develop modern plywood (cut with a rotary lathe). One of his sons, Ludvig Nobel, was the founder of The Machine-Building Factory Ludvig Nobel, a great armaments concern and the inventor of the Nobel wheel. Ludvig was also the founder of Branobel, the foremost Russian oil industry of its time, and launched the world's first diesel-driven tugs and tankers, besides building the first European pipeline.^[3] Alfred Nobel, who died childless, was the inventor of dynamite and the founder of the Nobel Prizes, to the creation of which he left the bulk of his estate.

The Nobel Family Society, which is not to be confused with the Nobel Foundation, is a private society of which only the descendants of Immanuel Nobel, the younger, are eligible as members. The Nobel family is also represented in the Nobel Prizes Award Ceremony, held in Stockholm every year. In 2007, the Nobel family archives kept in the Archives of Lund were inscribed inUNESCO's Memory of the World Register.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludvig_Nobel
Ludvig Immanuel Nobel (phonetic: [nobél]) (27 July 1831 in Stockholm – March 1888 (or 12 April 1888 sv:Ludvig Nobel) in Cannes) was an engineer, a noted businessman and a humanitarian. One of the most prominent members of the Nobel family, he was the son of Immanuel Nobel (also an engineering pioneer) and the older brother of Alfred Nobel (founder of the Nobel Prize). With his brother Robert, he operated Branobel, an oil company in Baku, which at one point produced 50% of the world's oil. He is credited with creating the Russian oil industry. Ludvig Nobel built the largest fortune of any of the Nobel brothers and was one of the world's richest men. Following the Bolshevik revolution, the communists confiscated the Nobel family's vast fortune in Russia.

When Ludvig Nobel was 28 years old, he was given by his father's creditors the technical management of the family business, Fonderies et Ateliers Mécaniques Nobel Fils, a factory making war supplies such as mines and steam engines. The company had been facing financial difficulties since the end of the Crimean War in 1856 due to a severe cut in the military budget ordered by the new Tsar Alexander II, and eventually, in 1862, Immanuel's firm was sold by his creditors.

With some funds he had managed to save, Ludvig opened a new firm, the Machine-Building Factory Ludvig Nobel. Initially producing chilled cast-iron shells, the factory became in a few years one of the largest producers of gun carriages of Russia.

A Cartridge Display Board of the Nobel Industries, demonstrating the manufacture of a 5/8-inch unlined cartridge.

While running the factory in St. Petersburg, he asked his older brother, Robert Nobel to explore southern Russia for wood to make gun stocks for the tsar. Robert found oil instead, and in 1876 they set up a distillery in Baku. By 1879, Ludvig turned the initial business into a shareholding company,Branobel, of which he was the major shareholder and had as partners his brothers Robert and Alfred Nobel.

Ludvig Nobel invented oil tankers, and better refineries, pipelines. Before 1880 the United States was Russia's teacher in most aspects of the oil business. The roles were reversed in some respects by Nobel. The oil business lacked technical know-how and scientific methodology. To rectify this, Nobel established technical chemical research labs in Baku. These research centers were very active and when something of commercial interest was found, Nobel was fast in trying the new products out on a large scale. Dozens of scientists were employed, finding ways to treat oil, developing new uses for oil, and developing products derived from oil. [1]

Nobel first experimented with carrying oil in bulk on single-hulled barges. Turning his attention to self-propelled tankships, a primary concern was to keep the cargo and fumes well away from the engine room to avoid fires. Other challenges included allowing for the cargo to expand and contract due to temperature changes, and providing a method to ventilate the tanks.

A Commemorative Plaque of the 40th anniversary of the Machine-Building Factory Ludvig Nobel, made byFabergé(Workmaster Alfred Thielemann)in 1902.

The world's first successful oil tanker was Nobel's Zoroaster. He designed this in Lindholmen-Motala in Sweden with Sven Almqvist. The contract to build it was signed January 1878, and it made its first run later that year from Baku to Astrakhan. The design was widely studied and copied, with Nobel refusing to patent any part of it. In October 1878, he ordered two more tankers of the same design: the Buddha and the Nordenskjöld. The first tank steamer of the United States was built after drawings and calculations of Nobel after his death.

Nobel was a strong humanitarian as well as a businessman, full of ideas and visions. He introduced profit sharing and worked actively to improve working conditions in his factories. His humanity and social approach was unique for the time. [2] In 1885 he started a cooperative bank, sparkasse, for the workers. In Baku, social areas were built for the workers like dining rooms, billiard rooms, libraries and conference rooms where speeches and discussions were held. Near his estate, Villa Petrolea, several houses for the workers were built and a shuttle boat was offered between the city and the harbour. The company donated funds to schools and ran a hospital. Ludvig and Robert created a large park, still existent, in the "Black City" section of Baku near Villa Petrolea.

After his death, Nobel's son Emanuel Nobel took over the running of Branobel.

Ludvig Nobel is buried in the Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery in St. Petersburg.