Literature Cemetery, Voronezh, Memorial cemetery in Voronezh, Russia

The Literature Necropolis in Voronezh is a small paved and gravelled plot at the corner of 20-letiya Oktyabrya and Moiseeva streets. Three tall stone pillars stand along its far edge, a white one with a stepped top and two black ones topped by an urn and a cross, with four low flat-topped tombstones in front. It holds the graves of poets Alexei Koltsov and Ivan Nikitin and writer Elizaveta Militsyna.

The plot was formerly part of the Mitrofanovskoye (Novostroyashcheyesya) cemetery, which was demolished in the 1970s and replaced by Voronezh's circus building. Koltsev's grave came first; his black stone monument is the second on the site, raised 25 years after his death in 1842. Nikitin's white Carrara marble monument, made in the Botta brothers' workshop in Saint Petersburg to a design by architect M. F. Peterson, was erected in 1863 with public donations. A major restoration, the first since 1972, reopened the necropolis on 15 October 2009.

The plot keeps the graves of poet Alexei Koltsov, his parents and sister Anisya Semyonova, poet Ivan Nikitin and writer Elizaveta Militsyna. Nikitin's 1863 white Carrara marble monument, carved in the Botta brothers' workshop, shows his bas-relief ringed by a snake biting its tail, with the dedication "To Nikitin — admirers of his talent and friends".

The plot sits at the corner of 20-letiya Oktyabrya and Moiseeva streets, a short walk from the circus building that replaced the old Mitrofanovskoye cemetery. It is a small paved and gravelled area, so a visit takes only a few minutes; the monuments stand close together in rows, with the white marble Nikitin memorial and the black stone Koltsev monument facing each other across the plot.

The black stone on Alexei Koltsov's grave is the second monument erected there, placed 25 years after his death; its inscription gives 19 October 1842, but the poet died on 29 October. The marble memorial to Ivan Nikitin, carved in the Botta brothers' workshop in Saint Petersburg to a design by architect M. F. Peterson, shows his bas-relief ringed by a snake biting its own tail, a symbol of infinity.