Gravestone Depicting Angel

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The sculpture depicts an angel guiding a soul to heaven, its expression a poignant display of grief for the departed. The State Museum of City Sculptures was established in 1932 with the mission of studying, restoring, and protecting urban sculptures and gravestones. It oversees many of St Petersburg's most iconic sculptures, maintaining them for future generations. Multiple branches are scattered throughout the city, but the primary ones are situated within the former grounds of the Aleksandro-Nevsky Lavra, which was bequeathed to the museum upon its inception. The Tikhvinskoe Cemetery at the Aleksandro-Nevsky Lavra was founded in 1823 and named after the Our Lady of Tikhvin Church, built between 1869 and 1873. In 1931, the church was shut down, and two years later, the cemetery became a branch of the State Museum of City Sculptures, known as the Necropolis of Masters of Culture. This designation honors the fact that many influential figures in Russian culture are buried here, including writers Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Karamzin, and Ivan Krylov; composers Aleksandr Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, Modest Musorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky; and artists Boris Kustodiev, Ivan Kramskoy, and Ivan Shishkin, among numerous other legendary names.