Gravestone of Georgy Tovstonogov

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Georgy Alexandrovich Tovstonogov was born on September 28, 1915 in Tbilisi, Russian Empire or St Petersburg to a noble family and Georgian classical singer Tamara Papitashvili. He graduated from the State Institute of Theatrical Art in Moscow in 1938. From 1938 to 1946, he worked as a director at the Tbilisi Griboedov Theater. After that, he moved to the Central Children's Theater in Moscow where he directed plays from 1946 to 1949. In 1950, he took over as the leader of the Leningrad Leninsky Komsomol Theater and remained there until 1956. He then became the director of the Bolshoi Academic Gorky Theater from 1956 until his death in 1989. As a professor at the Leningrad Institute for Theatre, Music and Cinema since 1960, he taught young actors about the art of directing plays. Tovstonogov was awarded with several top honors including being named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1957. He won the Stalin Prize three times and received two Orders of Lenin among other awards. In 1972, he published his book The Profession of the Stage-Director which showcases his directing style and thoughts on influential theatre directors Lee Strasberg and Konstantin Stanislavsky. Tragically, Tovstonogov died on May 23, 1989 from a heart attack while driving home after rehearsing his new play The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The State Museum of City Sculptures was established in 1932 to preserve city sculptures and gravestones. This museum is responsible for maintaining many famous sculptures in St Petersburg. With several branches across the city, the main ones are located within the former territory of the Aleksandro-Nevsky Lavra which was donated to the museum upon its founding. The Tikhvinskoe Cemetery at Aleksandro-Nevsky Lavra was established in 1823 and named after the Our Lady of Tikhvin Church built there between 1869 and 1873. The church was closed in 1931, and a year later the cemetery became part of the State Museum of City Sculptures known as the Necropolis of Masters of Culture. This branch is so named because many influential figures of 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.