The cemetery appeared in 1591 on the terratory of Donskoy Monastery. It is located in the south-west of Moscow, in Donskoy area of the Southern administrative district. Since the second half of the 18th century, the cemetery has been a burial place of aristocracy. Many Russian statesmen, public figures, Decembrists, participants of the war in 1812, writers and scientists were burried there. At the Eastern wall, there are original high reliefs taken off the Cathedral of the Redeemer and saved from destruction during the building process of the Palace of the Soviets. The cemetery has the biggest amount of artistic gravestones, including beautiful works of the sculptor G. Zamarzaev: a Grace bending over the urn at the grave of I. Kozlov, a grey obelisk at the grave of L. Davidov, a scultpural compsition with the bust of the deceased and a woman sadly looking at him at the grave of V. Nebolsin.