Exploring urban boundaries through discussions of a city cemetery excursion

Abstract

In February 2025, a launch seminar was held in Petrozavodsk to mark the beginning of the project We Remember. We Love. We Sorrow. The initiative promotes educational activities in the form of cemetery walks — guided tours through the section of honorary burials at the Petrozavodsk city cemetery. The seminar centred on exploring the thematic and conceptual foundations of these excursions, which aim to make this seemingly inconspicuous site of tangible forms of memory more visible to local residents. This paper analyses the discussion that took place during the seminar, in which necrospaces were approached as examples of scenarios where the cemetery landscape is both distinct from and embedded within the everyday life of the city. These intersections, both symbolic and material, are understood as practices that shape urban everydayness. As such, excursions into these spaces may be perceived as intrusions into a domain of separation and detachment, one governed by its own boundaries and implicit rules.