In March 1940, Bulgakov’s ashes were buried here. The following epigraph was later inscribed on the grave stone: ‘The Writer Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov. 1891-1940’. Thirty years later, in July 1970, Elena Sergeevna was buried next to her husband.

Not only in life, but in death too, Bulgakov’s name remained tightly linked with Nikolay Gogol, and the retort, ‘Cover me with your cast iron overcoat’, (from a letter from Bulgakov to Pavel Popov of 1932), is considered by commentators to be prophetic. Elena Bulgakova remembered that for the first few years, her husband’s grave was decorated with planted flowers and pear trees. After some time, she discovered a granite block in the workshop at the cemetery – according to the director of the workshop it was the Golgotha stone from Gogol’s tomb. At the widow’s request, the stone was moved to Bulgakov’s grave. Later an epigraph was inscribed on the stone in golden letters: ‘The Writer Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov. 1891-1940’. Aside from Elena Sergeevna, who is buried next to her husband, Bulgakov’s sister, Nadezhda, and his relatives along the Zemsky line: Maria, Boris, Andrey and others, are buried here.