[headstones] the measure of your respect

Let me quote from the Science Direct site:

The age-old tradition of feasting the dead has been maintained by Russian populations for well over five centuries. Graveyards hold a special place both in traditional Orthodox faith and in the lives of Russians and others.

The tradition of feasting the dead for three, nine and forty days after death, can be traced unbroken to pre-Christian Rus’. Details may vary, but always the soul of the deceased must battle its way out of the body and then spend time in both heaven and hell. While this journey is occurring, the living must remember the dead, helping their souls during this period of travail.

Even a final feast one year after the death of the individual does not end the relationship between the living and the deceased, for the graves are still visited on a regular basis as a sign of respect to the dead, who are potential saints in the Russian Orthodox tradition.

This ‘saintly’ land — Russian graves — defines homeland and roots the population to a new area. By examining the importance of graveyards to Russians, to the ethnic Komi of Northern Russia, and other Eastern Europeans, a sense of place is maintained in these rituals of daily life.

Of course, we also revere our departed family and I'm not downplaying that in any way but for the Russian, it is something just a little bit more. i experienced this during two deaths of people close to people close to me. One was my best mate's father and the other my girlfriend's grandfather who'd gone well over the odds, age wise.

The essential thing is that money does not matter in choosing the headstone and the best thing to buy is marble. This takes quite a bit of decision making at a traumatic time but it must be done properly. Then a photo must be found that will live in perpetuity. In my mate's case, it was his father in uniform as a younger man and in the gf's, it had to have a particular helicopter emblazoned behind it, as that had been his life's work, designing systems for those.

The ceremony we'll now skip over and move to the nine day feast and the forty day feast. It absolutely must be and the interesting thing is that you are not supposed to weep and gnash the teeth but really get into the food and converse. There are speeches and toasts and this way, you are assuring G-d, presumably, that the man was much loved. Or maybe it is just tradition.

Now, when you visit the cemetery on special days, it is the done thing to visit before midday apparently and there is a ritual to that too. On one occasion, I went with my mate and he formally introduced me to his father, the photo engraved picture in the marble headstone actually looking out at me, a stern figure but I'm sure he was present and said hello back.

One slightly amusing aspect is that the closer you are buried to the cemetery entrance, the more you are an important person [were] in the community. So I couldn't help noticing figures like the one in the photo above [sorry about the writing across it] and some of them were dressed in shell suits and t shirts.

They do things a bit differently over there.