Anna Akhmatova is buried here. The cemetery of Komarovo is a small, quiet graveyard among pines on the Karelian Isthmus, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland about forty kilometres north-west of Saint Petersburg, and her grave, a simple stone with a cross, is the one that people come to find. She died in 1966, and loved the little cottage she was given in the village, which she called her Booth. The cemetery also holds the grave of the scholar Dmitry Likhachev, and a scattering of writers, artists and scientists who spent their summers in this dacha colony, once reserved for the Soviet cultural elite.
The village used to be called Kellomäki and belonged to Finland until the Winter War of 1939 and 1940, when the isthmus passed to the Soviet Union. You can still feel the Finnish origins in the layout of the roads and the old wooden villas hidden among the trees. Riding here is a pleasure of pine-scented air and quiet lanes. The main road along the coast, the Primorskoe highway, is busy and fast, but the side roads through Komarovo are narrow, tree-lined and slow, with sand and pine needles on the surface, so go gently. Summer evenings in the white-night season are magical, and autumn colours of birch and aspen are rich.
Zelenogorsk, about five kilometres away, has nearly fifteen thousand people and is the sensible place for fuel and food. It was also Finnish once, as Terijoki, and has a seaside promenade. Komarovo itself has a few cafes and shops, but the options are limited. The nearby Road of Life, a memorial route, recalls the winter of 1941 to 1942, when supplies reached besieged Leningrad across the ice of Lake Ladoga, a story told here with solemnity.
Visit with respect. This is a place of mourning and remembrance rather than a tourist stop, and people walk through it quietly. Take off your helmet, walk among the pines, and let the stillness settle. The sea is just beyond the trees, and on a calm day you can hear it.