The Tartu Muslim cemetery

The Tartu Muslim cemetery was a small Islamic burial ground in the Raadi-Kruusamäe district — one of the few Muslim burial places in Estonia outside Tallinn, Narva and Rakvere. Only a fragment of it survives today.

The Raadi cemetery in Tartu. The Muslim cemetery was a small Islamic burial ground in the Raadi-Kruusamäe area; no separate photograph of it survives. Photo: Bandaranaice (CC BY-SA 4.0), Wikimedia Commons.

History

The cemetery was founded in the 18th century and served Tartu's Muslim (Tatar) community — soldiers and merchants. Its official address is Kalmistu 18a, though the cemetery itself borders Surnuaia Street. In 1937 it reportedly still had large trees and three visible graves.

Destruction

When and under what circumstances the cemetery fell out of use is not documented in the sources available to us. Over the years of the occupation it dwindled almost to nothing: about 0.015 hectares survive today. It is not protected as a monument in its own right, but forms part of cultural monument no. 4322 together with the old Jewish cemetery.

See also

• No one escaped the Soviet Union (overview)

• The destruction of sacred sites and cemeteries in the Soviet Union

• The graveyard as the community's backbone

• The Tartu old Jewish cemetery

• The old Muslim cemetery of Tallinn

Sources: Tartu Muslim cemetery (Wikipedia); monument no. 4322 (heritage register); Tartu cemeteries (City of Tartu).