Cossack Cross 30, Kuialnyk cemetery, Odesa, Ukraine

Year of burial: 1840 Name and surname: IOANN AND GRIGHO / RIAI SHMYGORY Inscription: 1840 YEAR / HERE / REST / YOUNG PEOPLE / IOANN AND GRIGHO / RIAI SHMYGORY Typology of form: Straight-pointed cross. Description: In the word "young people" the letter A is under the title. According to the research of Professor T.G. Honcharuk, Shmygor's surname coincides with the surname of the owners of the Kuyalnik quarries, who in 1837 extracted stone for the construction of the Potemkin Stairs. According to Russian propaganda, the city of Odesa was founded in 1794. However, Cossack cemeteries are located in this place on the territory of the former Khadjybei, where the earliest burials date back to 1791. The Sotnikiv cemetery of Odesa is the largest of the preserved Cossack cemeteries in Ukraine. Long before the Russian occupation-colonization, Cossacks lived here, on the edge of Khadjybei. The oldest cross in the cemetery dates back to 1791 - it was erected three years before the founding of Odesa. The Cossack settlement dates back to the 1870s. In total, there are more than five hundred graves in the cemetery, about two hundred are crowned with stone crosses.