Cremation of a person. What is this procedure

Cremation - accepting orders around the clock. We complete all documents in full.

• Collection of all documents (you don’t have to waste time, we will collect everything ourselves)
• We provide ritual goods (we have our own production, so prices are lower)
• Cargo transportation 200 (own fleet: Peugeot, Volkswagen, Mercedes hearse)
• If desired, we organize cremation without the presence of the customer (we hand over the urn)
• We work 24 hours (our employees travel at any time throughout Moscow and the Moscow region)

The essence of cremation is that people make a will before their death that their body be set on fire (cremated). The ashes of the deceased are placed in a special urn, which is buried in the ground or placed in a columbarium. There are plenty of positive points here:

• space saving,
• environmental friendliness,
• aesthetic beauty, etc.

It goes without saying that since there is demand, the City Ritual Service is ready to carry out the cremation procedure for everyone. A detailed list of relevant services is located on the official website.

How is a person cremated in Moscow? Firstly, in specially equipped ovens the body and coffin are burned until ashes are obtained. The ashes are then placed in a special container, also called an urn. It is this that is passed on to the relatives of the deceased. Next, the urn is placed either in a columbarium - a special structure, or the procedure for burying the urn in the ground is carried out. At the same time, you can either bury her in a special area or carry out a sub-burial in an existing grave. There is also the practice of leaving an urn - you can place it at home so that the ashes of your loved one are always nearby. How much cremation costs in Moscow depends on the additional services chosen.

Cost of cremation

As practice shows, the cost of cremating a person can vary, depending on:

The cost is also affected by the need for additional services, for example, organizing a farewell procedure. Crematoria offer services for carrying out such events, providing a funeral hall for rent. At the same time, you can even order the services of a priest to perform the funeral service for the deceased.

One look at Rosehill Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey tells you it's in a small town: tree-lined paths, rolling lawns, and signs on every corner. On this summer weekday morning there is a familiar atmosphere of loss and bereavement. A yellow taxi waits for a passenger paying his last respects at one of the graves. A man and a woman in church clothes park their cars on the side of the road and walk to the burial site. An excavator digs a place for a new guest.

This procedure for treating the deceased has long been established. A person dies, he is buried, and a tombstone marks the place of the grave among the rest of those who have passed on to another world. But today I'm heading to another part of the cemetery where few people go (although that's rapidly changing these days).

This place is called a columbarium, and at first the very existence of such a room with urns for ashes may cause surprise. In films, the urn with the remains of the deceased usually rests on a shelf at home, or friends scatter the ashes in some sacred place. In real life, many cremated people remain in the cemetery just like their buried comrades.

The floors here are covered with pink carpets. The silence is pierced by the noise of a vacuum cleaner. Rows of small niches with urns stretch along the walls different sizes and appearance, each in the spirit of its time. Older urns are distinguished by their sophistication of style: one is crowned Eternal flame, the other is made in the form of a Bible. The urn with the inscription “Henrietta Leiber, 1866-1933” is made in the shape of an acorn. Next to her is a photograph of Henrietta in a white dress without sleeves and long pearl earrings, her hair is cut short, like that of an eccentric girl from the 1920s.

Modern urns are simpler in shape and style. In addition, they are bulkier, but not out of vanity. During the cremation process, more of a person's body remains than before. Some families decorated the niches with flowers, family photos or pictures of Jesus. Others left the niche empty and placed the urn behind a marble slab. There is some irony in this: the body was destroyed down to the smallest organic particles, in order to then surround it with stone for protection.

Today we are witnessing a radical change in the perception of death and what follows it. Over the past few decades, the number of Americans choosing cremation over outdated burial has increased dramatically. This is what brought me to Rosehill Cemetery, and now, together with Jim Koslowski, director of Rosehill and Rosedale Cemeteries, I set out to delve into his world and learn how the work of cemeteries is changing in the face of a radically new way of thinking about death and burial.

We move further into the columbarium and pass through the Pink Room. Here the ballot boxes are not hidden behind glass, but are open for public viewing. I like this approach better: glass boxes resemble display cases in pharmacies, where without a salesperson with a key, there is no access to goods. At the far end of the room are doors made of stained glass. Koslowski pushes them aside, revealing another door, this time made of iron, like in spy movies. They are so strong for a reason: next is the crematorium itself.

We're going in. The room resembles a factory, the purpose of which is a special type of destruction.

Socially acceptable

In 1980, less than 5% of Americans were cremated after death. According to the Cremators Association North America, now this figure reaches 50%. The reason is undoubtedly changing cultural and religious norms. But if you want to understand what accelerated the changes, just remember the Global Economic Crisis.

“The increase in the number of cremations began with the advent of the crisis in 2008, when many people were left without work. It’s not as expensive as burial,” Koslowski explains.

“Not that expensive” is putting it mildly. Cremation at Rosehill costs just $180, although the urn, flowers and other services are extra. By comparison, a cemetery plot can cost up to $2,500, plus a $1,500 surcharge for digging the grave with an excavator.

Rosehill is a half-hour drive from Manhattan and today cremates about 25 bodies a day, a number that is increasing to meet growing demand. The crematorium already had three cremation installations, two more were purchased in 2013 and 2016, and by the end of the year it is planned to purchase and install the sixth.

Of course, burning the dead is not a new phenomenon - so in last way sent long before the crisis forced Americans to save every penny. Cremation began in the Stone Age. It was also a tradition, although not universal, in Ancient Greece and Rome. In some religions, such as Hinduism and Jainism, cremation was not only permitted but also preferred.

The rise of Christianity brought an end to the practice of cremation in the West. As early as 330 AD, when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, cremation, which was considered pagan rite, banned. The reason for the ban was related to the idea of ​​resurrection - it is better if the body is preserved whole or in one place. During the Reformation, the Catholic Church, to put it mildly, did not approve or even prohibit cremation, but burning was used as a punishment or for hygienic reasons. In Judaism, cremation was also prohibited. By the 5th century, cremation had ceased to be used completely in Europe.

Garinis combustion furnace, Milan, Italy. Image from L'Illustration magazine, No. 1965, volume 76, dated October 23, 1880. GETTY IMAGES

Cremation returned to Europe in the 1870s, largely due to public health concerns to curb the spread of disease. The first modern crematorium was built in the USA in 1876, and the second - 8 years later. By 1900, there were already 20 of them. A new rise in popularity came in 1963, when the Catholic Church, during the Second Vatican Council, radically changed its opinion on cremation. Now it was resolved, but the scattering of ashes was not.

Today, there are more than 2,100 crematoria in the United States, and the return of such a practice is due to more than just cost. Fewer religious prohibitions and changes in client preferences have an impact: people want simpler and less ritualized funerals. The high pace of life also affects modern man, says Robert Biggins, owner funeral home Magoon-Biggins in Rockland, Massachusetts. “People don’t stay in their hometown for life. We are much more mobile. Generation X and Millennials change jobs every 5-7 years.” Americans don't want to stay in one place even after death.

Simply put, cremation has become socially acceptable. Acceptance rates vary by state and ethnicity, but in California, Oregon and South Florida, 60 to 80 percent of deceased people are cremated, according to a report from the Funeral Industry Association. The number is significantly lower in the Bible Belt region and in some other population groups, including Catholics and African Americans.

There is another point that promotes cremation as an alternative to burial. “There are fewer and fewer places in cemeteries,” explains Koslowski. According to his estimates, within 15 years there will be no places at all in Rosehill. It is therefore not surprising that many cemeteries install crematoriums. Although this causes dissatisfaction, especially in residential areas.

“There are stereotypes about this,” explains Koslowski. “There are still people who consider crematoria vile and disgusting institutions.” They don't want something like that next to their house."

How does a crematorium work?

Koslowski and I walk through the double doors. As soon as we enter the crematorium, a signal sounds.

“Why is it needed?” - I ask.

“It means there might be a hearse approaching the door. This signal alerts busy employees that someone has arrived,” he replies.

The bodies are delivered in wooden or, most often, cardboard coffins, in which they remain during the entire cremation procedure. This is for medical reasons and protects employees from infections. There are also ethical reasons: Koslowski says that "families want something to put their dead relatives in." It also makes sense from a logistical point of view: “Without a coffin, it would be extremely difficult to load the remains. Imagine a human body and try placing it in a cremation facility.”

There is a refrigerator at the crematorium. The coffins are delivered there and placed on shelves. On one of them I saw a Delta Airlines tag that said: “Human remains. We don't care." Typically, the bodies of the deceased are refrigerated for 1-2 days because most states have a law requiring at least 24 hours to pass between death and cremation. When something so fatal happens, there is no need to rush.

Five large cremation units occupy an entire floor. The equipment is coated with diamond-coated aluminum, the kind of coating you might see on a fire truck or a professional toolbox. By the way, this is called “cremation equipment”, not “oven”. And you shouldn’t call cremation the burning of corpses, even if this is essentially true. There are words that should not be said in the crematorium.

“The word 'oven' has a negative connotation because it is associated with Auschwitz. People try to avoid the term,” says Brian Gamage, director of marketing at U.S. Cremation Equipment in Altamonte Springs, Florida.

When the body is ready for cremation, it is removed from the cold storage room, placed on a gurney and taken to one of the cremation facilities. Mistakes are unacceptable and unforgivable when cremating, so Rosehill double-confirms the identity of the deceased to ensure the family receives the urn containing their relative's ashes and not someone else's. A copy of the payment receipt is affixed to the outside of the cremation facility, and a metal identification tag, similar to an army dog ​​tag, is placed on the body itself.

The door to the cremation chamber opens 75-90 centimeters, but most employees open it only 30 centimeters: just the width of the body. If opened wider, the room will become unbearably hot, which could harm the employee. The body is placed in the cremation chamber by pushing with a special tool or by hand. There are rotating cylinders on the gurney, and sometimes inside the cremation chamber, so the coffin can slide into the cremation chamber with ease.

The cremation facility consists of two chambers: the primary one, where the body is located, and the secondary one, where the resulting gases are burned.

The walls of the primary chamber are lined with bricks, and the floor and roof are made of high-strength fire-resistant concrete. The burner is located on the ceiling and heats the chamber to approximately 650 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the body breaks down into gas and bone fragments.

The resulting gases and bone fragments move to the next chamber: this is a nine-meter labyrinth in which the gas is held for about two seconds. In the secondary chamber, the gas and bone fragments are heated to 900°C to crush them and destroy the odor, after which the gas is released into the atmosphere. Gamage says the aftermarket chamber is similar to the exhaust converter on older cars: it cleans up emissions from the exhaust system.

“Any solid turns into a gas if it is heated to the right temperature. Essentially, this is what happens to the body: the tissue heats up to the point that it turns into gas, explains Gamage. - Any combustion, be it burning fuel in a car or cooking food on a grill, necessarily entails air pollution. When designing equipment for crematoriums, great care is taken to ensure that emissions comply with government environmental regulations.”

According to most state environmental agencies, particulate matter emissions must be less than 0.06 grams per cubic foot (1 cubic foot equals 28.31 liters - Note Newabout). Difficulties arise when gases accumulate in the secondary chamber and the concentration begins to exceed permissible limits. This occurs if the equipment is not designed properly or if an employee overloads the primary chamber. The primary chamber is overloaded by unexpected reason: For example, if an overweight person is placed in it without taking into account the schedule of other cremations.

It sounds creepy, but the crematorium staff really care about the weight of the deceased. The equipment does not understand the difference between 70 and 180 kilograms and simply performs its functions. Workers know for sure that to burn 45 kilograms of human fat you need 64 liters of kerosene. If you need to cremate a body that weighs 180 kilograms, then at least 90 of them will be fat tissue, which burns out quite quickly. If you place such a person in a too hot primary chamber - overheating of the equipment often occurs after several hours of continuous cremation, by the end of the working day - smoke and an unpleasant odor will pour out of the chamber.

“The equipment can't handle that volume of gas,” explains Gamage. “Most experienced staff cremate these bodies early in the day, when the cremation facility has not yet overheated.”

At Rosehill Crematorium, I stare at a computer monitor that reduces the ritual of cremation to raw data on a monitor. This is the second cremation today. The body inside is a man in a cardboard coffin, weight category - from 90 to 260 kilograms. The procedure lasts for an hour and twenty minutes. An on-screen diagram displays data from both cameras. Three small blue lights under one of the chambers indicate that additional air is being supplied to the primary chamber for cooling. Before this, the temperature inside the primary chamber was 870-980°C, but now it has dropped to 490-620°C.

In general, it takes about one and a half hours to cremate a body, with slight variations depending on the weight of the person and the type of coffin. Time commitments limit the number of cremations per day. All five cremation facilities were operating during my visit. In eight hours, one cremation unit can cremate five bodies. Rosehill Crematorium is open six days a week, with equipment being idle only on Sundays.

“For religious reasons?” - I ask Koslowski.

“No,” he says. “We just need a day off.”

Close to home

Lisa Tomasello grew up in a large Italian Catholic family. In those days, the death of a relative was followed by two or three grueling days. In the next room, visitors entered their names in the guest book and stood in line at the coffin of the deceased. They sat in front of the body of the deceased, knelt, prayed, crossed themselves, kissed the deceased’s hands, face and lips. “The closer the relationship was, the closer to the lips,” explains Lisa.

Close relatives sat in the front row, receiving those who came to say goodbye to the deceased. Sobs and lamentations in Italian were common. At noon, the family went to lunch, where everyone told stories and laughed, before returning to the funeral hall to spend several more hours crying. Then the funeral: the process begins in the funeral hall, continues in the church and ends in the cemetery, after which guests are invited to the wake.

The body was buried, a tombstone was erected, and then what? During each period of mourning, Tomasello asked herself this question. In the first few years, you may go to the cemetery, but most likely the next time you will be there is when another relative of yours is buried. “There hasn’t been anyone at my grandparents’ grave for over 30 years,” she says.

Tomasello grew up, and when her own parents left this world, she wanted to change the standard mourning ritual. When her mother died, Lisa and her siblings decided to have a small ceremony and have her body cremated. A few years later, his father died; this time they forgo a formal ceremony, drank a glass of Jack Daniels in honor of their father, and then cremated him and divided the ashes between themselves.

“It comforts me to have my parents’ ashes in my bedroom. I don’t feel guilty that I haven’t been to their grave for a long time - they are here with me.”

We find it difficult to let go. We want our departed loved ones to be close to us. Sometimes we even humanize things that remind us of them. This is a way to give back dear people to life. No, an urn is not just a container containing your mother's ashes. The urn is the mother.

To perpetuate the memory of my father, I bought a bench and placed it on the sidewalk in my city. Now this bench reminds me of my father. When I greet the sunrise and see the silhouette of a bench, I feel as if he is greeting it with me.

What remains?

It's not easy to say this, but the physical characteristics that come to mind when we imagine our loved ones - their eyes, skin, hair - disappear without a trace during the cremation process. After all that we go through - experiences, memories, suffering and pain, exams passed and facts learned - the largest part of the remains of the deceased after cremation is the coffin. “Typically, cremated remains consist of fragments of the deceased’s bones and ashes from the coffin. Don’t forget, we are 75% water,” explains Koslowski.

After the procedure is completed, the cremated remains are placed on a silver tray. Using a magnet, a crematorium employee collects unburned metal objects. These can be staples, screws, hinges and dentures. Then they manually select what the magnet missed - say, shards of glass from a bottle of whiskey with which the children wished to cremate their late father. All this is buried somewhere in the cemetery.

"And what's that?" - I ask, pointing to the tray with the remains.

“One of the bone fragments. “Possibly an intervertebral disc,” Koslowski replies and adds, “here you can check the anatomy.”

"But it's green."

“I don't know what's wrong. This may be related to the medications you are taking. Hard to tell. It might have been cancer."

The remaining bones and ashes are placed in a grinder, not unlike a kitchen mixer. The remains are then passed through a sieve and sealed in a container for the family, although this is not always the case. Representatives of some Asian cultures want to independently extract the uncrushed remains of the bones of the deceased. The skull and pelvic bones are especially prized. Such families are categorically against shredding.

Hindus often want the cremation process to be initiated by the eldest son as a rite of passage, so he is allowed into the crematorium to turn on the installation. Every week, about a dozen families express a desire to watch the cremation process. Rosehill provides a viewing platform for such occasions. Koslowski said it's important that people understand the process and don't doubt cremation because of misinformation or gossip.

“[Some] believe that several people are cremated at the same time and the coffins are resold. Whatever. People watch the news."

I press him for the truth about urban legends about crematoria. Which of these is true? Do the remains of some cremated people mix with others? My interlocutor explains that everyone is cremated separately, and the installations are thoroughly cleaned after the procedure.

Still, Barbara Kemmis, a spokeswoman for the Cremator Association of North America, comes to mind that even though units are cleaned between cremations, tiny particles can get stuck in tiny cracks in the unit's brick walls and concrete floors and accidentally end up in the remains of another cremated person. This is perhaps one of those aspects of cremation that it is best not to think about.

Unburied

Cremation, like death, is final. And yet this does not exclude subsequent doubts. Susan Skiles Luke, a marketing consultant from Columbia, Missouri, had her mother cremated and buried her remains in the family cemetery. Now she regrets that it is not the body that lies in the grave, but only the ashes of the deceased.

“When I visit her, which is not often, I want her body, dressed in her Saturday best, to lie underground with the bodies of my late grandparents and beloved aunt, and not as a heavy shoebox filled with something similar to cigarette ash,” she laments.

When her older brother, with whom she was very close, tragically died of an overdose 13 months later, cremation instead of a traditional funeral seemed like a godsend. “If you are still angry - perhaps someone close to you has passed away, like my brother - cremation will avoid public drama, display of the body or discussion of the circumstances of the death. You can think about the logistics of the “body” later, when you come to your senses,” says Susan.

The undoubted advantage of cremation is that it allows you to resolve emotional problems in a way that is convenient for you. What about the shortcomings? You get the remains, a tangible object loaded with memories. After her brother's death, Susan picked up his ashes on the way home from work, as if it were an everyday matter. After all, the funeral home was on the way home. “How thoughtlessly I acted in not entrusting this matter to someone else, because I had never done this before. I didn't expect it to affect me so much. I threw the ashes into the trunk with a roar and roared all the way home,” the girl recalls.

A few years later, when her stepfather passed away, she was unable to pick up the remains, even after several calls from the funeral home. “I never picked up the phone. I listened to one voice message politely reminding me to “pick up my father.” That phrase, coupled with the fact that “my father” was just a handful of ashes in a box, reminded me of when I collected the remains of my brother Tom.”

One day she returned home and found a box with her father's ashes on the doorstep. Now the two boxes containing the remains are in a warehouse somewhere, although she doesn't know where exactly. She asked her husband to hide them so that she could not see them. “Not the healthiest reaction,” she admits.

Ellen Herman, who works in digital advertising in Los Angeles, found herself in a similar position. About nine years ago, both her parents died within a year of each other, after which they were cremated. She decided to head to the mausoleum in Florida, where her parents lived shortly before their death, to find a place for their ashes and honor the memory with warm words. In any case, this is exactly what she intended to do, but she never carried out her plan.

“They are at my house. Actually, right in my bedroom! In boxes under a pile of all sorts of rubbish. I kept them in the garage for a while, but that also didn’t seem right,” she says.

Some of their remains, together and separately, are located in different places. His brother keeps some of his father's ashes, but most of them are in boxes at Ellen's house. “None of my brothers wanted to take the ashes for themselves, and it seemed wrong to me to scatter them. I think because families don't live as close together as they once did, the importance of visiting a cemetery has diminished, but I still think keeping ashes in boxes in the bedroom is completely disrespectful to the deceased,” says Ellen.

Sometimes, instead of burying our loved ones in the ground, we bury them under a pile of things. We lose them among other emotionally charged attributes of our life, because it is not easy to survive.

Interment

We came from the earth, and we will go into the earth. Nobody argues, the only question is whether we will harm the environment while we leave. Cremation is increasingly competing with funerals as the most common post-mortem ritual, and there are serious concerns about the procedure's contribution to environmental pollution. Some are even beginning to look for more sophisticated ways to dispose of human remains.

Alkaline hydrolysis technology is being promoted as a more environmentally friendly alternative, which releases less carbon monoxide and other gases into the air. harmful substances. In alkaline hydrolysis, the body is placed in a chamber filled with water and potassium hydroxide, and then heated under high pressure to a temperature of 160°C. After three hours, the soft tissue turns into a dirty green liquid, and the bones become soft enough to be crushed. The bones are usually given to the family and the liquid is poured down the drain.

Just technology for some dystopia, right? It seems so for good reason: it was invented for the disposal of livestock affected by mad cow disease. When European farmers had to slaughter huge herds of sick cows, they dumped the carcasses of the animals in pits, doused them with gasoline and burned them. With the advent of alkaline hydrolysis in 1990, six-meter stainless steel tanks began to be produced for this purpose. High pressure during alkaline hydrolysis destroys prions - protein particles in the brain of cows responsible for the occurrence of rabies. Years passed and some companies began to market alkaline hydrolysis as environmentally friendly clean way disposal of human remains. “They took existing technology and applied it to the cremation field,” says Gamage of US Cremation Equipment. “Capitalism in its purest form.”

The technology is not popular, and no wonder: it is slow and expensive. A stainless steel device can cost from $175 thousand for the basic configuration to $500 thousand for the most advanced model. By comparison, prices for cremation facilities range from $80,000 to $100,000. There are also legal complications: the use of the technology is prohibited until the state government issues the appropriate legislation.

Disgust also plays a role. Let's not forget that we're talking about about making a thick soup out of a human body and pouring it down the drain. The idea may still be attractive to those who don't want to think about incineration, but most have a hard time coming to terms with how the byproducts of alkaline hydrolysis are disposed of.

Pragmatic about death, Koslowski sees it differently.

“People think like this: what is happening, not only did they dissolve my mother, but now they will also pour her into the sewer?! They can be understood. But, say, during embalming, body fluids are also poured out. No difference".

Material evidence

In movies you can often see characters scattering ashes loved one: some from the deck of a ship, some from the top of a mountain. In reality, this rarely happens. The Cremator Association of North America estimates that 60-80% of cremated remains are retained by relatives. Someone decided to take the remains to the cemetery or scatter the ashes a little later. So the ballot boxes remain at home.

“The news recently showed people trying to find the ashes of relatives after a fire, flood or landslide. So a large percentage of remains are kept in people's homes,” Kemmis concludes.

Places where it is permitted to disperse the contents of an urn are regulated by law. For example, in Massachusetts, the law requires that ashes be scattered “with respect.” One wonders what this means. Biggins of Magoon-Biggins Funeral Home says, “What I mean is, you can't just throw ashes all over Main Street or put them in front of your neighbor's garage. But there's nothing wrong with having a ceremony on the golf course where your father played for 40 years."

Scattering the ashes of a loved one to the wind is a romantic idea. However, in giving to the deceased special place and writing his name there also has its own meaning.

“We place headstones on the graves of loved ones to preserve their memory,” says Biggins. His wife died tragically at the age of 57, and he often visits her grave. Her name alone can comfort him a little. “Many people leave pebbles and coins on the gravestones. I go there every week, there are already several dozen of them there. It makes your soul feel so warm when you see that people don’t forget about her.”

Just as I'm about to leave, I decide to stand at the grave of my friend David. He grew up in Harlem and had a hard time in life.

Mother is an alcoholic. The father left the family. Despite his living mother and grandparents, the boy was still being dealt with by child protective services. He was educated in the public schools of Cortland County and was able to enter college there. State University New York State Football Scholarship Award. He studied for only a semester and returned to Harlem. What happened next was like something out of a bad movie: I met a girl, tried crack, lost my job, became infected with HIV. As a result, kidney problems arose: I had to live on dialysis for ten years. He died in 2015 of heart failure, one of the first on the list to receive a donor kidney.

I was at his funeral ceremony, but I never made it to the cemetery where I’m standing now. It's time to fix this. They give me the “address”: section 48, row 24, grave 83. The cemetery is very large, but, having found the right section, I quickly find his grave. To my surprise, I see only a piece of land and the number 83 on the concrete - no sign that David is buried here. On one side of his property are large marble tombstones, on the other, inside a wire fence, there are a bunch of plastic flowers, scraps of blue ribbons and strings, foam crosses with the words “I love you” and a deflated white balloon. It’s as if yesterday there was a holiday at the neighboring site, and David was not invited.

This is somehow unfair, I thought. He treated people very well: to me, and to his girlfriend, a drug addict, and to his niece from Florida, to whom he sent money, although he had practically no money himself. Without a tombstone, no one will ever know that he is down there somewhere. Or rather, that he was once up here.

Neither a funeral nor cremation gets rid of the most difficult thing - you need to let a loved one go from this world to another. People need material evidence that the deceased once walked the Earth with them. It doesn’t matter which ones: a tombstone, a bench, or an urn will do.

I walk up to the car and back seat I see a figurine of a football player that my son dug up in some trash. I take a black marker out of the glove compartment and write on it: “David. April 23, 1954 - April 23, 2015." I return to grave 83 and place the figurine in the place where a tombstone could stand. She left a pebble on the grave, as they sometimes do, and went to the car.

Every 10 minutes, the operators of the Minsk crematorium are required to open the valve in the furnace and stir the ashes of the deceased. They do this with absolutely equanimity, repeating that there is nothing supernatural in their work: “People are born, people die.” TUT.BY journalists personally observed the cremation process and found out why it is not customary to sprinkle ashes on your head while working here.

(Total 17 photos)

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In 2013, 39 percent of those who died were cremated.

The monumental red brick building, surrounded by columbar walls and cemetery graves, is not a pleasant place to work. The air here seems to be saturated with human grief. If in the 80s there were about 1,000 cremations a year, today their number exceeds 6,300. Last year, about 39 percent of the deceased were cremated.

1. The Minsk crematorium was opened in 1986 not far from the Northern Cemetery.

2. Unfilled cells in the columbarium - reservation. Relatives worry in advance about being “nearby” after death.

Deputy head of the crematorium Alexander Dubovsky explains the increased demand by the fact that, compared to a cemetery grave, a columbarium cell does not require special care. In addition, there are fewer and fewer places in the cemetery every year. And in the future, experts predict, the load on the crematorium will only increase. In Europe today, about 70 percent of the deceased are cremated, and in Japan - up to 98 percent.

3. Ritual hall

4. Those who have had the misfortune of visiting a crematorium know only its external side - ritual halls (there are three of them) and a store with the appropriate assortment (flowers, urns, tombstones, etc.). The cremation workshop and other utility rooms are located on the level below, and outsiders are not allowed to enter here.

5. The long and dark corridors along which coffins with the deceased are transported on a cart are connected to the ritual hall through a lifting mechanism.

6. With its help, the coffin is raised to say goodbye to relatives.

Ritual equipment operators - 5 people for the entire republic

Despite the specifics of the work, there is also “life in full swing” below. They work in the cremation workshop strong-willed people with a tempered psyche and a healthy outlook on things. In official documents they are called “ritual equipment operators” - they are representatives of a rare, if not unique, profession in our country.

7. In the only crematorium in the republic, this work is performed by only 5 people - exclusively men. They themselves are sincerely surprised when their profession is called difficult or unpleasant. And then they remember that the morgue workers (perhaps the most experienced people in the prose of life) are also wary of the cremation workshop workers, calling them “kebab makers.” However, contrary to popular belief, there is no smell of either burnt or fried here. A cadaverous smell occurs occasionally - most often when a person dies at an advanced age and very quickly begins to decompose. On the day of our visit, we did not notice any unpleasant odors.

Impressive seniority local "stove makers". Both Andrei, one with a mustache, the other without, have been working at the crematorium for more than 20 years. They came, as they say, as young, strong, slender guys. It’s clear – with the expectation of working here temporarily. And then they “worked hard”, and now half their life has already passed within the walls of the crematorium. Men talk about this without a shadow of regret. They really seem quite happy with their situation. They say they don’t come face to face with the dead (dead people are cremated only in closed coffin and together with the coffin), and all the main work is entrusted to the machine.

Previously, “smoke was coming out like a pillar”, today the driver’s work is dust-free

The cremation process is now truly automated. The workshop has four fairly modern Czech stoves. In one of them, post-operative oncological waste is burned, and the rest is used for its intended purpose. According to Alexander Dubovsky, with the old equipment there was “a column of smoke.” Now the driver's job is relatively dust-free.

After a memorial service is served for the deceased, the coffin is transported from the ritual hall either to the refrigerator (if all the ovens are occupied) or straight to the workshop. Crematorium workers say that they are often faced with the opinion that allegedly before burning they take gold, watches from the coffin, and also remove good clothes, shoes. “Are you going to put on the clothes of the deceased?” - Andrei asks the question point-blank, clearly tired of such conversations. And without opening the lid of the coffin, the driver quickly loads it onto the lift.

8. Now you need to wait until the computer gives the green light, and only after that you can send the deceased into it. The program automatically sets the required temperature (usually not lower than 700 degrees Celsius). Depending on the weight of the body and its condition, cremation takes from an hour to two and a half hours. All this time the driver is obliged to control the process. For this purpose, there is a small glass hole in the oven, which faint-hearted people are unlikely to dare to look into.

9. “You just treat it like this: you have to do it, and that’s it. And even at the very beginning I tried to think that I just threw the box. I used to work for one day. We should fear the living, not the dead.”

“If Ivanov came, it means they will give away Ivanov’s ashes”

The main thing, men say, is to do their work efficiently. And the criterion for quality work for a crematorium is the absence of confusion. In the words of the heroes of the article, “if Ivanov came, it means that they will give away Ivanov’s ashes.” For each deceased, something like a passport is created: on paper they indicate the name, age, date of death and time of cremation. Any movement of the coffin or ashes is possible only with this document.

10. After the cremation is completed, the data is recorded in a special journal.

11. “Here it all depends on the driver, how carefully he removes the remains,” Andrey continues the story. “Look how the deceased is raked out. There are only bones, the organic part is all burned. And then the ashes go to the crematorium, where the remaining calcium bones are ground in a ball mill. And this is what remains of a person.”

13. Ashes ground in a cremulator

Andrey shows us a container with fine powder. If you don’t try to turn events back and don’t imagine what this person was like in life, you can safely work. The driver pours the ashes into a special bag and attaches a “passport” to it. Then the “powder” goes to the ashes collection room, where the organizers will pack it into an urn and give it to the customer. Or they won’t give it to the customer, because he simply won’t come for it. Although this is a rare case, it is regularly repeated. Urns can wait months for their relatives until crematorium workers start looking for those who ordered cremation and somehow forgot about it.

“The only thing that’s hard to get used to is child cremations.”

14. Every day, about 10-18 people are cremated in this workshop - with different destinies And life stories. Average age The deceased, the drivers say, are about 60 years old. Usually they try not to go into the reasons for their death here. But when it comes to children, even the stern “stove-makers” change their faces. And the worst thing, according to men, is when they bring a child one year or older. Fortunately, such cases are few and far between.

15. Rest room for tough men

— I remember, I raked the little one, and among the ashes there was an iron machine (it didn’t burn. - TUT.BY). So I dreamed about her for a long time. It's racing. You get up at night, shed your sweat, go to the toilet and think, how could such a thing happen in a dream? The only thing that is difficult to get used to is child cremations. The first child who was cremated was a girl, she was one year old. Okay, there’s a newborn, but when he’s older... And you still see how the parents cry...

Money doesn't smell

Children are the only reason for stingy male sympathy. 22-year-old Alexander Kanonchik tries to reason dryly: “People are born, people die. What's the big deal? When he first started working at the crematorium, he was warned that people often come here for 2 weeks, and then they can’t stand it and leave.

16. In this matter, a very clear distinction between “work and home” is necessary, otherwise even an “above average” salary will not be able to calm you down. Machinists of ritual equipment earn about 7.5-8 million a month (approximately 27,700-29,700 rubles). “Money doesn’t smell,” the driver Andrei hastens to remind us, who showed us the cremation procedure. Men are proud that Lately dead people are brought to them even from Russia. Rumor spread that “everything is fair” with them.

17. Saying goodbye to the crematorium

“Goodbye,” the crematorium workers say briefly. “We hope that we will meet with you very soon,” we answer and happily leave this, albeit curious, but sad place.

People usually don't like to talk about death. Planning your own funeral when life is raging nearby seems illogical. But the human body, unfortunately, is not eternal. Sooner or later, relatives have to decide on the funeral of a deceased person. Modern industry burial offers several options at once.

Some people choose to turn their ashes into a diamond, become part of a coral reef, or even go to the moon after death. Increasingly, in the civilized world they are trying not to bury the body in the ground, but to cremate it. During this process, the corpse is burned at high temperature, even the bones become brittle and turn to ash. The tradition itself dates back to prehistoric times, but has become popular today.

Cremation is preferred because of the convenience of this option; it turns out to be both more practical and convenient. Yes, for many, the very burial in the ground with the subsequent decomposition of the body causes disgust. However, cremation still remains a mystery, gaining numerous myths that frighten people. It is worth debunking some of the most popular misconceptions about this procedure.

Cremation is cheaper than a regular funeral. Many people choose cremation as it is considered cheaper than a traditional burial ceremony. In fact, you can save money because there is no need to hold a public farewell ceremony with embalming of the body and an expensive coffin. In the West, cremation costs range from $600 to $1,000. In Russia, amounts are limited to thousands of rubles. But this quantity is not finite. Many people request a traditional embalming and burial ceremony prior to cremation. Often relatives want to bury cremated remains in a cemetery or columbarium. Farewell funeral services are held, which are also expensive due to flowers, food and memorable gifts. These additional services can ultimately make cremation even more expensive than a traditional funeral. If you try to minimize the budget, then burning the body will actually be cheaper. But when choosing the option of saying goodbye to a friend or close relative, people often don’t think about money or simply do last will deceased.

Cremation is prohibited by major religions. It must be said that different religions have their own attitudes towards this procedure. You can often hear that cremation is prohibited in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The Greek Catholic and Protestant churches insist on burying the body. It is believed that there will come a time in the future when the dead will be resurrected. But with time Catholic Church softened her demands. Cremation is now permitted after a requiem and the bishop's permission, although traditional burial is still considered preferable. But Orthodoxy takes a more rigid traditional position on this issue. Judaism is loyal to cremation, because this is a fairly ancient practice, which was followed by Jewish kings. In Islam, cremation is prohibited, as is embalming the body. This is considered disrespectful to the deceased. In Buddhism and Shintoism, cremation is considered acceptable. In Hinduism, cremation is one of the 16 rituals of life. It is believed that with its help the soul will leave the body more easily and can then find a new home. In any case, the practice is gradually gaining acceptance throughout the world, even in places where burial has traditionally been practiced.

Cremation is an environmentally friendly procedure. Whatever fans of this method of destroying the body may claim, it cannot be considered completely safe for the environment. We can only talk about saving the space needed for burial. Cremation requires burning fossil fuels, which can leave behind harmful chemicals. We can talk about carbon monoxide, nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, hydrofluoric acid and mercury. A solution to this problem could be the installation of filters in ventilation systems. This will reduce the environmental impact, but carbon emissions will still be significant. An environmentally friendly alternative is bio-cremation, in which the remains are dissolved chemicals. To ensure truly clean smoke, you should not use special means for rapid combustion. Containers made of rubber or plastic can also produce toxic smoke.

Cremation leads to air pollution. Modern cremation ovens already meet all the most stringent air pollution requirements. Filters trap all hazardous elements. It is no coincidence that in the USA and Europe they are not afraid to place crematoria in centers major cities. And this myth does not contradict the previous one. Only the most modern equipment and careful adherence to standards allows crematoria to remain environmentally friendly.

Cremation involves the destruction of the body by fire. This statement seems natural, so it is more interesting to refute it. During the cremation procedure, the body of the deceased is placed in a specially designed oven where it is exposed to very high temperatures. It shrinks the body by removing gases and softening the bones. Once this process is complete, the remaining fragments are machine processed, which reduces the body to ash. This substance is passed on to relatives. IN modern methods Cremation fire is not used, the destruction of the body has become a quick and simple process.

During cremation, the remains turn to ashes. Many people refer to cremation as turning the body into ashes. In fact, the remains are not ashes. They resemble small pebbles, which are bone fragments. After the body is exposed to extreme temperatures, the fluid evaporates and only parts of the bones remain. They are further processed in a high-speed blender-crusher. It turns bone remains into fine gravel, the texture and color of which resembles ash. This sand is placed in a temporary container so that it can be given to relatives.

Cremation involves avoiding a traditional funeral. For some reason, many people believe that cremating a loved one means abandoning the traditional farewell to him in an open coffin. In this regard, cremation is no different from a regular funeral. Relatives can conduct traditional farewell ceremonies for their loved ones by ordering any services accompanying the funeral. It is also possible to hold a memorial service.

The body is placed in a coffin for cremation. Even if you do not watch the human body being sent into the oven, it will still be placed in a special container. The transfer of the deceased from the funeral home to the crematorium is done in in better shape, as respectful as possible for such an occasion. And it is preferable to leave the body in a coffin. However, there are many forms of such a container. There is no reason to leave the body in an expensive coffin, which will not be visible during the entire procedure. The most economical container options are generally made of cardboard, and many crematoriums offer this option for free.

At the moment the body is burned, the head explodes, like an egg in a microwave. There is a common misconception that an intact head without wounds will simply explode during cremation. However, this legend was debunked by forensic experts who specifically observed the burning of several dozen bodies, wanting to debunk the myth. And the legend itself appeared thanks to firefighters. They often found bone fragments of victims' skulls separate from the body. In fact, the bones of the head have thin areas in some places, becoming brittle when exposed to fire. These fragments can be separated from the skulls by falling or water jets from pumps.

All that remains of a person after cremation is a pinch of ashes. Complete burning of the average body lasts 2-3 hours. After this, from one and a half to 4 kilograms of ashes remain. There is no need to talk about a “pinch”. The weight of the remains depends on the structure of the bone tissue and body volume. But light newborn babies don’t even have bones yet, only cartilage. There may be nothing left of them after cremation.

When cremated, the body does not require embalming. Embalming is usually not required. But if you are planning long-distance transportation of the body to the cremation site or a long farewell ceremony, then it is better to turn to embalming.

For cremation, it is necessary to purchase an urn for the remains. After the cremation procedure, the ashes of a loved one are returned to his relatives in a temporary container. What to do next is up to them to decide for themselves. An urn is a common solution, although there are many other options for placing ashes. It is poured into the sea (in America there are even certain standards establishing distance from the shore), placed in reefs, sent into space and turned into decoration. Modern cemeteries allow the remains of a loved one to be placed in a columbarium, individual memorial, family crypt or alcoves. Since ashes are non-toxic, there are no restrictions on the type of container used.

The cremation procedure for animals is completely different than for humans. The pet cremation process is virtually identical to what is offered for humans. Usually a veterinarian is involved in organizing the process, but you can also directly contact a crematorium that specializes in working with animals.

Cremation is a rare procedure. Today, cremation is becoming increasingly popular in big cities, where there are obvious problems with the ground. Even in St. Petersburg and Moscow, 50-70% of the dead are cremated. This method is also popular in the West. It is believed that soon every second death in the world will be cremated.

In the crematorium, several bodies are sent to the oven at a time. Some relatives are openly afraid that their loved one will be cremated at the same time as someone else. This may result in mixing of ashes. However, this contradicts everything existing rules. Moreover, most ovens are not designed to process more than one body at a time. Sometimes relatives, on the contrary, want the two bodies to be cremated together. But here we can only recommend a special urn for storing the ashes of two people at once.

A body or organs that have been in the morgue for a long time can no longer be cremated. Such a body can also be cremated. The cold stopped the decomposition process and the body seemed to be mummified for a while. And cremation will be even better, since the tissues will be dry and burn better. Cremation and exhumed remains are successfully carried out.

The cremation procedure cannot be seen. Most crematoria offer this service, but on a paid basis and in the case of a person’s involvement in a specific funeral. No one can just come and watch a stranger being burned without good reason. The crematorium offers relatives a special room in which they can observe the process.

Before cremation, a farewell to the deceased takes place in a hall decorated with mourning decorations. The farewell ceremony is organized by the person responsible for organizing funeral events. Quite often this function is assigned to the funeral service agent. The duration of the procedure is about thirty minutes.

Cremation ceremony

A coffin with a body is placed on a hearse in the hall. There should be ritual attributes around the deceased. Funeral music sounds - it can be performed by an orchestra in the hall or a choir. Relatives and relatives enter the hall, they stand right side from the deceased. After this, other participants in the ceremony enter the room. The funeral ceremony held at the crematorium is opened and conducted in the same way as a burial in a cemetery. First, the organizer of the event gives an opening speech, then relatives, friends, and colleagues of the deceased can express their feelings. After the speeches, everyone can approach the coffin to undergo the ritual of kissing and say goodbye to the deceased. The face of the deceased is covered with a veil, the lid is lowered onto the coffin - the ceremony is completed. The coffin with the body is moved into an elevator or conveyor to deliver it to the place where cremation will take place.

About cremation

The deceased is placed in a coffin made of flammable material. There are crematoria where relatives are allowed to be present when the coffin is placed in the oven. Most common services:

• Cremation is carried out in the presence of loved ones - the ashes are given to them immediately after the procedure is completed;
• The classic ritual of saying goodbye to a loved one immediately before the cremation procedure;
• Traditional farewell to the deceased before cremation and farewell after cremation.

How does cremation and farewell work?

The initial stage of saying goodbye to the deceased is similar to a typical funeral. Relatives select a coffin (traditionally one made of wood, avoid purchasing one made from synthetic components), then they must arrange for the deceased to be delivered directly to the cremation site. The person organizing the funeral is presented with an invoice. He must show this document on the day of cremation.

After the funeral or farewell, the body must be transferred to the crematorium. There is no need for relatives to be present. Note that only some crematoria give out ashes immediately after burning, and relatives do not like to be present, so this is not very common in domestic practice. We point out that only a couple of crematoria provide such services.

On a certain day, the urn with ashes goes to the person in charge who must organize the burial process. Sometimes in big cities you can wait up to three days to receive an urn.

Only by presenting the following documents can you be entitled to receive an urn with ashes:

• Death certificate, which must be certified by the official seal;
• Passport of the person responsible for the funeral;
• A receipt that confirms payment for the services of a columbarium (burial site in a cemetery) - this document can be replaced with a statement that there is a need for burial in another locality.

If the urn with ashes is not taken away on the appointed day, it must be stored in a special storage facility created at the crematorium. Shelf life may vary, the average is a year. When a year passes, the urn is placed in a common burial located at the crematorium. Required in in writing notify the person responsible for conducting the funeral.

Is it possible to perform a funeral service for a deceased person during cremation?

Now the clergy perform funeral services for the dead right in the crematorium building.

Funeral after cremation

The deceased is commemorated on the ninth and fortieth day. A memorial service is held at church and dinner is held with loved ones. The wake after cremation is the same as after a traditional funeral - a funeral lunch. You can order a funeral service in a cafe that offers a wide range of funeral dishes.

Tradition of farewell to the deceased

Before giving away an urn containing the ashes of a loved one, there is a certain tradition that should be followed - everyone needs to put their hands on the urn. When the cremation process is completed, the ashes will be sealed in a capsule or placed in a plastic container. At the request of loved ones, you can make an urn where the ashes of the deceased will be preserved.

This is similar to the symbolic throwing of a handful of earth onto the coffin during a traditional burial.