Youth Lake Park (青年湖公园 - Qīngniánhú gōngyuán)
700 meters to the north from Andingmen (安定门 - Āndìngmén) subway station, where once was a place of location of the northern gate of the fortress wall of Beijing, The Youth Lake Park is situated. It occupies an area of about 170 thousand square meters one third of which is a large artificial lake.From 1958 to 1960, the young people from the Communist Youth League of China have cleaned the trash swamp, dug the lake and laid out the park.

This information you can find out on the board with the park map that is shown on the photo below.



In the early XX century more than one thousand of Orthodox Christians lived in Beijing. In 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion aimed at ceasing the interference of foreign states into life of the Chinese Empire, all the foreigners who were automatically considered to be the gentiles and the Chinese accepted Christianity were killed. The people were cruelly killed and no one was spared: neither women, nor children, nor old men.
The bloody massacres resulted in death of 222 Orthodox – the Chinese and Russian. They were buried in the territory of the Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission in China (ROEMC) situated inside the defensive walls of Beijing.

From 1903 to 1906 Saint Seraphim of Sarov Church was built in the territory of the Russian cemetery (outside the city) with money received from the Chinese government as compensation for the yihetuans’ massacre. In January 1957 the relics of Orthodox Chinese martyrs killed during the massacre at the beginning of the century and the remains of the clergy were transferred to the church.


The Church of All Holy Martyrs and the bell tower, on the territory that became the property of the Soviet Embassy, in 1956 were demolished.

In October of the same year their bodies were removed from the mine shaft. In the summer of 1919 during the military advance of the Red Army and the step-back to the East of the White Army it was decided to take the bodies of the dead princes with them. So their long journey, first to Chita, and then in a year to China, began. On April 16, 1920 the train with the coffins arrived in Beijing.
Alapaevsk martyrs were buried in the crypt of Saint Seraphim of Sarov Church built in the territory of the Russian cemetery located in today’s Youth Lake Park. Except for Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia and Sister Varvara of Marfo-Mariinsky Convent whose bodies were taken away (through Tianjin, Shanghai, Port Said in Egypt) and buried in Jerusalem. In 1938 the Sino-Japanese War became the reason to transfer the remains of Alapaevsk martyrs again to the crypt at the Church of All Holy Martyrs in Beijing. In 1947 in accordance with the order from Moscow Archbishop Victor was told to rebury their remains in the cemetery of the Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission and that was done.
So Alapaevsk and Chinese martyrs turned out to be in one Russian cemetery.

Photo from: http://www.orthodox.cn



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