wish you were here: exploring Olsany cemetery

May 25, 2011

Elderly man walking through main road of the historic Olsany cemetery

Visiting the Olsany cemetery was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before -- hundreds of thousands of graves spread out for acres and acres of land. Spending an hour and a half there allowed me to photograph one row on one block of the cemetery. The graves ranged from old to new, preserved to dilapidated, and in some cases even empty. I described this experience to someone as being comparable to "the secret garden", the movie I watched as a child until my VCR destroyed it. The plant life and insects have overtaken the cemetery and made it their home. Black cats, as creepy as though that is, roam freely throughout the acres of Prague's past. I find it ironic that life has overtaken the death that lies below each headstone. In many cases, new life had sprung from the ground directly above the old life. 

It's interesting that nature handles death in an altruistic way, while people often look only at the negative. In addition, as each person grasps death differently, so each death grasps life differently, and each grave reflected that. Each headstone personified the body that lay beneath it, and in some cases how majestic that life was. 

I've never enjoyed being in a cemetery, for the most part because the only ones I've ever been in were for funerals of people I knew and loved. My perspective changed so much when I could appreciate centuries of life and death in one place. I watched as a pregnant woman and a mother pushing a stroller walked peacefully through the grounds, as though it were an everyday stroll in the park. I had never considered spending time gathering peace in such a place, but I understand. The quiet, the eternal resting, the perpetual stillness are all soothing in a way that nowhere else can capture. I saw this cemetery as a place of rejuvenation and reflection, rather than despair.

As I was getting ready to leave Olsany, I took the above photo because I thought it gave a good sense of the majestic qualities the cemetery held. In addition, it contrasted life, though a feeble one, with death. It made me wonder why this man had come here: did he come to visit his wife? his mother? his children? Or just to be at peace? 

After the fact, I realized that I had taken another photo of this man waiting patiently for the metro with our class. In looking at my photos, I know that I was attracted to him because I wanted to know his story. I'm a very imaginative person and often times spend hours watching people and putting together their stories in my head. Whether real or not, it gives such life and personality to people I haven't even met.