Part of Shchedrin’s and Plisetskaya’s ashes buried at Novodevichy Cemetery

Part of the ashes of composer Rodion Shchedrin and renowned ballerina Maya Plisetskaya have been buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery, TASS reports, citing sources at the Bolshoi Theatre.

According to the couple’s will, their bodies were cremated and their ashes scattered in the sky after death — “spread across all of Russia,” as they had instructed.

Plisetskaya, the celebrated Bolshoi Theatre prima ballerina, died in 2015, while her husband passed away ten years later. Shchedrin’s “Carmen,” based on Bizet’s opera, became the pinnacle of Plisetskaya’s career. Another outstanding work by the composer, written for his wife, was “Anna Karenina.”