HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
200-year-old Orthodox cemetery with ship-ballast headstones, slowly reclaimed by rainforest
Observatory Street, Sitka, AK 99835
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to enter. The cemetery is an active Russian Orthodox burial ground; visitors are asked to be respectful.
Access
Limited Access
Steep, overgrown ground reached by climbing Observatory Street; uneven footing, exposed roots, and dense vegetation. Footwear for wet, rough ground is needed.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1816 · Russian America · Russian Orthodox heritage · Historic cemetery
The Russian Cemetery sits on the hillside above Observatory Street in Sitka, dating to the era of Russian America, when Novo-Arkhangelsk was the capital of the colony. Over more than two hundred years the grounds accumulated upward of 1,600 burials, making it one of the oldest and largest Russian Orthodox cemeteries in North America.
The cemetery's most distinctive feature is its stonework. Many headstones were cut from the ballast carried in the holds of Russian sailing ships, a practical reuse of the heavy stone that steadied vessels on the long passage across the Pacific. The graves are marked with the three-bar Orthodox cross and, in older sections, with Cyrillic inscriptions now weathered by the coastal climate.
The cemetery remains in use by the Russian Orthodox parish of St. Michael's Cathedral. It has never been fully cleared or landscaped; the entrance off Observatory Street is unmarked, and the surrounding rainforest steadily encroaches between annual cleanups, many organized around Alaska Day. The result is an atmospheric, half-wild burial ground that local walking tours and visitors treat as one of Sitka's most evocative links to its Russian colonial past.
Sources
The Russian Cemetery is one of Sitka's most-cited atmospheric sites, and it appears on the city's haunted-history walking tours. What gives it that reputation is the place itself rather than a particular ghost story. The grounds hold more than 1,600 graves under a canopy of spruce and hemlock, the older Cyrillic-lettered stones tilting as roots and moss work them loose, and the entrance off Observatory Street unmarked enough that first-time visitors often walk past it.
Visitors describe the cemetery as quiet and heavy, the kind of place where the combination of age, dense vegetation, and the steady drip of a coastal rainforest does the work that a guide's narration would elsewhere. Walking-tour operators fold it into longer accounts of Russian-era Sitka, where the stories belong as much to the lived history of the colony as to folklore.
The most respectful way to read the site is as a working Orthodox cemetery that happens to be very old and very overgrown. The graves belong to real parishioners, and the parish still buries its dead here, which is reason enough to visit carefully and to let the place keep its silence.
Walk up Observatory Street to the unmarked entrance of the old Russian Orthodox cemetery. The grounds hold more than 1,600 graves marked by three-bar Orthodox crosses and headstones, some cut from the ballast stone of Russian ships, many with weathered Cyrillic inscriptions. The cemetery is active and partly reclaimed by the surrounding rainforest.
Haunted Sitka runs a one-hour walking tour of the city's Russian-American, military, and colonial-era ghost stories. The tour meets at Harrigan Centennial Hall downtown. Confirm the current route with the operator, as stops vary by season.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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