A crematorium is a special building in which the bodies of deceased people are burned. For some this sounds scary, others consider this procedure practical. Some even bequeath to scatter their ashes in a place that was dear to them during their lifetime. There are many opponents of this method of destroying the body, because according to the Christian religion it should be buried. But in any case, everyone is free to decide for themselves what is more acceptable for the last farewell: cemeteries, crematoriums or other non-traditional burial rites, in accordance with their beliefs, religion and worldview. Modern technologies make the process quick and aesthetic.
How it works
A crematorium is a range of services that allow you to say goodbye to the deceased with dignity. Relatives and friends invited to the ceremony should at least briefly familiarize themselves with how all this will happen, because many are frightened by the very thought of what they might see there. Often crematoria are located next to cemeteries. They have their own morgues in which they preserve the body of the deceased for three days. They also provide hair styling, makeup, and dressing services. In addition, they have halls for farewells, as well as hosts who will conduct the ceremony in a solemn atmosphere. After the last words have been said and flowers and bouquets have been laid, the coffin is taken to the oven. Watching him go into the fire is not at all necessary, and not everyone will be able to withstand such a moral load. But there are those who, on the contrary, want to see everything that will happen to the body of a loved one, as if being next to him until the last minute. They are given this opportunity (there is a special window in the oven for this), but for a fee.
How do you get ashes?
A crematorium is not only a building, but also an oven where the body of the deceased is exposed to a stream of hot gas, the temperature of which reaches 900-1000 degrees C. It would seem that everything that is exposed to such thermal effects should turn to ashes. However, the bones remain intact. To obtain ashes for the columbarium, workers grind them in a cremulator. Then, mixed with ash from the oven, a special capsule is filled. With this method of “disposing” of the body, a “product” weighing 2.5-3 kg or a volume of 3 liters is obtained. The process itself takes place within 1-1.5 hours. Unfortunately, according to our laws, you cannot store the ashes of a loved one received from a crematorium at home. It is necessary to bury him in a special columbarium or bury him in the ground in a cemetery. In some cases, if permission from the Sanitary and Epidemiological Service has been obtained, you can disperse it in the chosen location.
Positive sides
A crematorium is a place for a dignified farewell to the deceased. For many people, it is psychologically easier to bury ashes than to think about what happens to the body of a loved one underground. In addition, in some cases, for example, if a person died in another country, cremated remains are easier to transport to the funeral site. Also, the possibility of long-term storage of ashes is a big plus when, for some reason, it is necessary to postpone the farewell ceremony for some time.
There is no need to fear that an unpleasant odor will appear during the cremation process. Nowadays, improved stoves are used, so that relatives will not even see smoke. In addition, the ashes are sterile, making burial a hygienic procedure. After all, sanitary services often receive complaints that harmful substances are released into the water and soil, formed during the decomposition process underground of bodies buried in cemeteries.
Is this acceptable
The Christian religion condemns cremation as a pagan rite. Therefore, in our country it is not as widespread as abroad. But at the same time, several crematoria were built, equipped with everything necessary. Also in these buildings, unidentified corpses or the bodies of those people whose relatives refused to bury them are burned.
For example, it has been operating in Moscow for 31 years. Address: 6th kilometer of Pyatnitskoye Highway. It is located next to the cemetery, has its own morgue and a hall for the farewell ceremony. This is a crematorium where prices are affordable and depend on what kind of coffin and funeral accessories are ordered. The economy option will cost only 18,500 rubles.
Some people do not want to know what will happen to their body after death. Others, on the contrary, want to be aware of all possible options in order to be as comfortable as possible. Be that as it may, cremation is a dignified and, with the right organization, a solemn ceremony, which for some peoples is the only possible method of burial.
The question “how to cremate a person” has always worried people. And this is no coincidence: interest in death is inherent in our nature, and fire has fascinated people since ancient times. In this article we will explain in detail how human cremation occurs.
It is important to understand that cremation is only the first stage of burial. Depending on the will of the deceased/relatives, after cremation, the urn with ashes is placed in a niche of the columbarium, buried in a grave, or done in another way (for example, the ashes are scattered).
During cremation, as during burial in the ground, the process of transition of organic tissues into inorganic chemical compounds that make up the soil occurs. Cremation is essentially the same as burial, since the body goes into the ground. There is only one difference: mineralization of the body and its inclusion in the soil takes up to 20 years, and cremation of a person reduces this period to one and a half hours.
Residents of Russia increasingly prefer cremation to the usual method of burial. The share of cremation in Russia as a whole is low - 10%, but in large cities it is 30-40%, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg it is close to 70%. This happens for many reasons, the main ones being the lack of space in cemeteries, the simplicity of the process and low cost.
How people were cremated in the past. History of cremation.
The history of cremation goes back to ancient times. People have long realized that ashes are safe for health, and many religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism, have included cremation in their rituals. In India, Japan, Indonesia and many other countries, just as people were cremated in the past - on a bonfire in the open air - they still do it today.
Along with the most ancient type of burial—deposition of corpses—cremation was already practiced in the Paleolithic, and in the Bronze Age and Iron Age, inhabitants of ancient civilizations began to cremate everywhere. Burning became the dominant burial rite in ancient Greece, from where the tradition passed to Ancient Rome, where they came up with the idea of storing ashes in specially designated places - columbariums, where you can come and honor the memory of your ancestors.
Incinerators began to be used in Europe in the late 18th century due to the growth of cities and a shortage of cemeteries. Gradually, cremation began to spread in Europe, the USA and other countries.
How a person is cremated in a crematorium these days.
Human cremation takes place in crematoria - complex engineering structures designed for 100% combustion of the dead along with the coffin at ultra-high temperatures.
The crematorium complex consists of several industrial furnaces capable of generating temperatures of 900-1100°C, which ensures the complete disintegration of the body and its transformation into ashes. Cremation takes from one and a half to two hours, and after cremation of a person, ashes with a volume of 2-2.5 liters remain.
The coffin with the body is delivered to the crematorium and placed on a hearse in the hall for the farewell ceremony. At the end of the ritual, the coffin is transferred to a conveyor and moved to a transit room, from where after a certain time it enters the cremation oven. Imagining how people are cremated in a crematorium, we, especially at a young age, think that the body is sent to the fire immediately after the coffin disappears behind the curtains of the farewell hall. But this is not always the case: such technology is not provided in every crematorium.
After cremation, the ashes are placed in a metal capsule and sealed. Most often, the relatives of the deceased want to receive the ashes in an urn. Funeral urns come in a variety of designs and are chosen according to taste: purchased from a crematorium or funeral store and then given to the crematorium staff, who transfer the ashes from the capsule to the urn.
The urn is collected by the relative responsible for receiving it, after which the final stage of burial begins.
After cremation, the urn with ashes is stored in the crematorium until claimed by her relatives. The shelf life varies in different regions, but most often it is 1 year. If the ashes are not claimed, the urn will be buried in a common grave at the crematorium.
Human Cremation: How people are cremated.
The most common cremation oven has two chambers. In the first, the coffin with the body is burned in jets of hot air, and in the second, the afterburning chamber, 100% combustion of organic tissues and trapping of impurities takes place. An important element of crematorium equipment is the cremator, in which burnt remains are crushed to ashes, and metal objects are removed from them using a magnet.
Most often, stoves operate on gas, as it is economical and quickly sets the desired temperature in the chamber.
To prevent mixing of ashes after combustion, each body is registered, assigned an identifier, and a metal plate with a number is placed on the coffin. After cremation, a plate with a number is placed inside the remains, allowing the ashes to be identified.
What to do after cremation?
After cremation, when an urn with ashes is received, proceed in one of the following ways:
- Bury the urn in the grave. This could be either a new plot purchased at auction or a related grave;
- Place the urn in a niche in an open or closed columbarium;
- You can dispose of the ashes according to the will of the deceased, for example, scatter them. The legislation of the Russian Federation does not define special places for this, so the choice depends only on you.
The advantages of cremation compared to traditional burial in the ground:
- you can bury the urn at any time; there is no need to rush to a decision;
- there is no need to wait until the end of the sanitary period after the last burial in a related grave (15 years for Moscow).
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.” Let's observe the cremation process and find out why it is not customary to sprinkle ashes on your head while working here.
Attention comments under the photo
In 2013, 39 percent of the dead in Belarus 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 throughout the republic
Despite the specifics of the work, there is also “life in full swing” below. Strong-willed people with a tempered psyche and a healthy outlook on things work in the cremation shop. 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.
The work experience of the local “stove makers” is impressive. 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 supposedly do not come face to face with the dead (dead people are cremated only in a closed coffin and together with the coffin), and all the main work is entrusted to the machine.
Previously, “smoke billowed out”, today the driver’s job 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 idea that before burning, they allegedly take gold and watches from the coffin, and also remove good clothes and shoes from the deceased. “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 for months for their relatives until crematorium workers start looking for those who ordered cremation and somehow forgot about it.
“The only thing that is difficult 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. The average age of the deceased, say the drivers, is about 60 years. 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 was raking 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 Andrey, who showed us the cremation procedure, hastens to remind us. Men are proud that lately dead people have been 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 you very soon,” we answer and happily leave this, albeit curious, but sad place.
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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Source: tut.by
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 throughout the republic
Despite the specifics of the work, there is also “life in full swing” below. Strong-willed people work in the cremation workshop - 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.
The work experience of the local stove makers is impressive. 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 supposedly do not come face to face with the dead (dead people are cremated only in a closed coffin and together with the coffin), and all the main work is entrusted to the machine.
Previously, “smoke was coming in a column”, 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 idea that before burning, they allegedly take gold and watches from the coffin, and also remove good clothes and shoes from the deceased. “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 for 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. The average age of the deceased, say the drivers, is about 60 years. 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 Andrey, who showed us the cremation procedure, hastens to remind us. Men are proud that lately dead people have been 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 you very soon,” we answer and happily leave this, albeit curious, but sad place.