Protopopov’s student speaks about reburial of his ashes in St. Petersburg: “It is a great honor for me to have been able to fulfill his will”

Marina Frolova-Anutina, a student of former Soviet figure skater Oleg Protopopova, said it was an honour for her to fulfil her teacher’s wishes and rebury the ashes of the famous coach and his wife Lyudmila Belousova in St. Petersburg.

On Wednesday in St. Petersburg, the ashes of two-time Olympic figure skating champions Belousova and Protopopov were buried at the Volkovskoye Cemetery. The ceremony took place on the Literary Bridges of the Volkovsky Cemetery. The urns with the ashes of Belousova and Protopopov were buried in the relative grave of Oleg Protopopov’s father-in-law, poet Dmitry Censor, and his mother, ballerina Agnia Gruzdeva, as bequeathed by Protopopov himself. The ceremony was attended by veterans of figure skating, as well as coaches working in the Northern capital.

— Oleg Protopopov and Lyudmila Belousova wanted to be buried in St. Petersburg. When they arrived in St. Petersburg in 2005, the first thing they did was visit the grave of Oleg’s mother and father-in-law. And there I heard these words: “Remember, when we leave, we must lie down next to each other.” It is a great honor for me that I was able to fulfill their will and close this beautiful page of their lives. Thank God, we did it. It is a sacred thing when you fulfill the will of people you love, whom we brought back to their homeland from Leningrad,” Frolova-Anutina was quoted as saying by the correspondent.

The Belousov/Protopopov duo won the USSR championships six times, the world and European championships four times, and won gold at the 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games. Belousova and Protopopov were invited to Switzerland for demonstrations in 1979, where they remained. In August 1995, they obtained Swiss citizenship.

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