Today I went to the country house and had an unexpected encounter with a unique Russian holiday. On this day everybody visits the graves of their dead loved ones. Everybody in the family who's grave still exists we visited. We visited the grave of one woman who had been born in the nineteenth century. The graveyards were in the woods with trees sometimes growing out of the graves which is different than in USA. The graveyards are also very crowded, especially on this holiday.

From what I saw Russian graves are above the ground, not below. The body in question is normally at ankle level, so the mounds are pretty big.

On this holiday everybody even remotely related to the deceased person gathers around the grave and basically parties. Every time you eat or drink you must put a little bit down on the grave near the head. By the end there is usually quite a feast strewn out on the grave.
I also gathered from this holiday that the life expectancy in Russia is very low. I looked it up later and found out that it was 58 for men. I think that is the figure for Russia overall which means that I can hack of another ten years because my region is poor and more worried about day to day survival than living to ripe old age.