Mourning trends

More graves being left at cemeteries

Wilting leaves, grave visitors making final preparations for All Saints' Day.(Bild: Tröster Andreas)

More and more Salzburg municipalities are reacting to mourning trends and offering alternatives at cemeteries. This is because the number of graves being left empty has risen recently. Fewer and fewer people want to buy a traditional grave.

All Saints' Day is a high feast day in the Catholic Church. However, more and more people are moving away from the traditional pilgrimage to cemeteries and opting for alternatives to the traditional grave. People walking through cemeteries are increasingly noticing abandoned graves.

More abandonments than new graves in the city
The figures from the city's cemetery administration confirm this: "This year, we have allocated 340 new graves," says Christian Stadler, Head of the City Gardens Department. In return, 430 graves were abandoned. The minus of 90 corresponds to the average of recent years, says Stadler.

Peace and nature in the cemeteries(Bild: Tröster Andreas)

The cemetery administration is responding with new offers: Urn burials under trees are now possible in almost all city cemeteries. Abandoned graves, including historic gravestones, can be taken over by sponsors free of charge and used at a later date.

The offer is also growing in the countryside: In Saalfelden, there is now a cemetery alternative in nature in the district of Ramseiden. "We are just getting started," says mortician Andreas Gadenstätter. The area is provided by the municipality. And Nico Mösinger, the new guild master for the 20 morticians in the city and province of Salzburg, has also observed something similar: "The trend is unbroken." Pax Natura Naturbestattung, with eight cemeteries in Austria from Glanegg to Graz, has recorded an increase of 20 percent.