These measures were intended to overcome the congestion of urban church crypts and graveyards, and were prompted by a number of outbreaks of highly contagious diseases linked to inadequate burial practices in urban areas, especially the black plague, which had led to the 1771 Plague Riot in Moscow.
The cemetery served as a burial ground for over 170 years for almost all Baltic Germans who died in the city between 1774 and 1944.