In the United States, a number of powerful people are believed to have been cremated.
Peter Tork is one of them.
Tork, an outspoken libertarian and author, died at the age of 81.
According to the National Archives, Tork had been buried in a state cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was an avid and vocal supporter of the Communist Party.
A year later, after his death, his ashes were interred in a large grave in Moscow.
The following year, Torks remains were interment in a grave in the city of Khimki.
In 2015, a group of Russian politicians began campaigning to have his ashes interred with them in Moscow, as the city was the main place of his burial.
“Tork was the person who created the idea that a person’s death is just a moment of time and that he is not going to be here forever,” Alexander Zheleznyak, a political scientist at the Moscow State University, told Al Jazeera.
“It is the very essence of Russian nationalism.”
In March, Torskoy, who had worked in the Ministry of Culture and Sports for decades, was awarded the Order of Friendship by the Russian Orthodox Church.
“He was very much a pioneer of the post-Soviet space,” said Zheeznyak.
In his book The Tork Effect, a book which explores the history of the concept of the Tork and the Russian people, Tormod Ponomarev, a professor at Moscow State, wrote that Tork’s death had a profound impact on Russia.
“The Tork was one of the first people to die in a cemetery in the Soviet Union,” Ponomaresv told AlJazeera.
“After Tork died, there were no more graves for people to bury their dead in.”
A memorial service was held at the cemetery where Tork lay buried in Russia’s second largest city.
Torskoi and other Russian cities have begun to honour Tork.
On February 28, 2016, a monument dedicated to Tork in Moscow was dedicated.
The monument also includes a plaque commemorating Tork as a “father of the Russian nation”.
“Peter Tork did a lot to promote libertarian ideas and the idea of the free market,” Zheznyak told Aljazeera.
The Torskos are also the subject of a movie, Tostok: A True Story, which is due to be released on May 16, 2019.
In the movie, an elderly Torsky is depicted as an old man and a man with a heart of gold.
The character of Tork appears as a man in his mid-50s, but the actor who plays him in the movie is 55.
Tostoy’s ashes are interred next to a statue of Tosskoy at the former Tork estate.
According in a Russian state news agency, the Torskies have received over 4 million visitors in the last five years.
The city of St. Peters in the Netherlands has also erected a monument to Tossky.
