Mourners in a Russian cemetery were surprised to see a 5ft tombstone in the shape of an iPhone. A grieving father had commissioned it for his daughter, Rita Shameeva, after her passing. Carved from black basalt, the tombstone even has an Apple logo on the rear side, just like the real thing. On the front is a carving showing Rita in a park, surrounded by trees, in the form of a carved screensaver.
The tombstone towers over all the other markers in the cemetery. It turns out a marketing promotion by a local headstone creator may have caught the father’s eye a couple of years after her death.
What started out as an advert, ended up being a popular item.
iPhone headstone catches people’s eyes
The Mail Online quotes the Russian media as saying Rita died at the age of 25 in January 2016, but the tombstone only appeared in the cemetery this year. While her father, Rais Shameeva, has not commented on the headstone, locals said they were surprised when the 5ft basalt iPhone appeared.
Hello, Rheeva...
— Don Juan (@mbelgedez) September 26, 2018
Gmn kabar neraka hr ini, apa ckp panas ??
Kita vidcall aja lah, yg hemat pulsa...
Woman buried in Russian graveyard is given a five foot high tombstone in the shape of her favourite iPhone https://t.co/h10qRtKk82
The beautifully carved headstone stands high above the other monuments in the Ufa cemetery.
A local mourner, Nikolay Yevdokimov, explained to ProUral that he believed he was having a hallucination when he spotted it. He asked how an American Smartphone could suddenly appear in their cemetery and such a big one at that. Yevdokimov said how surprised he was as he got closer to it, saying he had seen many gravestones before but had never seen anything like this, adding that it was “very unusual.”
Reportedly not much is known of Rita herself, other than the fact she was a keen traveller with friends in Germany.
Some media outlets are calling her an iPhone addict. Apparently, her father has not commented on the unusual headstone.
A dead Russian woman has been given a 5ft high tombstone in the shape of her favourite iPhone https://t.co/9wYjQpda3A … via @MailOnline pic.twitter.com/gWNNPuNALf
— Anne Sewell (@anners2008) September 26, 2018
The Daily Record reports that Ilgam Galliulin, a local maker of tombstones, said he wasn’t responsible for the unusual design.
He said he and his father do make monuments to order, but he had seen the iPhone tombstone for the first time only last week.
‘Death accessories’ company builds iPhone headstone as publicity stunt
However, there is a Siberian company that reportedly offers “death accessories.” Designer Pavel Kalyuk built a similar headstone as a sort of publicity stunt, to attract attention to their work.
You can now have an iPhone tombstone
— Cybertone (@cybertoneinc) June 3, 2016
If we could only carry our phones with us to the afterlife.#mashable pic.twitter.com/RQ7tIswxl9
After exhibiting a similar tombstone at an exhibition in Novosibirsk, they started receiving orders for the unusual headstones. However, it was not confirmed whether Rita’s iPhone monument was actually produced by that company.