Massive 5′ iPhone Tombstone Appears Over Russian Woman’s Grave

Russian Iphone Tombstone Credit: The Sun / East2West News
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A Russian woman who died two years ago has had a tombstone in the shape of an iPhone constructed over her grave.

The five foot iPhone, most likely crafted from black basalt, was apparently erected over the burial site of 25-year-old Rita Shameeva at a graveyard near Ufa, Russia, according to local media reports (via The Sun).

On the front, there is a picture of the young woman, while the rear sports the iconic Apple logo. At the bottom of the statue is a QR code.

Shameeva died in January 2016 of unknown causes. Reports indicate that the iPhone-shaped tombstone was constructed by Shameeva’s father, Rais Shameev, long after her death. Shameev did not comment on the bizarre tribute.

At five feet, the tombstone towers above any other memorial in the Yuzhnoye cemetery. It’s such a strange sight that local mourners first thought that they were seeing things.

Russian Iphone Tombstone 2
The Sun / East2West News

“I thought I was having hallucinations,” Nikolay Yevdokimov told ProUral. “How could an American smartphone suddenly appear at our cemetery? And such a huge one.”

There isn’t much known about Rita Shameeva, other than that she was a lover of travel and had friends in Germany. She also apparently loved her smartphone.

It isn’t clear who constructed the bizarre tombstone, as local headstone maker Ilgam Galliulin said he wasn’t responsible for the design.

But Pavel Kayuk, a Siberian artist, and his company Autograph have crafted similar iPhone-shaped tombstones in the past.

Russian Iphone Tombstone 1
The Sun / East2West News

In 2016, Kayuk showed off his Cupertino-styled “death accessories” at a funeral exhibition in Siberia, Mashable reported. The monuments are made form Ukranian basalt and, at the time, retailed for around $1,000.

At first, the iPhone tombstones were simply a marketing gimmick — Kayuk even said that he started building them to “attract attention.” But it didn’t take long before actual orders for the bizarre monuments started coming in.

Kayuk’s design appear strikingly similar to the tombstone built over Shameeva’s grave — right down to the grayscale laser etching on the front of them.

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