The first was a large section in the far north west corner of the cemetery which was entirely flattened to make way for a building for a local fire department in 1985.

The person who has done the most work in investigating the current status of the cemetery is Robert Leinonen, a longtime resident of Saint Petersburg who moved to Germany in 1991.

Between 1988 and 1991, Leinonen went on countless personal visits to the cemetery itself and compiled an inventory of all those graves that are still standing today, copying the exact writing on each headstone.

He has published a two-volume book on the cemetery detailing its history (Deutsche in St. Petersburg: ein Blick auf den Deutschen Evangelisch-Lutherischen Smolenski-Friedhof und in die europäische Kulturgeschichte, 1998).

The publications are used by genealogists for family research in pre-revolutionary Russia and the early Soviet period when vital records are missing or prove difficult to find.