Personalization and Anonymization of the Place of Death of a Person in an Accident (Using the Example of Federal Highways a 151, P 178, P 241)

The tradition of marking the places of death in road accidents is now widespread on all continents and in most countries, including Russia. Roadside monuments, which are installed at the same time, are of two types: some correspond to monuments in cemeteries, others do not. Sometimes it is enough for loved ones only to mark the place of death itself. Then a monument is erected, completely or partially devoid of information about the deceased. This phenomenon is called anonymization of the place of death. But for many, it is not the place itself that is important, but the memory of the deceased person. In this case, the monument contains the most detailed information about the deceased, so personalization and individualization are created. It can be embodied with the help of the design features of the monument, photographs or images of the deceased, personal information, epitaphs and objects that are placed on or near the monuments. The article presents data on the uniqueness of personalization and anonymization, obtained as a result of a survey of routes A 151, P 241, P178. It was out that ompletely anonymous memorial signs make up 19% of all sings on the highway P 241, reach – 33% on the highway A 151 and 50% on the highway P 178. It can be assumed that a higher degree of anonymization on the A 151 and P 178 highway is due to special types of memorial signs (a flowerpot on the P 178 highway, a gazebo and a fence without a sign on the A 151 highway), as well as a large number of old metal signs that have lost photos, plates with information about the deceased. There are no clear boundaries between anonymization and personalization, there is a large number of transitional phenomena that can be simultaneously defined as both partial personalization and partial anonymization.