On August 24, 1990, Sergey Donatovich Dovlatov, a Russian writer and journalist, passed away in New York City. He was born on September 3, 1941, in Ufa and was 48 years old.

At the end of August, the writer complained of abdominal pain. Since he did not have health insurance, the ambulance took him from hospital to hospital in New York, but he was refused admission everywhere. Dovlatov died right in the ambulance. The official cause was stated as heart failure.

He is buried in the Armenian section of the Mount Hebron Jewish Cemetery in Queens; his father was Jewish and his mother Armenian. The cemetery is located near Meadow Lake and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and is one of the oldest in New York City. It is the resting place of representatives from many communities: in addition to Jewish burials, there are Armenian, Georgian, and Russian ones. Among the notable buried here are Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter, a mob boss, and Leo Max Frank, the only Jew to be lynched in the United States.

Dovlatov was born to a Jewish theater director and an Armenian mother, who were evacuated to Ufa at the beginning of the war. He grew up in Leningrad. After serving in the army, he studied at the journalism faculty, worked in Leningrad editorial offices, was part of the literary group 'Gorozhane,' and served as a tour guide at the Pushkin Reserve in Mikhailovskoye for some time.

In August 1978, due to persecution by the authorities, Dovlatov emigrated to the USA. In New York, he became the editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper 'Novy Amerikanyets,' which quickly gained popularity in the émigré community. His books began to be published one after another. After his death, Dovlatov became widely known in Russia as well.

In honor of the writer, streets have been named after him in New York, Ufa, and Ukhta. Memorial plaques have been installed on the houses where he lived in St. Petersburg, Tallinn, and Ufa.