Location : PETER-PAVEL’S FORTRESS
Saint Petersburg.
The Peter and Paul Fortress, founded by Peter I in 1703, is a monument of fortification art of the 18th-20th centuries. The dominant architectural ensemble is the Peter and Paul Cathedral, which houses the memorial tombs of all Russian emperors.
Peter and Paul Fortress was founded on May 27, 1703. According to legend, Peter I himself chose a place for a new fortress – a small Hare island (in Finnish – Enisaari), located at the mouth of the Neva River. The six-pointed star-shaped citadel was constructed according to a project compiled by the French engineer J. G. Lambert with the participation of the king. Six curtains connect six powerful bastions, named after the associates of Peter I.
The defensive system from the west and east is closed by the Ioannovsky and Alekseevsky ravelins. Two bridges – Ioannovsky and Kronverksky – connect the Hare island with Petrograd. October 1, 1703 the fortress was consecrated. On the sovereign bastion, the St. Andrew’s flag was raised, three hundred guns were installed on the ramparts. On June 29, 1703, a small wooden church was laid in the center of the Peter and Paul Fortress in the name of the apostles Peter and Paul, on the site of which a stone cathedral was erected in 1712-1732. From 1731 to 1858, the Peter and Paul Cathedral had the status of the cathedral church of the capital, then it was ranked as a court department. The cathedral served as the tomb of the reigning House of Romanov. Russian emperors and empresses from Peter I to Nicholas II are buried here, with the exception of Peter II and John VI. The Grand Duke’s Tomb is connected to the cathedral by an indoor gallery.
For the 18th – 19th centuries, buildings and structures for various purposes were built on the territory of the fortress: Botany House, Artillery Zeikhauz, Mint, Commandant and Engineering House, as well as guardhouse and others. Already in the XVIII century, the fortress became the place of detention of state criminals, in the XIX – the main political prison in Russia. Under Emperor Alexander I, at the beginning of the 19th century, the fortress was first open to visitors. In the 1900s, tours of the imperial necropolis were conducted in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. In 1924, the prison of the Trubetskoy Bastion turned into a museum. In 1954, the complex of buildings of the Peter and Paul Fortress was transferred to the State Museum of the History of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).
On the territory of the fortress in the Commandant’s House is a museum of the city’s daily life in the 18th-19th centuries, as well as the Trubetskoy Bastion Prison, where political prisoners were held. Among the prisoners are Narodnaya Volya, ministers of the tsarist government, L. D. Trotsky, F. M. Dostoevsky and N. G. Chernyshevsky. In the botanical house is the first ship that gave rise to the Russian fleet. The territory of the fortress and the beach are open for free access.
There was a system of underground passages in the fortress. Some of them are open to visitors: the entrance to the trash in the Sovereign’s bastion.