a – The Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral

b – The Grand Ducal Burial Vault

с – The Engineers’ House

d – The Artillery Warehouse

e – The Main Guardhouse

f – The Commandant’s House

g – The Mint Works h The Boathouse

i – Monument on the supposed place of the execution of the Decembrists

1 – The Tsar Bastion (Bastion of Peter I) with the ramp

2 – The Neva Curtain Wall with the Neva Gate

3 – The Naryshkin Bastion (St Catherine Bastion, the Empress Catherine I Bastion) with the flagstaff tower

4 – The St Catherine Curtain Wall

5 – The Trubetskoi Bastion with the building of prison

6 – The Vasilyevsky Island Curtain Wall with the Vasilyevsky Island Gale

7 – The Zotov Bastion with the ramp

8 – The St Nicholas Curtain Wall with the St Nicholas (Second Kronwerk) Gate

9 – The Golovkin Bastion (Bastion of St Anne, the Empress Anna Bastion)

10 – The Kronwerk Curtain Wall with the Kronwerk (First Kronwerk) Gate

11 – The Menshikov Bastion (Bastion of Peter II) with the ramp

12 – The St Peter Curtain Wall with the St Peter Gate

13 – The St John (Ioannovsky) Ravelin with the St John Gate, half-counter-guards and batardeau, and the Si John (St Peter) Bridge leading to the gate

14 – The St Alexei (Alexeyevsky) Ravelin with the half-counterguards and batardeau, and with the building of archives

15 – The kronwerk with the Defence Arsenal

Not far from the bridge, beyond the fence, at the end of the kronwerk rampart, stands an obelisk of light granite erected in 1976. It bears a round metal bas-relief with the portrait profiles of the five leaders of the Decembrist Uprising of 1825 and below it the inscription: “On this spot on July 13-25, 1826, the Decembrists Pavel Pestel, Konstantin Ryleyev, Piotr Kakhovsky, Sergei Muravyov-Apostol and Mikhail Bestuzhev-Riumin were executed.” The opposite side of the obelisk bears a few lines of verse, extraordinarily popular among Russian revolutionaries, written by the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin in 1818 and sent to his friend Piotr Chaadayev:

Dear friend, have faith: the wakeful skies Presage a dawn of wonder – Russia Shall from her age-old sleep arise, And despotism, impatient, crushing, Upon its ruins our names incise! (Translated by Irina Zheleznova)

In front of the obelisk on a low granite slab are the images of an officer’s sword and broken chain symbolizing the revolt of progressively-minded Russian officers against despotism.

This monument was installed by the citizens of Leningrad to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Decembrist Uprising. Proceeding along the iron fence with street lamps one will soon be at the eastern gates of the three-storey Defence Arsenal. Above the gate is the image of the Russian Imperial coat-of-arms, the monogram of Nicholas I – N I – with a crown and inscription “begun 1850″, and the monogram of Alexander II – A II – with a crown and inscription “completed 1860″ and the image of a bomb. The ceremonial “laying of the cornerstone” on the already finished foundation and granite socle took place in 1851. The designers of the arsenal were Nicholas I and the eminent Russian military engineer Alexander Feldman; the building facades were designed by the architect P. Tamansky. The huge size of the building can be explained by the fact that it was intended “for the entire reserves of cold weapons and firearms to be held in St Petersburg, as well as field and siege artillery.” Inasmuch as the building at the same time had significance in terms of defence, it was in essence a huge bastion, whose salient angle and shoulder corners were rounded. The exposed wall of the building has only embrasures, loopholes and united by a low stone gorge wall with gates, which separates the wide inner courtyard of the arsenal from the highway which runs along the bank of the strait.

The arsenal building now houses the Military-Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Communication Forces. The museum exhibition is based on a collection organized in 1756 in the Liteiny House, the St Petersburg centre for artillery production, featuring “various experimental weapons and other curious and noteworthy items”. On either side of the eastern gate of the arsenal stand two siege mortars used by the Russian army during the Northern War in 1700-21; in the yard immediately before the gate eight captured European guns have been installed, and at the gate in the gorge wall there are eight Russian guns dating to the pre-revolutionary and early post-revolutionary periods. Besides the exhibits within the arsenal various examples of military hardware are on display in the arsenal courtyard as well.
In addition to the interesting authentic examples and models of Russian weaponry of the last six centuries, historical documents, banners, medals and photographs, the museum collection includes more than a few excellent works by the best Russian pre-revolutionary battle painters Bogdan (Gottfried) Willewalde, Nikolai Dmitriyev-Orenburgsky, Alexander Sauerweid, Alexei Kivshenko, Alexander von Kotzebue, Franz Roubaud, and others and by the eminent Soviet painters Mitrofan Grekov, Pavel Sokolov-Skalia and Vasily Yakovlev.

Leaving the prison facilities of the Tru-betskoi Bastion, one may walk along the narrow street between the Catherine Curtain Wall and the Mint Works to the Naryshkin Bastion, upon which stands the flagstaff tower built in 1731-32. In the nineteenth century flags and the keys to the fortress gates were kept here. Today, two guns stand on the bastion to the right of the flagstaff tower. Everyday precisely at 12:00 noon one of them fires a blank shot (the second stands by on reserve). This old tradition was renewed during Leningrad’s 250-year anniversary celebration. Not far from the Naryshkin Bastion is the Neva Gate, built in the style of Classicism by the architect Nikolai Lvov. The gate faces the fortress and is decorated with two pairs of pilasters and a triangular pediment under which the date of the gate’s construction can be read – 1787. The tympanum of the pediment contains a cartouche similar to the one located on the St John Gate.

When you pass under the Neva Gate and walk towards the bank of the Neva, notice the marble and metal plaques fastened to the wall marking the maximum waterline in six places during the most severe floods of the Neva. These marks are accompanied by the following inscriptions:

November 7, 1824, in the second hour of the afternoon water stood 12 feet 10 inches above the normal water level as marked by the line between the letters A and B; September 23, 1924, at 19:30 hours water stood 11 feet and 8 inches above the normal water level as indicated by this line; September 10, 1777, in the seventh hour p.m. water stood according to the red line 9 feet and 11 inches above the normal water level; September 29, 1975, from 3:55 a.m. to 4:20 a.m. water stood 9 feet and 4 inches above the normal water level as indicated by the line;

October 23, 1752, in the tenth hour p.m. according to the green line water stood 8 feet and 5 inches above the normal water level; September 27, 1788, in the second hour a.m. water stood according to the blue line 7 feet and 6 inches above the normal water level. To the left of these curious “chronicle of the floods of the Neva” fastened to the wall is a tide-gauge consisting of a surveyor’s rod marked off in points, which serves to determine the height of water on the river. The floods recorded here caused great damage to the entire city as well as to the fortress itself.

Exiting onto the Neva or Commandant’s Pier, built in 1777, you will see first and foremost the splendid panorama of the Palace Embankment on the opposite bank. To the left across the Neva spans the Kirov (formerly the Trinity) Bridge, the most beautiful bridge in Leningrad opened May 16, 1903, during the city’s bicentennial celebration. Its street lights and obelisks standing near its ends remind one of the Alexander III Bridge in Paris, which was built in 1896 in commemoration of the expansion of Russian-French ties which had commenced five years earlier. Not far from the pier on the right you will again see (this time from the outside) the Naryshkin Bastion. The Neva flows almost right up to its very feet, and the Bastion and the pier appear to be “emerging” out of the water. In the eighteenth century the entire fortress facade “emerged” out of the water in this way.

Behind the Naryshkin Bastion, in front of the Catherine Curtain Wall stand a few dozen tall trees not visible from the pier – the remnants of the park built in 1862 for exercising certain “noble” prisoners (that is, prisoners of noble descent). A little further along the bank of the Neva, and also not visible from the pier, are the Trubetskoi Bastion with the batardeau and half-counterguard and the St Alexei Ravelin. In the opposite direction from the pier stretches the Neva Curtain Wall which ends at the third bastion on the Neva side, the Tsar Bastion. Behind this bastion are located its batardeau and half-counterguard. The fortress walls facing the Neva are reveted with granite. The granite reveting of the Neva facade contains a number of decorative elements. The corners of the bastions, the half-counterguard and the ravelin are rusticated, and small towers rise exquisitely above these corners.

At the end of the eighteenth century the Neva pier and the Neva Gate became the second formal entrance into the fortress. The side of the gate facing the river is decorated with a portico in the style of Classicism and four columns joined in pairs at the bottom by mighty granite blocks. The gate is crowned by a triangular pediment with images of an anchor placed on crossed branches and two bombs. Under the pediment is the inscription: The Neva Gate, 1787.

On the bastions facing the river the oldest surviving St Petersburg memorial inscriptions can be found. These inscriptions, executed in bronze letters, are fastened to granite slabs and indicate the dates when the granite revet-ing of the various bastions was completed. To give the inscriptions an even more solemn appearance, in several places the Cyrillic letter H is replaced with the Latin TV. The first two inscriptions of this type appeared on the faces of the bastion known today as the Naryshkin Bastion. Their identical text reads: “The Bastion of the Empress Catherine Alexeyevna. Clad in stone during the reign of Catherine II in 1870.” And it was from these very inscriptions that the title Clad in Stone was chosen by the eminent Soviet writer Olga Forsh for her novel written in 1924-25 and dedicated to the tragic fate of the “Russian Iron-Mask” – the nobleman-revolutionary Mikhail Beideman. Beideman emigrated to Italy in 1860 and fought for Risorgimento (the Union of Italy) in the detachment of Giuseppe Garibaldi. In 1861 he was arrested on the border attempting to return to his homeland, and was held without trial for twenty years in solitary confinement in the Secret House of the St Alexei Ravelin, where he went insane.

The novel Clad in Stone is the best among the literary works whose action takes place, at least partially, within the Peter and Paul Fortress. The latter was also the setting for scenes in the interesting film The Palace and the Fortress, first released in 1924, and whose script was written by Olga Forsh together with a former prisoner of the fortress, the historian and literary critic Piotr Shchogolev. From the Neva pier the viewer may walk along the Neva Curtain Wall and the Tsar Bastion to the batardeau connecting the point of the latter with the half-counterguard covering its left face. In the batardeau the tops of two bricked-in arches mark the place where the aquatic gates were formerly located. Walking further along the shore of the island one will soon see the St John Bridge and crossing the Kronwerk Strait over it, one will again be at the intersection of Kirov Prospekt and Kuibyshev Street.

The iconostasis is an integral part of the cathedral interior and divides it into two cross-sections, the middle part and the altar, above which spans the altar canopy. The overall composition of the cathedral interior, in accordance with the basic precepts of Baroque church architecture, was intended to attract the viewer forward towards the iconostasis and altar, illuminated by rays of light from the cupola above. This composition has many parallels in Italian, Swiss and Southern German Baroque churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The cathedral is considerably more ornate on the inside than on the outside. The final stage in its construction coincided with the return of the Empress Anna I (Anna Ioannovna) from Moscow to St Petersburg, chosen once and for all as the permanent residence of the court. At the beginning of the 1730s, on the Empress Anna’s orders, the cathedral interior was finished off more luxuriously than was called for in the original architectural plans. This luxurious interior has survived all subsequent remodelling. The pylons and pilasters of the cathedral are painted to imitate green and pink marble, and they are crowned with gilt capitals adorned with cherubs. The vaults of the central nave are decorated with ceiling paintings depicting cherubs and angels holding the instruments of torture with which Christ was made to suffer before his death; the vaults of the side naves are decorated with ceiling paintings portraying angels holding objects used in the Orthodox bishop’s worship service, and large eight-pointed stars. In addition, the vaults are decorated with ornamental edges, painted designs, and panels of various shapes. The vaults preserve the appearance they obtained in the 1870s. From them hang five large crystal chandeliers. In the pendentives under the drum decorated with corbels, pilasters and entabla-ture, on which rests the cupola vault which covers the drum overhead, are moulded images of flying angels holding curtains which are dropping from above.

The base of the drum is embellished with large images of cherubs, painted designs, and praportsy, valance-type decorations; and the drum itself. The paintings, arranged in two tiers in the drum, were created in 1877. The eight paintings of the bottom tier portray scenes from various Gospel stories, and the eight paintings of the top tier portray the Old Testament forefathers. The ceiling painting in the cupola depicts the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove encompassed by a bright aura radiating outward. It was painted in 1756-57, and was subsequently restored many times. On the walls of the cathedral, underneath the arches of the vaults, eighteen large pictures can be found with scenes from the New Testament (on all the walls, except for the western one, these paintings seem to “stand” on the entablature encircling the inside of the cathedral). The paintings located on the side walls of the middle part of the cathedral and on the side walls of the altar are placed in moulded decorative frames, which, according to their design, were undoubtedly intended to match the attic of the cathedral’s eastern facade. The picture on the eastern wall of the altar is placed in a frame richly decorated with moulded images of clouds, light rays radiating outward from the picture, and flying angels. The pictures on the remaining walls are without stuccoed framing. Seven of the eighteen pictures now located under the arches of the vaults were painted in 1728-31 by three artists: Vasily Ignatyev, Andrei Matveyev (both Russians), and Georg Gsell (a Swiss). Thanks to their realistic treatment, new to Russia in the eighteenth century, the pictures painted by these artists are considered outstanding in the history of Russian painting.

The remaining eleven pictures are associated with the period from the second half of the 1750s to the beginning of the 1780s (they replaced paintings which were damaged in the fire of 1756) and are less interesting than the seven previously mentioned. Besides the eighteen pictures mentioned above, on the eastern wall of the altar under the oval window the large painted altar-piece is located.

The best decorations of the cathedral interior are the iconostasis and the altar canopy, donated to the cathedral by Peter the Great and his spouse and successor to the Russian throne, Catherine I. The general design of the iconostasis and altar canopy was drawn up by Trezzini, but they were executed in 1722-27 in Moscow out of soft limewood (lime-trees did not grow at that time in St Petersburg or its environs) under the direction of the architect Ivan Zarudny, who independently worked out the details of Trez-zini’s design. The iconostasis and altar canopy were delivered to St Petersburg in pieces and installed in the cathedral in 1729. Forty-three icons for the iconostasis and icons for the altar canopy were painted in St Petersburg in 1727-29 by a group of Moscow icon-painters summoned to St Petersburg especially for that purpose and headed by Andrei Merkulyev.

The basic composition of the iconostasis of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral consists of five large icon-cases, four arranged below and one situated above them. Located in the spaces between the four lower icon-cases are the Holy Doors, which correspond to the central nave; the northern doors, which correspond to the left nave; and the southern doors, which correspond to the right nave. A majestic arch stretches above the Holy Doors. Above the arch the fifth, upper, icon-case is located, extending into the space between the drum and the cupola and reaching a height of almost twenty metres.

The iconostasis is richly decorated with carvings and gilt from top to bottom. Altogether, in the icon-cases are located five large and thirty-six smaller icons; two additional large icons are placed on the northern and southern doors. Although the icon-cases of the iconostasis, if considered separately, remind one of the altarpieces of Baroque Catholic churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the iconostasis as a whole is unparalleled anywhere in the world. Furthermore, similar iconostases had not existed in Russia before this one, with the possible exception of certain parts, also reminiscent of Catholic altarpieces, of the carved iconostasis in the aforementioned St Petersburg Church of the Resurrection which stood in 1713-30 on Vasilyevsky Island. (The author of the description of St Petersburg published in Frankfurt-Leipzig in 1718 mentions that in the Church of the Resurrection “there are several carved wooden sculptures and something like an altar, although this is not customary with the Russians.”) And indeed iconostases in Russian Orthodox churches of the seventeenth century looked little like the iconostasis in the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral. They consisted of a wall, with the Holy Doors in the centre and northern and southern doors on either side. On this wall icons were arranged in horizontal tiers in a strictly determined order.

On the Holy Doors of Russian iconostases of the seventeenth-century six icons were invariably placed: two portrayed the Virgin Mary listening to the announcement of the Incarnation and the announcing Archangel Gabriel; the other four represented the four Evangelists. The Holy Doors of the iconostasis of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral were completely different. First of all, there is not even a single icon on them – they consist of four wings with a bas-relief depicting the Last Supper taking place in a rotunda under a cupola pierced with round windows. The cupola of the rotunda is crowned with the image of crossed keys – a symbol of the Apostle Peter. Participants of the Last Supper are depicted on their way to the table standing in the centre of the rotunda; above the table, in an oval frame, the Virgin Mary is depicted, and above her the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. To the left of the Holy Doors, on a high pedestal is the statue of the announcing Archangel Gabriel with a branch, and to the right of the Holy Doors, on a similar pedestal, is its pendant, a statue of the Archangel Michael fighting a dragon. Michael is holding a sword n the form of a long tongue of flame and a shield with the monogram of Christ. In traditional Russian iconostases each horizontal tier of icons represented certain specific themes. With regard to themes, the arrangement of the iconostasis of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral is completely different: the iconostasis divides into the central part with the Holy Doors below; the southern (right) part, which may be named the “men’s” section, for in it of the seventeen minor icons thirteen represent “holy men” (that is, heroes); and the northern (left) part, which may be named the “women’s” section, for in it thirteen of the seventeen minor icons represent “holy women” (that is, heroines). Apparently this type of arrangement of the iconostasis was to serve as a reminder of those who donated it – the “hero” Peter I and “heroine” Catherine I.

True, in the iconostasis of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral it is possible to pick out a row of six large icons corresponding to the lowermost tier of icons in traditional Russian iconostases of the seventeenth century. However, only the location of the large image of Christ and the Apostle Peter to the right of the Holy Doors, the large image of the Mother of God and the Apostle Paul to the left of these doors, and the large image of the Prophet Ezekiel on the northern doors is in accordance with rules determining the arrangement of icons in seventeenth-century Russian iconostases.

The large image of the Judge Samson bearing the city gates, located on the southern doors, is highly unusual for Russian seventeenth-century iconostases. The presence of the seventh large icon (depicting the Resurrection) in the upper icon-case of the iconostasis of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral does not contradict the rules for the selection of icons in former iconostases, but the placement of this image above the Holy Doors is again completely non-traditional.

Among the characters of the twenty-six icons depicting “holy men” and “holy women”, interesting groups are notable. First of all these are certain members of the House of Rurik, who ruled Rus from 862 to 1598, the Saints Olga, Vladimir, Boris, Gleb, Alexander Nevsky and Dmitry Ioannovich. Next are the saints after whom Peter I’s spouse and certain members of his family and relatives were named: Catherine, Natalia, Elizabeth, Praskovya and Anna. Further are the following saints: the Roman Emperor Constantine, his mother Helen and the Roman Empress Pulkheria. And finally, there are twelve Old Testament figures, the images of two of which appear in this iconostasis either for the first time ever, or are at least extremely rare in the history of Russian icon-painting. These are Bathsheba and Jael.

Bathsheba was the wife of the Hittite Uriah, a military leader of ancient Israel in the reign of King David. Having seen the lovely Bathsheba while bathing, David ordered his servants to lead her to him that night in the palace. Later David sent Uriah to his head commander, having secretly ordered the latter: “Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.” Uriah was killed in battle, and David made Bathsheba his wife. The Old Testament author ends his description of the actions of the King with this commentary: “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” However, the author didn’t pass judgement on Bathsheba.

Long before this story another one took place, the heroine of which was a woman from the Palestinian tribe of the Kenites by the name of Jael. During one of the wars of the ancient Israelites in Palestine, one of the thwarted opponents, the Canaanite military leader Sisara sought refuge in Jael’s home. When the exhausted man fell asleep in Jael’s tent, she “took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground…” Jael’s actions were lauded by the prophetess Deborah, who was the leader of the Israelites at that time.

Neither Bathsheba nor Jael were considered saints by the Orthodox Church. Why then in the late 1720s did their images appear in the iconostasis of the main Orthodox shrine in St Petersburg? There seems to be only one answer to this question: it must have been some peculiar form of apology for Catherine I, for whom Peter the Great was not the first husband – just as David for Bathsheba, and who, in the eyes of the Russians, remained a foreigner – like Jael for the ancient Jews. The majority of icons in the cathedral iconostasis are painted in a realistic manner. Especially noteworthy in this respect are the images of Deborah and Esther (located in the “women’s” left half, up above, in frames suggestive of a flower with three petals) and the landscape which is the background for the depiction of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The iconostasis has relief images of the regalia of the Russian emperors – the crown and sceptre (they can be seen on the side walls of the four lower icon-cases and on the cupola of the rotunda of the Holy Doors). There are many inscriptions on the iconostasis, the script of which is suggestive of those in St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. Therefore, in the inscriptions of the iconostasis in place of the Cyrillic В and У the Latin letter V is used, and the Cyrillic H is replaced by the Latin N.

Major restorations of the iconostasis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made virtually no changes in its original appearance.

In May 1756 it was again reassembled after being hastily dismounted on April 30 and rescued from the burning cathedral. In 1832-33, to protect the iconostasis from dampness, a marble socle was installed beneath it. In 1865-66 the deteriorated wooden Holy Doors were replaced with exact copies embossed in copper and covered with gold. In the centre of the altar above the communion table and exquisitely fitting into the arch of the Holy Doors, the carved wooden altar canopy stands on four twisted columns. Its prototype is one of the best works of the famous Italian architect and sculptor, Gianlorenzo Bernini, the splendid bronze canopy of St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, installed there in 1633.

On the fourth pylon on the left a carved wooden pulpit is fixed, above which a canopy is suspended. Several wooden sculptured images decorate the pulpit: the Apostles Peter and Paul above the canopy; the four Evangelists and their “living symbols” (St Matthew with an angel, St Mark with a lion, St Luke with a bull, and St John with an eagle) and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, surrounded by clouds and cherubs on the canopy itself. Paintings decorate the pulpit as well. Among them of special interest, due to its life-like quality, is one picture illustrating the famous Evangelical parable of the sower. Of the fine details of the canopy over the pulpit, it is worthwhile to note the valance-type decorations similar to those which adorn the base of the drum and the altar canopy. As to the use of the pulpit for reading sermons, it first appeared in the Orthodox churches of St Petersburg in the same Church of the Resurrection mentioned earlier. The author of the description of 1718, when speaking of the sermons read from the pulpit of this church, emphasized: “This is something new and out of the ordinary, since formerly the Russians didn’t read a sermon, but conducted only a worship service.” Near the fourth pylon on the right in the cathedral is the place designated for the Emperor, a small low platform on which the Emperor stood while attending the church service. Above this platform a carved wooden canopy is located with the image of the Imperial insignia (crown, sceptre and sword) resting on pillows. Curtains of crimson-coloured velvet hang from the canopy; on the back curtain covering the pylon the State Eagle is embroidered. Judging by the peculiarities of the latter, it is possible to assume that the place designated for the Emperor, the creator of which is unknown, acquired its present appearance no earlier than the beginning of the 1830s and no later than the mid-1850s, since the rider on the Moscow coat-of-arms, located on the eagle’s breast, is turned to the heraldic left side (as portrayed only up to 1856), and on the eagle’s wings are the coats-of-arms of Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberia, Poland, Chersonesus and Finland (these coats-of-arms appeared on the State Eagle in 1832). Today in the middle part of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral are located thirty-two grave tombs of members of the Romanov dynasty, but actually buried here are only thirty-one, since the monument for the Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgiyevna, daughter of the Greek King George I, stands above an empty grave: the coffin with Alexandra Georgiyevna’s remains was returned by the Soviet Govern-merit to Greece in 1939 for reburial in the Royal Burial Vault in Athens. Eleven of the thirty-one buried here were ruling Russian emperors and empresses of the Romanov dynasty. They include those having died in the eighteenth century: Peter the Great, Catherine I, Anna I, Elizabeth I, Peter III and Catherine II (in the right nave); and those having died in the nineteenth century: Paul I, Alexander I, Nicholas I, Alexander II and Alexander III (in the left nave). Thirty of the thirty-two tombstones are of white marble with gilt bronze plaques bearing the name of each of those buried, their title, date of birth and death, etc. Furthermore, the image of the State Eagle is fixed to the corners of the monuments on the graves of the ruling emperors of Russia and likewise to those of their spouses (formally considered co-rulers).

Prior to 1844 only a portion of the graves in the cathedral had low monuments above them. In 1844-65 the first white marble tombstones were installed above seven new graves as they appeared in the cathedral. In 1865-67 white marble tombstones replaced the majority of earlier monuments. The texts on the plaque of the new monument to Peter I and certain others were compiled by the eminent Russian historian Nikolai Ustrialov, the author of the ten-volume History of the Rule of Peter the Great, in which, in particular, for the first time documents were published in connection with the case of Prince Alexei, Peter’s son, who died in the St Petersburg Fortress in 1718. Above the subsequent graves white marble tombstones were likewise installed, which, by the beginning of the twentieth century already numbered forty. However, ten of these were removed from the cathedral in 1906-8. Eight of the ten were removed and the remains transferred to the Grand Ducal Burial Vault built next to the cathedral. Two of the monuments near the northwest wall – above the graves of the Emperor Alexander II and his spouse Maria Alexandrovna – were replaced by new monuments differing greatly in form and material from all the others. The new monument to Alexander II was carved from a monolithic piece of wavy jasper from the Altai Mountains, and the new monument to Maria Alexandrovna of a monolith of pink quartz from the Urals. Carved in 1888-1906 according to the design of the architect A. Gun, they are splendid examples of the art of Russian stone-cutting of the turn of the century. In the vestibule, under the stairs leading to the bell-tower, one may view three additional tombstones in the form of marble slabs embedded in the wall. One of the slabs marks the burial place of Prince Alexei, the only grown-up son of Peter the Great. In addition fastened to the wall in the middle part of the cathedral, near its northern doors, is a plaque with the names of Peter’s five children who died as infants and were buried somewhere in this vicinity. In 1916, during World War I, attempts were made to use the graves in the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral to ignite feelings of patriotism and support for the monarchy. Rumours spread in abundance around Petrograd of as well as the cupola above the drum, the sculptures on the eastern facade and the entire complex structure surmounting the bell-tower. The portico of the western facade was also destroyed. In the years 1756-79 the cathedral was restored, but not to its exact former appearance. Above the church building proper a low gable roof now appeared, and the drum seems to cut crudely into it from above. The lantern above this drum became crowned with an ancient Russian onion-shaped cupola, fashionable in the mid-eighteenth century. The sculptures and vases of the eastern facade were not reconstructed, though, and the spikes supporting them before the fire were not removed. The Empress Catherine II personally saw to it in 1766 that the cathedral bell-tower be rebuilt “exactly as it was before”. Indeed, in terms of general silhouette, proportions and architectural decorations, the restored bell-tower is very close to the original. However, the western attic with a triangular pediment was not restored – it was replaced by two pairs of crude flat volutes. As a result, the western facade of the bell-tower began to be visually perceived as a continuation of the cathedral’s western facade, and the effect was lost of the bell-tower “sprouting” out from behind the attic with the triangular pediment. Now the cathedral ceased to be as clearly divided into three main parts as it was prior to the fire.

The restoration work on the cathedral bell-tower carried out in 1769-79 attracted widespread attention. One interesting account of this can be found in Zhivopisets (The Painter) – the satirical magazine which was published in 1772-73 by the famous Russian social figure and writer Nikolai Novikov. The hero of one of his satires, a provincial landowner, asks his son: “Write, dear Fala-leyushka, what’s going on there in Piter: they say, great endeavours are undertaken. They’re building a bell-tower and want it to be higher than Ivan the Great’s (the famous bell-tower in the Moscow Kremlin).” Speaking of the cathedral’s bell-tower, one is always reminded of the story of how in 1830 the roofer Piotr Telushkin carried out repairs on the cross and the angel atop it. Famed for his great physical strength, Telushkin climbed out onto the exterior of the spire through a small window in one of its eight sides, and holding on with only his hands and toes to the grooves between the squares of gold leaf on the spire’s ribs, he succeeded in encircling the entire spire, drawing a light rope behind him, and thus creating a rope loop. Now, by moving the loop upward and using hooks driven into some of the metal sheets, he was able to climb to the foot of the cross, from which he fastened a rope ladder extending back down to the window. With the help of the ladder he was able to climb easily to his “workplace” under the clouds and carry out the repair work. In the middle of the nineteenth century restoration work was once again carried out on the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral. But this time its outer appearance remained unchanged. The badly weathered spire, lantern, and the cupola of the bell-tower, whose frameworks were of wood, were replaced in 1857-58 with replicas identical in form, but made of brick, dolomite and steel. At the same time and of the same long-lasting materials, the wooden lantern and dome of the cathedral’s cupola were rebuilt preserving their previous form, and the roof was partially replaced as well.

Little has survived of the cathedral’s original exterior architectural decorations. These include the pilasters supporting the mighty entablature, running around the entire building, the simple platbands of the large rectangular windows with moulded cherubs at the tops, and the moulded frame of the oval window in the eastern facade depicting clouds and cherubs. After observing the inside of the cathedral one will see that the image of cherubs constitutes one of the most characteristic decorative details of the cathedral interior as well.

As regards the modest porticoes above the western and southern doors of the cathedral, they appeared after the fire of 1756. The large image of Christ and the Apostles Peter and Paul, located in the attic above the eastern facade decorated with two splendid volutes, was created in 1873. Just as in the eighteenth century, the attention of viewers of the cathedral exterior is drawn to the bell-tower with its extraordinarily elegant spire (the overall height of the bell-tower is 122.5 metres). And the clock and chimes mounted in the bell-tower attract no less attention. They were made in Holland, in 1757-60, by the talented craftsman Barend Oort Krass. The clock and chimes have been restored on several occasions, for instance in 1857-58 when the spire, cupola and lantern of the bell-tower were replaced. During the restoration of the clock face, which took place in the same period, the bell-tower clock was provided for the first time with a minute hand. Prior to this, the lack of the minute hand in this main clock of the city was compensated by short chimes, ringing every quarter of an rrour. And today, just as earlier, on the fourth ringing of the chimes within an hour a different hour chime rings out. Nowadays, in addition, the clock chimes ring out the Soviet National Anthem four times a day: at 6 a.m., midday, 6 p. m., and midnight. Near the eastern facade of the cathedral a small eighteenth-century graveyard has been preserved. Up to the beginning of the twentieth century the fortress commandants were buried here.

A covered walkway leads from the cathedral and connects it to the Grand Ducal Burial Vault – the Church of St Alexander Nevsky (the patron saint of St Petersburg), consecrated on November 23, 1908, and built specially for burial of members of the Romanov dynasty (by the end of the nineteenth century there was no longer any room to bury family members in the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral). The overall height of the Burial Vault is approximately sixty meters. Its square-shaped central part, covered overhead with a big vault, is surmounted with a drum, dome, lantern and small onion-shaped cupola. The eastern side of the central part is adjoined by a rectangular altar; next to the western side is a rectangular vestibule. The facades of the Burial Vault are more ornate than those of the cathedral; they are decorated with pilasters, half-columns, vases, volutes, mosaic icons and sculptured images of cherubs; likewise richly ornate are the vaulted ceiling and oval windows in it, as well as the drum, dome and lantern. The Grand Ducal Burial Vault, whose architectural style may be termed eclectic, was built in 1897-1906 according to the design of David Grimm, Anton Tomishko and Leonty Benois. The three architects successfully selected the building site and height of the structure and likewise intentionally made the top of its dome similar to that of the cupola of the Sts Peter aod Paul Cathedral. As a result, the silhouettes of the cathedral and the Burial Vault harmonize with one another and with the entire architectural complex of the fortress.

The building of the stone Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral began in 1712. The unknown author of a small book about St Petersburg published in 1718 in Frankfurt and Leipzig wrote: “I can’t leave unmentioned the large church and tall tower which has begun to be built in the fortress. Judging by the models I have seen, this will be something marvellous, the likes of which cannot yet be found elsewhere in Russia. The tower is finished up to the rafters, it is of extraordinary height and good stone masonry… and good proportions… It was built by the Italian architect Trezzini. Since the wooden upper portion of the tower should be as high as the stone part, the tower will probably surpass in height all the towers of Germany. About the church one can say that it will have everything that can possibly be desired in a place where materials are difficult to acquire.”

The cathedral, consecrated on June 29, 1733, was, prior to the fire of 1756, a building consisting of three basic parts, compositionally connected to one another but nevertheless clearly distinguishable. The first part comprised the church building itself, in the form of an elongated rectangle with a slightly narrower altar, likewise rectangular. It was covered by a roof with a complex profile. The eastern facade of the building was topped by an attic with a curved pediment and two large volutes, decorated with wooden sculptures and vases which were supported by metal spikes. The western facade was topped by an attic with a triangular pediment and two other large volutes; this facade was also decorated by a portico which contemporaries termed “splendid”. As in all typical Baroque cathedrals the side facades – northern and southern – were considerably less elaborate. The second main part of the cathedral in 1733-56 was the drum, extending above the roof near the attic of the eastern facade and surmounted by a cupola which was crowned with a lantern and helmet-shaped dome. The third part of the cathedral was the square bell-tower with a complex top consisting of two octagonal cupolas with lanterns, a tall octagonal spire, a ball atop the spire and a cross with a flying angel crowning the ball (all these upper structures rested on a wooden base). Although the western facade of the bell-tower was projected as the continuation of the western facade of the cathedral, visually, before the fire of 1756, the bell-tower was perceived as “sprouting” from behind the attic with the triangular pediment.

Conceived by a Swiss-Italian architect for whom Russia became a second homeland and executed by skilled Russian stone- and woodworkers, the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral, in terms of its exterior composition, was thoroughly original and had no analogues anywhere else in the world. At the same time as regards separate parts of the pre-fire cathedral, it is not difficult to find very interesting parallels in famous European churches of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, outstanding as monuments of Baroque architecture. Thus, the design of the western facade of the cathedral was very similar to that of the main facades of the famous Roman Baroque churches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – II Gesu and St Ignazio (neither of these two churches has a bell-tower). The Heilig-Geistkirche in Bern, built in 1722-29, with its bell-tower rising above its main facade square in plan and crowned by an eight-sided cupola, lantern and spire, immediately calls to mind the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral the way it looked originally. Interesting partial parallels with the original Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral are further revealed in the London churches of St Bride, St Mary-le-Strand and St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The first was built by the famous English architect Sir Christopher Wren in the years 1670-1703; the second and third were built by the Scotsman James Gibbs in 1714-17 and in 1722-26, respectively. Just as the above-mentioned church in Bern, above each of these three London churches there rises a square-shaped bell-tower, and in the churches of St Bride and St Martin-in-the-Fields the bell-tower is crowned by an octagonal lantern and spire. It is interesting to note that since the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields (considered to be the most outstanding of James Gibbs’ works) served as a model for many churches built in the eighteenth century in the United States of America, similarities may be found between the original Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral and a whole array of architectural monuments in that country, for instance the small St Paul’s Chapel in New York, built from the 1760s to the 1790s according to the plans of Thomas McBean. It should be added that in the original Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral the plan of the church building itself, as in all the above-mentioned foreign churches, is basilical, that is in the shape of an elongated rectangle, and that the spire as a decorative element was used widely in medieval architecture in Northern Europe. But one must not forget to mention a St Petersburg forerunner and partial analogue to the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral, the Church of the Resurrection, built on Vasilyevsky Island when it belonged to Alexander Men-shikov, the first governor of the new Russian province, the centre of which became St Petersburg. The Church of the Resurrection, consecrated on November 23, 1713, and disassembled in 1730, was noted, in the words of its viewers, for its “handsome architecture” and “lovely tower” bearing a striking resemblance to the cathedral’s bell-tower.

During the 1756 fire the wooden roof of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral burned completely, as well as the cupola above the drum, the sculptures on the eastern facade and the entire complex structure surmounting the bell-tower. The portico of the western facade was also destroyed. In the years 1756-79 the cathedral was restored, but not to its exact former appearance. Above the church building proper a low gable roof now appeared, and the drum seems to cut crudely into it from above. The lantern above this drum became crowned with an ancient Russian onion-shaped cupola, fashionable in the mid-eighteenth century. The sculptures and vases of the eastern facade were not reconstructed, though, and the spikes supporting them before the fire were not removed. The Empress Catherine II personally saw to it in 1766 that the cathedral bell-tower be rebuilt “exactly as it was before”. Indeed, in terms of general silhouette, proportions and architectural decorations, the restored bell-tower is very close to the original. However, the western attic with a triangular pediment was not restored – it was replaced by two pairs of crude flat volutes. As a result, the western facade of the bell-tower began to be visually perceived as a continuation of the cathedral’s western facade, and the effect was lost of the bell-tower “sprouting” out from behind the attic with the triangular pediment. Now the cathedral ceased to be as clearly divided into three main parts as it was prior to the fire.

The restoration work on the cathedral bell-tower carried out in 1769-79 attracted widespread attention. One interesting account of this can be found in Zhivopisets (The Painter) – the satirical magazine which was published in 1772-73 by the famous Russian social figure and writer Nikolai Novikov. The hero of one of his satires, a provincial landowner, asks his son: “Write, dear Fala-leyushka, what’s going on there in Piter: they say, great endeavours are undertaken. They’re building a bell-tower and want it to be higher than Ivan the Great’s (the famous bell-tower in the Moscow Kremlin).” Speaking of the cathedral’s bell-tower, one is always reminded of the story of how in 1830 the roofer Piotr Telushkin carried out repairs on the cross and the angel atop it. Famed for his great physical strength, Telushkin climbed out onto the exterior of the spire through a small window in one of its eight sides, and holding on with only his hands and toes to the grooves between the squares of gold leaf on the spire’s ribs, he succeeded in encircling the entire spire, drawing a light rope behind him, and thus creating a rope loop. Now, by moving the loop upward and using hooks driven into some of the metal sheets, he was able to climb to the foot of the cross, from which he fastened a rope ladder extending back down to the window. With the help of the ladder he was able to climb easily to his “workplace” under the clouds and carry out the repair work. In the middle of the nineteenth century restoration work was once again carried out on the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral. But this time its outer appearance remained unchanged. The badly weathered spire, lantern, and the cupola of the bell-tower, whose frameworks were of wood, were replaced in 1857-58 with replicas identical in form, but made of brick, dolomite and steel. At the same time and of the same long-lasting materials, the wooden lantern and dome of the cathedral’s cupola were rebuilt preserving their previous form, and the roof was partially replaced as well.

Little has survived of the cathedral’s original exterior architectural decorations. These include the pilasters supporting the mighty entablature, running around the entire building, the simple platbands of the large rectangular windows with moulded cherubs at the tops, and the moulded frame of the oval window in the eastern facade depicting clouds and cherubs. After observing the inside of the cathedral one will see that the image of cherubs constitutes one of the most characteristic decorative details of the cathedral interior as well.

As regards the modest porticoes above the western and southern doors of the cathedral, they appeared after the fire of 1756. The large image of Christ and the Apostles Peter and Paul, located in the attic above the eastern facade decorated with two splendid volutes, was created in 1873. Just as in the eighteenth century, the attention of viewers of the cathedral exterior is drawn to the bell-tower with its extraordinarily elegant spire (the overall height of the bell-tower is 122.5 metres). And the clock and chimes mounted in the bell-tower attract no less attention. They were made in Holland, in 1757-60, by the talented craftsman Barend Oort Krass. The clock and chimes have been restored on several occasions, for instance in 1857-58 when the spire, cupola and lantern of the bell-tower were replaced. During the restoration of the clock face, which took place in the same period, the bell-tower clock was provided for the first time with a minute hand. Prior to this, the lack of the minute hand in this main clock of the city was compensated by short chimes, ringing every quarter of an hour. And today, just as earlier, on the fourth ringing of the chimes within an hour a different hour chime rings out. Nowadays, in addition, the clock chimes ring out the Soviet National Anthem four times a day: at 6 a.m., midday, 6 p. m., and midnight. Near the eastern facade of the cathedral a small eighteenth-century graveyard has been preserved. Up to the beginning of the twentieth century the fortress commandants were buried here.

A covered walkway leads from the cathedral and connects it to the Grand Ducal Burial Vault – the Church of St Alexander Nevsky (the patron saint of St Petersburg), consecrated on November 23, 1908, and built specially for burial of members of the Romanov dynasty (by the end of the nineteenth century there was no longer any room to bury family members in the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral). The overall height of the Burial Vault is approximately sixty meters. Its square-shaped central part, covered overhead with a big vault, is surmounted with a drum, dome, lantern and small onion-shaped cupola. The eastern side of the central part is adjoined by a rectangular altar; next to the western side is a rectangular vestibule. The facades of the Burial Vault are more ornate than those of the cathedral; they are decorated with pilasters, half-columns, vases, volutes, mosaic icons and sculptured images of cherubs; likewise richly ornate are the vaulted ceiling and oval windows in it, as well as the drum, dome and lantern. The Grand Ducal Burial Vault, whose architectural style may be termed eclectic, was built in 1897-1906 according to the design of David Grimm, Anton Tomishko and Leonty Benois. The three architects successfully selected the building site and height of the structure and likewise intentionally made the top of its dome similar to that of the cupola of the Sts Peter aad Paul Cathedral. As a result, the silhouettes of the cathedral and the Burial Vault harmonize with one another and with the entire architectural complex of the fortress.

The large lawn located to the left of the main lane, from the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth centuries, was the site of the fortress drill ground.

Before the Revolution the red-and-white building (its pedimented facade executed in the Baroque style faces the Engineers’ House) was the residence of the fortress commandants, appointed from among the most distinguished generals of the Russian army. Hence its name – the Commandant’s House. The first stone Commandant’s House was built in 1748; at that time also a two-storey structure, but quite a bit smaller in size than the present house. In the years to follow, the Commandant’s House was enlarged and rebuilt several times.

It received its present dimensions and exterior view in 1893-94.

On October 24, 1917, in the Commandant’s House the field headquarters for the direction of an armed uprising against the Provisional Government was established, acting on the decision of the Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee.

Today on display in the Commandant’s House is an exhibition devoted to the history of St Petersburg – Petrograd up to February 1917. Among the items exhibited here, of particular interest are the old engravings, lithographs and paintings with images of the city, the works by leading Russian and foreign masters: Alexei Zubov, Mikhail Makhayev, John Augustus Atkinson, Benjamin Paterssen, Fiodor Alexeyev, Michel Francois Damame-Demartrais, Stepan Galaktionov, Karl Joachim Beggroff, Ferdinand Victor Perrot, Adolphe Charlemagne, Wilhelm Georg Timm, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Pavel Shillin-govsky, and others.

In the very first years of the fortress on the site of today’s Commandant’s House stood a large building which served as the Main Guardhouse, and nearby, on the site of today’s large lawn located to the left of the main fortress avenue, was the so-called “dancing square”. Here, according to a contemporary, “a big wooden horse was installed with a very sharp spine, on which as a punitive measure soldiers were made to sit for several hours,” and besides this “there was a wooden post sunk into the ground in front of which sharp spikes were installed, and above the post was a chain… When someone was being punished, his hands were locked into this chain, and the guilty was made to stand on those spikes for a time.”

The bas-relief in the tympanum portrays Sabaoth encircled by angels, and the two bas-reliefs near the volutes depict various military attributes. The large rectangular bas-relief is a complex multi-figured composition. In the centre, on a cliff, stands a fortress; above it, amidst swirling clouds, winged demons are flying. A bearded man with wings is falling out of the clouds right down onto the fortress. Below to the right and left people are standing, some of them pointing at the falling figure. Near the fortress on one side a beardless man in the dress of a Roman military leader stretches his hand out towards the structure: on the other side a woman is kneeling before the fortress.

In the beginning of the eighteenth century the citizens of St Petersburg, undoubtedly, perceived this large bas-relief as an integral component of the entire gate decoration, including likewise the image in the tympanum of the pediment and the statue of St Peter, which crowned the gate at that time. To help explain the meaning behind the entire composition it is interesting to compare it with another extremely curious monument of Russian culture of that time.

In 1716 the St Petersburg Printing House issued a huge engraving, a panorama depicting the new Russian city on the Neva. In almost the very middle of the panorama the fortress is depicted with its main decoration at that time, the St Peter Gate. This engraving was presented in 1717 to Peter I, with a special explanatory text attached at the bottom, which was later titled Descriptive Laud of the City of St Petersburg and Especially of Peter the Great, the Creator of This City. The Descriptive Laud was compiled by the clergyman monk Gabriel Buzhinsky, an eminent writer of the epoch of Peter the Great, who, in particular, translated into Russian a great number of essays by Samuel Pufendorf, a noted seventeenth-century German Enlightener. The descriptive explanatory text compiled by Buzhinsky was given such great attention in the eighteenth century that Andrei Bog-danov, author of the first Russian description of St Petersburg, considered it essential to comment at length on the Descriptive Laud and to include it as a part of his book. As the Descriptive Laud reads, the fortress was put under the protection of Sabaoth and St Peter, and was founded “on the hard rock of piety” and “named St Petersburg”. The Descriptive Laud goes on to say that St Petersburg itself is also a rock, with which St Peter will strike all who attempt to encroach on the fortress, and that the “haughty Simon”, infuriating the great protector of the fortress, St Peter, “shall fall and be broken on the rock”; it reads further that St Petersburg has yet another “great protector” – St Alexander Nevsky (the canonized Russian prince, under whose command on July 15, 1240, the Novgorodians were victorious over the Swedes on the Neva). If one recalls that the Greek word petros has cognates in the form of the masculine name Piotr (Russian), Pieter (Dutch), and Peter (German and English), as well as a second meaning as a noun signifying a “rock” or “cliff”, then it becomes obvious why Buzhinsky in his Descriptive Laud continually associates “rock” with the names “Peter” and “St Petersburg”. The idea automatically comes to mind of the close association of the image on the St Peter Gate with the basic ideas of the Descriptive Laud. Taking everything into account, one can conclude that Sabaoth is depicted in the tympanum as the protector of St Petersburg, which is portrayed in the centre of the bas-relief standing on a cliff. The bearded man with wings is undoubtedly the heathen sorcerer Simon Magus, who, according to the ancient Christian legend, at first defamed St Peter and then, with the support of demons, in order to prove his superiority, attempted to fly; however, St Peter drove the demons away with a prayer and Simon fell to the ground in disgrace. The beardless man in the garb of an ancient Roman officer is, more likely than not, Peter the Great, although it is also possible that this is St Alexander Nevsky. The kneeling woman appears from all indications to be a symbol of piety.

Thus, contrary to previous suppositions, the sculptural bas-relief composition, decorating the St Peter Gate since 1717-18, is not a symbolic portrayal of the victory of the Russians over Sweden, but rather was designed as a “laud” of the new Russian city by means of visual arts, as a symbol of its invincibility. The sculptural image above the gate of the black two-headed eagle is cast in lead and weighs more than a ton. On the eagle’s two heads are the Imperial crowns; in his talons a sceptre and orb; on his chest the red shield with a coat-of-arms depicting a rider on a white horse struggling with a winged dragon. This is the Russian Imperial coat-of-arms (the so-called State Eagle); the shield with the image of a rider (St George) striking a dragon is the ancient coat-of-arms of Moscow. The Russian Imperial coat-of-arms acquired its present appearance in the second half of the nineteenth century, as here the rider in the Moscow coat-of-arms is turned to the heraldic right side (for the viewer to the left side). This turn was introduced only in 1856; before that the rider always faced left. The statues which originally stood in the niches have not survived, and when the present ones were installed is also unknown. Opinions vary as to whom these statues portray. There is one supposition that the statue of the woman in military garb represents Athena Pallas or Bellona, while the statue of the woman with the mirror and snake represents – Truth, Poliade or Minerva. It is believed that the architect who designed the St Peter Gate (the present stone gate as well as the previous wooden one) was Trezzini, that the large rectangular bas-relief was executed by the sculptor Hans Konrad Ossner, and that the small bas-reliefs on the volutes were done by the sculptor Nicolas Pineau. The rectangular bas-relief was created for the original wooden gate and was reinstalled in the new stone gate as well.

The shape of the attic of the St Peter Gate is reminiscent of the attic of the eastern facade of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral. A very interesting episode in the history of Soviet science and technology has close connection with the St John Ravelin and half-counterguard of the Menshikov Bastion. In 1932-33 this was the site of experimentation and workshops for the first Soviet laboratory to create and develop rocket engines – the Gas-Dynamic Laboratory of the Military-Scientific Research Committee. This laboratory became the basis for the Experimental Design Bureau, where high-powered rocket engines were created which launched artificial satellites into orbit around the Earth, Moon and Sun, as well as launching the remote-controlled spaceships “Vostok”, “Voskhod” and “Soyuz”, and delivering automated stations to the Moon, Venus and Mars. Today the half-counterguard of the Menshikov Bastion houses the Museum of the Gas-Dynamic Laboratory.

From the St John Bridge the brick half-counterguard of the Menshikov Bastion is readily visible. The socle, cornice and corners of this fortification are reveted with limestone tiles. This is the way the exterior of the fortress walls looked after renovation in 1827-40.

A little farther along the right bank of the Kronwerk Strait is the huge brick building of the Defence Arsenal, the construction of which was completed in 1860. The St John Bridge leads to the rather low St John Gate pierced in the left face of the St John Ravelin. The facade of the gate, decorated with rusticated masonry, is crowned with a triangular pediment, the tympanum of which encloses a cartouche and the image of the Russian Imperial crown surrounded by various military attributes and insignia – ban-ners, halberds and drums. The date on the gate – the year 1740 – marks the completion of all stone defence structures of Fortress Island. The St John Gate is the place where one first sees a motif characteristic of and repeated in various other structures throughout the fortress, namely two pairs of pilasters. It is comparable with another motif which is also repeated in several places in the fortress, i.e., two pairs of columns. The architectural forms of the St John Gate are simple and resemble Renaissance architecture.

Less than two years after the Revolution organs of Soviet power took on the preservation of these buildings. On May 27, 1919, when the spring campaign was launched against Petrograd by the White Army, the buildings were examined and sealed by a special state commission. Its members insisted that a protective zone be created around the entire fortress. Emphasizing in their report that the Peter and Paul Fortress represents “a monument of great historical and cultural value”, they further stated: “The silhouette of the cathedral together with the fortress constitutes the main and most characteristic landmark of the Petrograd skyline, without which the city would not be quite the same. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that in the future this silhouette be preserved, and in so doing attention should be given to all those structures erected or reconstructed inside the fortress as well as those nearby, for any change will disrupt that wonderful harmony which is created by the horizontal lines of the fortress and the sharp vertical lines of the cathedral’s spire.” The members of the commission insisted on immediately placing the cathedral and Boathouse under special legal protective status. On September 24, 1919, because of the autumn campaign launched on Petrograd by the White Army, military authorities were required to take the entire Peter and Paul Fortress under their control, making it the centre of the city’s internal defence. Nevertheless, city officials continued to emphasize the necessity of the preservation of the historical structures on Fortress Island. In spite of the extremely short supply of firewood in Petrograd (practically the only available source of heat in the city) during the Civil War, provisions were made for the regular heating of the cathedral so that this outstanding architectural monument would be safe from dampness.

The Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral attracted popular interest from the very start of Soviet power. As early as 1918 the question of organizing tours of Fortress Island was being discussed. However, it was impossible to grant broad access to visitors to view its historical and cultural sights until December 3, 1920, the end of the Civil War and the date when the state of siege was officially lifted in Petrograd. Thereafter, in July 1920, the first excursion group made an official tour of the fortress, a group consisting of delegates of the Second Congress of the Third International. Tours of the fortress commenced on a regular basis beginning in the summer of 1922. The end of the war allowed more effective measures to be taken for the preservation of the whole fortress as a complex of architectural and historical monuments. The Tru-betskoi Bastion and the prison facilities within it, closely tied to the history of the Russian revolutionary movement, became one of the main attractions of the fortress. In 1923, by order of the highest military authorities, the bastion and prison were made part of the Museum of the Revolution. In the same year allocations were made for the first restoration work to be carried out during Soviet times on the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral, and a custodian-architect was assigned to maintain it.

In 1924 specialists began work on restoration of the cathedral interior, keeping in mind that the cathedral is not only an architectural landmark, but a historical monument as well. However, restoration of just the cathedral and prison facilities in the Trubetskoi Bastion was not enough to make the entire fortress accessible to the inhabitants and visitors of Leningrad. Therefore, in the period from 1925 to 1927 large-scale improvements were made on Fortress Island: roads and lawns were layed out; new bushes and trees were planted, and its banks were reinforced. The decision was made at this time to restore the grate of the batardeau on the eastern end of the island, which had been removed in 1892. True, the major part of the fortress still remained under the command of the military – in the first decades following the Revolution Leningrad was essentially a border city. However, both military and municipal authorities understood that in the future the entire fortress should become an object of special care and use, namely as a museum-citadel. The only remaining building of a non-museum nature that was to remain was the Mint Works (it had been partially dismantled in 1918, but already in 1921 had resumed production). During the 1920s and 1930s much was done for the preservation of the Peter and Paul Fortress by the volunteer scientific society “Old Petersburg – New Leningrad”, among whose main tasks it was to facilitate the best use of historical and architectural monuments of St Petersburg under the new conditions of the socialist reconstruction of Leningrad. During the siege of Leningrad by Nazi forces, lasting from September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944, everything possible was done in order to save the historical and architectural monuments of the fortress, which were once again under command of Soviet military authorities. The gilt spire of the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral was camouflaged. In December 1942 soldiers of the local air defence force completed work to protect the cathedral from the destructive effects of dampness, repairing the roof which had been damaged by shell fragments and sealing the windows, in which almost no glass remained.

But during the second (February) and third (October) revolutions, the role of the fortress was completely different.

On February 27, 1917, the soldiers of the Fourth Company of the Pavlovsky Regiment who came out on the side of the rebelling workers were imprisoned. But already in the morning of February 28 the fortress and its armed bastions surrendered without a single shot to the Military Commission of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. The bloodless seizure of the fortress predetermined the surrender to the rebels on the same day of the Admiralty Building – the last stronghold of the old regime in Petrograd. The fortress began to fill with arrested Tsarist ministers and other high officials. Their illegal activities while in office were investigated by a Special Investigating Commission which was convened within the prison in the Trubetskoi Bastion. The well-known Russian poet, playwright and critic, Alexander Blok, was a member of this commission.

On October 20, 1917, in the Smolny Institute Building (the building had since August housed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies), a special body of the Petrograd Soviet, the Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee, began its activities. The committee was created for the preparation and execution of an armed uprising against the Provisional Government for the purpose of establishing Soviet power in the recently (September 1) declared Russian Republic. On October 23, the committee took control over the Peter and Paul Fortress together with its arsenal, where over 100,000 rifles were stored. On October 24, it was decided to make the fortress the field headquarters of the revolution.

According to the plans of the Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee, the uprising was to be culminated by a storm of the Winter Palace, the seat of the Provisional Government. It was decided that the signal to start the storm would be a shot from the Catherine (Naryshkin) Bastion.

At approximately seven o’clock in the evening of October 25 the field headquarters of the revolution sent an ultimatum to the Headquarters of the Petrograd Military District located next to the Winter Palace which read: “The guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the ships Aurora, Amur and others are aimed at the Winter Palace and the building of. the Main Headquarters. In the name of the Military-Revolutionary Committee we demand the capitulation of the members of the Provisional Government and of the military forces subordinate to it.” After the refusal of the Provisional Government to accept this ultimatum, at nine o’clock in the evening the signal was given from the fortress and, after the firing of a blank shot from the bow guns of the cruiser Aurora, the storming of the Winter Palace commenced. Around 2 a.m. in the morning of October 26, the ministers arrested in the palace were brought to the fortress. Meanwhile, at the Smolny, delegates of the Second All-Russian Congress of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies ratified the appeal which read: “On the basis of the will of the vast majority of workers, soldiers and peasants, on the basis of the victorious uprising of workers and military forces of the garrison in Petrograd, the Congress now takes power into its hands.”