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.”

In 1718 the fortress was the centre for the investigation of the adherents of Peter’s son, Prince Alexei, who had long been in conflict with his father. Deprived by Peter of all rights to the Russian throne, in the summer of the same year Alexei was thrown into Petersburg to Moscow. He was sentenced to ten years of exile in Siberia. The Empress Catherine II led the investigation personally in the matter of the author and publisher of A Journey, even though she, in the beginning of her reign, had demonstrated the intent of acting on humane principles in regard to her fellow countrymen when she had recommended sending a group of students abroad, among them Alexander Radishchev, to study “Natural and Social Law”. On December 14, 1825, the first anti-governmental army uprising in Russian history took place in St Petersburg. Its leaders were intent on abolishing the Tsar’s autocracy. From this day on the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia began, a movement which reached its culmination ith the victory of the October Socialist Revolution in 1917. And from this day on, the St Petersburg Fortress became the place where the most determined and most consistent opponents of the Tsarist regime were imprisoned. Besides the casemates in the fortress walls, another two special prison buildings were used for this purpose built in the Alexei Ravelin and in the Trubetskoi Bastion.

Until well into the year 1826 the fortress was the place of mass detainment of participants of the brutally crushed uprising of December 14. Five of the leaders were hung (on the kron-werk rampart). In 1849 the fortress became a prison for participants of the regular meetings (“Fridays”) which had taken place starting in 1845 at the home of the translator of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mikhail Butashevich-Petrashevsky (they are also known as the Petrashevsky Circle). The members of the circle were arrested for their criticism at these meetings of the present Russian political regime. Beginning in the 1860s members of different secret revolutionary organizations were held in the fortress — “Earth and Will” (in 1863), “The Organization” and “Hell” (in 1866), and “The People’s Will” (in 1881). “The People’s Will”, formed in 1879, was the main Russian revolutionary organization created by the raznochintsy, intellectuals not belonging to the gentry. The group’s main task was the political battle against autocracy; its main ideas were the calling of a constituent assembly, instituting of general voting rights, providing in Russia for the freedoms of speech, conscience, press and assembly. However, to achieve its goals “The People’s Will” chose the erroneous methods of terror. The culmination of the terrorist activities of the group was the as-sasination in St Petersburg of the Emperor Alexander II on March 1, 1881, after which began the routing of the organization by the government. In 1887 members of the “Terrorist faction of ‘The People’s Will’ party” were arrested in preparation to assassinate the Emperor Alexander III and brought to the fortress. Following their trial, five of the members, including the creator of the faction’s platform, Alexander Ulyanov, the older brother of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), were executed in Schliisselburg. Lenin thus evaluated the activities of the group: “They doubtlessly contributed — directly or indirectly — to the subsequent revolutionary education of the Russian peole. But they did not, and could not, achieve their immediate aim of generating a people’s revolution.”

In 1896—97 there were more arrests: members of the group organized in 1895 in St Petersburg by Lenin known as the Union of the Struggle for the Freeing of the Working Class, the first proletarian Marxist revolutionary organization in Russia and direct forerunner of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDWP). And from 1898 to 1904 major activists of the RSDWP were confined in the fortress, along with those united around the first Russian Marxist newspaper hkra (Spark) founded by Lenin, which was printed illegally in Munich, London and Geneva, and was illegally distributed in Russia. After the event which became the direct impetus for the First Russian Revolution, i.e., the shooting of a peaceful workers’ demonstration in front of the Winter Palace (the Tsar’s main residence) on January 9, 1905, the fortress prison was overrun with protesters of this bloody act of the Tsar. “Years passed one after the other,” wrote P. Polivanov, one of the fortress prisoners, a member of “The People’s Will” group, “whole generations have changed, the thoughts and feelings which influenced society have changed, the victims have changed, the executioners have changed; but the Peter and Paul Fortress remains unchanged, ever gloomy, ever ominous, ever willing to take into its casemates victims of tyranny and ignorance. What a terrible picture it would be if it were possible to collect into one all of the horrors which were committed in this Russian Bastille since the first days of its existence!.. So many grand plans, so many broken hopes, so many bright ideas and feelings have been buried within the walls of the various bastions, curtain walls, and ravelins of this fortress.” Indeed, among the prisoners in the fortress not a few ended their days here; among them were those who lost their minds; there were also those whom fear drove to betrayal and desertion. But the majority of the political prisoners stubbornly withstood all of the horrors of solitary confinement, all of the torments by their investigators and rison guards, and when set free, continued their struggle against the monarchy.

On November 8, 1889, in the Defense Arsenal located in the kronwerk, the 500-year anniversary of Russian artillery was celebrated. Of no less interest were several “non-military” observances which took place in the fortress. Thus, each spring, beginning in the second half of the eighteenth century, the thawing of the Neva and opening of the navigation season were celebrated in special way. The main figure in this celebration was the Director of the City Shipyard, built in 1781 on the right bank of the river just below the top of the delta for the construction and repair of merchant vessels. After three cannon shots from the St Petersburg Fortress the Director of the Shipyard sailed out to the fortress at the head of a whole flotilla of sailboats, saluted the fortress with seven cannon shots, and after a reply salute, turned and headed for the opposite bank to the Winter Palace and saluted the main residence of the Emperor. Following 1831 the ceremonial crossing of the Neva to salute the Winter Palace was hea ed by the Commandant of the fortress. However, the “non-military” role of the fortress was not limited to such festivities. From 1711 to 1714 the fortress housed the Senate, at that time the highest collegiate directive organ in the country, established “in place of His Majesty, the Tsar’s own person”. In 1719 it was decided to transfer from Moscow to St Petersburg the production of money. Thus, the Mint Works was opened in the St Petersburg Fortress in 1724. Up until the October Revolution of 1917 it remained the main centre for minting Russian coins, closing its doors only for the temporary periods of 1728—38 (in connection with the move of the Imperial court to Moscow) and 1799— 1805 (in connection with the construction of a new building for the mint and its re-equipment). In 1876 the St Petersburg Mint Works became the sole mint in Russia. The Mint Works became the site in 1829 of the “collection of samples of foreign weights and measures”. This greatly aided the work which was carried out in the 1830 so standardize weights and measures in Russia. Under different titles from 1796 to 1860 the fortress housed the main organization charged with holding government funds in pre-revo-lutionary Russia, the Treasury Department. As in many Western European cities at the beginning of the eighteenth century, windmills stood on the fortress bastions. At the end of the 1710s the fortress casemates were rented out to St Petersburg merchants as warehouse space. At this time the main apothecary was also located in the fortress. Even in the first years of the fortress construction and repair of various vessels took place on the site of the future kronwerk. In 1805 the kronwerk was almost completely taken over by the City Shipyard. In 1808 a shipbuilding school was established at the kronwerk shipyard.

In 1838—40 the fortress housed one of the first electro-technical workshops in the world. From 1731 to 1858 the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral was officially the main city cathedral, and thus one of two main centres of religious life in St Petersburg (the second centre being the St Alexander Nevsky Monastery located upstream on the Neva). When in 1858 St Isaac’s Cathedral officially replaced the Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral as the main centre for worship, the latter became the cathedral of the Tsar’s family and the court. Up until the beginning of the eighteenth century the burial vault of the Romanov dynasty (ruling from 1613) remained the Archangel Michael Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, where in even earlier times all the Grand Princes of Moscow and Vladimir, beginning with Ioann I Danilovich (the Kalita) and all the tsars descending from the line of Rurik were buried. In 1708 the wooden Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral was made the second burial vault of the Romanov family. And in 1725 it was made the main buial vault of the Romanovs’ when, after Peter I’s death, the coffin with his body was placed on a special base in the as yet unfinished church. (The coffin was interred in the cathedral in 1731). In the beginning of the twentieth century members of the Romanov family were likewise buried in the Grand Ducal Burial Vault built specially for this purpose in the fortress next to the cathedral. Beginning in 1873 cannon shots were fired daily from the fortress informing St Petersburg citizens of the approach of midday (12:00 noon). Shots were also fired from the fortress to warn of flood danger.

Nevertheless, the condition of the kronwerk fortifications remained unsatisfactory throughout the 1830s. In 1849 Nicholas I approved a plan drawn up at his direction which provided the construction of a three-storey stone defence arsenal within the kronwerk, and the work was commenced in the next year. The battle might of this arsenal surpassed all of the fortress bastions, and it took on the defence functions of the Empress Anna Bastion. Subsequently, in 1852, the Emperor confirmed a plan for rebuilding and reinforcing the old fortifications of the kronwerk. In the autumn of 1853 war between Russia and Turkey broke out, and England and France soon joined in against Russia (this war, which ended in 1856, was called the Crimean War, since the main military theatre was the Crimea Peninsula). And thus once again the St Petersburg Fortress went on battle alert, but didn’t have the opportunity to fire at its opponents since the approach to the Neva delta by English and French vessels entering the
Gulf of Finland was deterred by Russian mines. In 1855 Nicholas I died.

His successor, Alexander II, was much less keen on the fortress as a military object, and in 1856 it was decided not to carry out most of the work that had been provided for under the plan signed in 1852. Some of the stone from the old dilapidated kronwerk fortifications was hauled away and within the period of 1874—77, in the interest of freeing space for artillery warehouses, the eighteenth-century fortifications were almost completely destroyed. The only remaining trace is a significant depression and raised area corresponding to the rampart which had once stood there. With regard to the glacis which surrounded the kronwerk on the east, north and west, it is worth mentioning that the Ministry of Finance, which dealt with this part of St Petersburg Island during the reign of Nicholas I, desiring to somehow improve its appearance, began in 1842 to lay out a park on the glacis, naming it the Alexander Park in honour of Nicholas I’s brother, Alexander I.

In 1865 a zoological park opened in the western part of the former glacis (now the Leningrad Zoo). In 1900 in the Alexander Park the Folk House was opened (subsequently this building was added onto many times, recon-structed, and changed owners). In 1906 the Orthopedic Institute (today the Vreden Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics) was opened in the park and in 1911 a monument dedicated to the sailors of the destroyer Steregushchy, which was sunk during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904—5, was installed. Back on Fortress Island in the mid-nineteenth century the gates in the St Alexei Ravelin were closed up, and in 1874 the St Nicholas Gate was widened, and both facades were redone. During the period beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and including the beginning of the twentieth century, almost all (he curtain walls were rebuilt from two-storey into one-storey structures. In 1880—82 the canal traversing the island was filled in with building refuse. In 1889—92 the moat in front of the St Peter Curtain Wall was filled in, and in 1893 the same was done with the moat in front of the Vasilyevsky Island Curtain Wall.

In 1892 work commenced on the construction of a permanent bridge (the Trinity, today Kirov Bridge) extending from the left bank of the Neva to St Petersburg Island. The floating bridge which had earlier joined the two river banks at this point was temporarily moved downstream during the construction period and installed so that it would lead to the fortress itself. In order to provide a thoroughfare through the fortress the grates were removed from the batardeaus near the Peter I and Peter II Bastions, a roadbed was laid over the filled-in moat in front of the St Peter Curtain Wall, and across the Kronwerk Strait another temporary wooden bridge was built.

After the beginning of World War I in 1914, and in connection with the official renaming of St Petersburg to Petrograd, the fortress as well came to be called the Petrograd Fortress. As the battle-field was distant from the northern Russian capital, the role that the fortress played was limited to receiving a few groups of war prisoners.

So the military history of the St Petersburg Fortress in pre-revolutionary Russia was quite unusual. The fortress on more than one occasion prepared for battle, it was rebuilt, armed, reinforced, but the enemy never once got close enough to be within its firing range. Throughout its pre-revolutionary history the St Petersburg Fortress never was exclusively a military object.

In connection with the construction of the kronwerk, the Neva channel, which divided “het Mooiste Lust Eiland” from St Petersburg Island, received the name of Kronwerk Strait. In 1706, in efforts to further reinforce the citadel, work was begun on its complete reconstruction in stone starting with its northern side, the approaches to which were the most vulnerable. The reconstruction was directed by the architect Domenico Trezzini, a Swiss-Italian who started to work in St Petersburg in 1703 along with many other foreign architects and engineers. For the new city, which was destined to become the embodiment of the new Russia, Trezzini drew up plans for numerous palaces, churches, buildings for various organizations and private homes, and nearly all of these projects were actually realized.

On May 3, 1706, work commenced on the stone Menshikov Bastion. But after a mere two and a half months, work was unexpectedly halted: on July 18 fire broke out in the fortress.

Miraculously, the fortress escaped irreparable damage; the fire was brought under control before reaching the main powder supply, which was held in wooden casemates within
its earthen walls. Otherwise, the entire fortress would have gone up in smoke. By the end of that building season, workers had succeeded in replacing only the left flank and orillon in stone.
In the following year, 1707, the left flank and the orillon of the Golovkin Bastion, as well as the right flank along with the orillon of the Zotov Bastion were reconstructed in stone. In the same year Peter the Great ordered the main gate of the fortress, which was located in the curtain wall joining the Tsar and Menshikov Bastions, be formally decorated. In 1708 work was undertaken to rebuild the Trubetskoi Bastion in stone. However, once again, at the end of August, all construction work was halted: the Swedish cavalry, under the command of General-Major Georg Lybecker, was advancing on St Petersburg.

Having successfully crossed the Neva approximately twenty miles above its delta, Lybecker intended to attack the city from the south. For several weeks the fortress maintained full battle alert, all of the available supplies of grain in the vicinity having been hauled into it. To the south of the Neva additional fortifications were hastily built. But once again the Swedes’ approach was thwarted.

In June 1709 the Poltava Battle took place, and in June 1710 Russian forces successfully completed the most difficult operation of the Northern War — the siege of Vyborg. Afterwards Peter the Great announced that thanks to taking possession of Vyborg the fortress and city on the Neva delta were finally guaranteed their safety. But at that time these were nothing more than encouraging words. There remained not a few battles to be fought before attaining total security. In the next year, 1711, rebuilding of the fortress in stone was resumed with the next bastion in line, the Tsar Bastion.

In actual fact only after July 1714 when the Russian forces won their first major naval victory of the Northern War near the Hango (today Hanko) Peninsula at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland, two days after which they took the Nyslott fortress (Savonlinna), the last stronghold of the Swedes in southern Finland — only then could Peter the Great feel truly secure in his position on the banks of the Neva. (And it is no coincidence that the first triumphal arches were erected in St Petersburg only in the summer of that year.) Beginning at this time the main emphasis was switched from rebuilding the bastions and curtain walls of the fortress to finishing, according to the plans of the architect Trezzini, the new stone Cathedral of Sts Peter and Paul, the construction of which had begun in 1712. At this time Peter required above all “that an allotment be made for a clock in the bell-tower.” In 1717 work was begun on aesthetic improvements of the main gate of the fortress. The gate received the name of St Peter, after the statue of the Apostle Peter which was installed above it; and the curtain wall in which the gate was located also received the name of St Peter.

On September 4, 1721, precisely at noon, twenty-one cannon shots rang out from the
walls of the fortress; and at three p.m. in the company of two trumpeters, a kettle-drummer and six grenadiers, a guard-lieutenant drove out of the St Peter Gate holding a white banner which bore two laurel branches under a wreath. They announced to the people of St Petersburg the end of the twenty-one-year Northern War. With the signing of the Nystad Peace treaty the Neva delta and surrounding territories were formally returned to Russia.

Now there was less impetus than ever to reinforce the St Petersburg Fortress. Only as late as June 1725 work was undertaken to rebuild the sixth and final Naryshkin Bastion. At this time the bastion was renamed, becoming the St Catherine Bastion, insofar as Russia was ruled already by Peter I’s widow, the Empress Catherine I; still later the bastion was named the Empress Catherine Bastion. At the same time the Tsar Bastion also received a new name becoming the Peter I Bastion. The raising of stone walls was resumed only after Peter II replaced Catherine I on the throne in 1727. To oversee this process, the eminent statesman, military engineer Burehard Christoph von Miinnich was appointed Head Director of Fortifications. When Peter II moved to Moscow in connection with his impending coronation, Miinnich received “directorship” over St Petersburg and the entire St Petersburg Province. Under his leadership the construction of the Zotov Bastion was finished in 1728, and in 1729 the Peter II Bastion (formerly the Menshikov Bastion) was completed. In 1730 workers set out to finish the Golovkin Bastion, which had been renamed the “St Anne Bastion” (in honour of the saint after whom the new Empress Anna was named, succeeding Peter II to the throne in the same year); later the bastion was renamed the Empress Anna Bastion. During reconstruction of the fortress, the irregularly-shaped hexagon, whose corners were made up of the salient angles of the bastions, became somewhat wider at its east-west axis. In the reconstructed bastions the faces consisted of two brick walls, the space between which was filled with earth; by contrast the flanks consisted of two brick walls with casemates arranged on two floors between them.

In three of the six reconstructed curtain walls there appeared new fortress gates: The Vasilyevsky (Basil) Island Gate in the curtain wall between the Trubetskoi and Zotov Bastions (named the Vasilyevsky Island Curtain Wall), the Second Kronwerk Gate (later St Nicholas Gate) in the curtain wall between the Zotov Bastion and St Anne Bastion (named the St Nicholas Curtain Wall), and the First Kronwerk Gate (later the Kronwerk Gate) in the curtain wall between the St Anne and Peter II Bastions (named the Kronwerk Curtain Wall).
In 1731 reconstruction began of the ravelin covering the St Peter Curtain Wall, which was called the St John Ravelin (the name of the saint after whom the Empress Anna’s father had been named). The gate in the left face of this ravelin was also rebuilt and renamed the St John Gate. Next to the ravelin two stone half-counterguards were erected, which were connected to the ravelin by traverses. The transversal moat, which had been dug back in 1703, was closed off at the ends near the salient angles of the Peter I Bastion and the Peter II Bastion by two ba-tardeaus.

In 1733 construction began of the St Alexei Ravelin (the Empress Anna’s grandfather had been named after this saint). The stone ravelin, with gates in both faces, protected the Vasilyevsky Island Curtain Wall. Two stone half-counterguards were erected nearby and were linked with the ravelin by means of traverses.

Another ditch was dug across the island. It was covered at the salient angles of the Trubetskoi and Zotov Bastions by two more batardeaus. Much later, in 1800, a passage was cut in the batardeau at the salient angle of the Zotov Bastion.
The outside walls of the reconstructed fortress were whitewashed with lime mixed with dark red crushed brick.

In 1731 reconstruction began of the cavalier within the St Anne Bastion (the cavalier was encircled with ditches, which were filled in 1812), and a stone tower was built above the St Catherine Bastion with a flagstaff on top. In 1738 reconstruction began of the bridge leading from the St John Ravelin to St Petersburg Island. The stone drawbridge with wooden central parts was named the St Peter Bridge.

Even before the reconstruction of the entire fortress was complete in 1740 (except for the kronwerk), the afore-mentioned Jacques Savary des Bruslons wrote in his Dictionnaire universel de commerce that, in the opinion of many, the St Petersburg Fortress is second to none in terms of its strength including the world-famous fortress of Dunkerque in northern France.

In 1748 the opening in the curtain wall between the Peter I and St Catherine Bastions was converted to a gate (this became the Neva Gate and the Neva Curtain Wall), and the Neva facade of the fortress was whitewashed with lime. In 1751 brick ramps were built, with casemates inside, leading up to the bastions.

In 1752 Abram Gannibal, a native African sent in his youth by Peter the Great to France to study engineering, was appointed Director of the Building Section of the Engineering Department in St Petersburg. Gannibal was the matriarchal great-grandfather of the famous Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, who described the former in his short story The Moor of Peter the Great. Gannibal led work on various portions of the St Petersburg Fortress without making major structural changes. Under his direction reconstruction of the earthen kronwerk was begun to provide it a stone foundation. In 1756 the fortifications of the kronwerk were partially faced with brick, and in the period of 1760—74 they were reveted with stone slabs. As regards the fortification of the fortress proper (the structures located on Fortress Island itself), in 1756, according to Abram Gannibal’s plan, portions of the walls were partially faced with stone slabs, and in 1760 plans were drawn up for the “dressing” of the fortress walls along the Neva River in granite. In 1764, at the decree of the Empress Catherine II, work began on facing the Admiralty side of St Petersburg bordering the Neva with granite slabs, since that part of the city had become central. In order to give the Neva facade of the St Petersburg Fortress a no less splendid look, in 1779, at the personal order of the Empress, work was begun to revet it in granite as well. In 1790, with the addition of eleven small towers at the corners on the walls along the Neva, the “dressing” of the fortress facade in granite was complete. This “dressing” served almost no defence purpose whatsoever. By 1808, when the last Russian-Swedish war broke out, the St Petersburg Fortress was ready to repulse any enemy. However, the war ended rather quickly with the signing on September 5, 1809, in the. Finnish city of Fredrikshamn (today Hamina) of a Russian-Swedish peace treaty which has been observed by both sides for almost 180 years now. This treaty was of major significance for Finland: with it Finland began its transformation from a Swedish colony into an independent nation.

Fortress — a type of permanent fortified structure (built of strong materials and serving as a means of defence during battle), the most essential and fundamental part of the fortress is the main rampart (an enclosed fence containing gate openings).
Bastion fortification system, — a method of building a fortress in which the main rampart consists of so-called bastion fronts (segments comprised of curtain walls and two adjacent demi-bastions).

The present guide will provide the reader with basic information about this unique cultural and historical complex. The description will be exclusively based on sources directly illuminating its almost 300-year history.

Map of the River Neva from Lake Ladoga to the Gulf of Finland, Where the Russian Emperor Peter I Ordered the City Si Petersburg Be Built; placed in ihe upper left corner of the engraving Map of the City and Fortification of St Petersburg, New Capital and Residence of the Russian Emperors, Built by the Emperor Peter I on Several Islands in the Gulf of Finland at the South of the River Neva (map published in Amsterdam in the beginning of the 1720s). In the right-hand part of the map at the source of the Neva, the notation: No’teburg, now Schliissel-burg; in the centre, on the right bank of the Neva, before St Petersburg, not far from the beginning of the Neva delta, the notation: Fortification on the Neva now destroyed (thai is, Nyenskans); to the left, in the Gulf of Finland, between two shoals, the indication: Passage to St Petersburg, and this passage is guarded on the south by a battery and Crohn-Schlott, and on the north by Kronstadt (The Russian Museum)

In 1617 Sweden completely closed off Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea by annexing territories to the south and north of the Neva, i.e., the Izhora Land (Ingria or Ingermanland) and Karelia. In 1699 a Russian-Danish-Saxon anti-Swedish coalition was organized. In February 1700 Saxony declared war against Sweden. In March Denmark did the same, and in August Russia followed suit. Later on Poland, Prussia, Hannover, Mecklenburg and Turkey also partook in this war, which became known as the Northern War. In October 1702 Russia stormed the island at the source of the Neva, and took the Swedish fortress Noteburg, which had been founded under the name of Oreshek (the Nut) in 1323 by the people of Novgorod. In April 1703 from this fortress, now called Schlusselburg, a campaign was launched downstream along the Neva under the command of Field-marshal Boris Sheremetev, one of the closest associates of Tsar Piotr Alexeye-vich (Peter I called the Great). At this time the Tsar wrote Sheremetev the following: “Time, time, time. Don’t give the enemy a chance to anticipate us.”

Map of the earthen St Petersburg Fortress — detail of the map Petersburg Island and Currents of the Neva as far as Nyenskans. The lower edge of the detailed drawing corresponds to the northern direction of the actual locality (Library of the USSR Academy of Sciences)

Moving quickly to the west, at the end of April Russian forces sieged the fortress Nyenskans, built by the Swedes a little above the Neva delta, on a cape at the confluence of the Neva and its largest right-wing tributary, the Okhta. By May 1 Nyenskans had surrendered and was immediately renamed Schlottburg. On May 7 the Swedish squadron, standing at the Neva Inlet near the mouth of the Bolshaya (Large) Neva, was attacked by a Russian detachment equipped only with simple boats. The Swedish fleet, which formerly had maintained complete dominion over the Baltic, lost two frigates. This was the first naval victory in the history of Russia.. In order to consolidate Russia’s position on the Gulf of Finland, a military council summoned by Peter the Great made the decision not to reinforce Schlottburg, but rather to build a new fortress nearer to the sea at a point which could be defended by means of natural barriers better than at the cape formed by the Neva and Okhta. Soon thereafter a small island was selected for this purpose located on the Neva delta to the west of Schlottburg and named “het Mooiste Lust Eiland” — “the Happiest Island”, the name coming from the Dutch as Peter the Great was fond of that language. After the construction of a fortress which occupied the entire island, it remained without an official name until the end of the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was called Fortress Island, and subsequently received the name it bears today — Zayachy (Hare) Island, which is the translation of the name given the island by the Finnish-speaking portion of the local population in the seventeenth century.

The new fortress, whose construction of wood and earth was begun already in May 1703, soon became the centre of Russia’s activities on the Neva delta and, at the same time, the main stronghold of the Russian army in Ingria. The architect of the fortress is unknown. Some scholars suggest that it was designed by the French engineer Joseph Gaspard Lambert, a participant in the Neva campaign.

On June 29, 1703, a small wooden church was dedicated to the Apostles Peter and Paul in the centre of the unfinished fortress, and the fortress itself was named in the Dutch manner — St Pietersburg. Very quickly the short form of the name came into use, Pietersburg, as well as the names pronounced in the German manner, St Petersburg and Petersburg. Europeans followed attentively the swift movements of the Russian troops and, of course, well understood Peter’s intentions. The European press printed a whole line of news about the events on the Neva delta. This information was translated and circulated regularly in the first Russian newspaper Vedomosti, which began to be published on January 2, 1703, in Moscow.

On August 24 Vedomosti published a report from Riga about how Peter the Great “…has commanded that a city and fortress be built right on the sea not far from Schlottburg, so that in the future all goods destined for Riga, Narva and Schantz [Nyenskans] could find harbour there, and Persian and Chinese goods would come in there as well”. Finally, on October 4, the readers of Vedomosti were informed of the following in a report from Riga: “His Royal Highness, upon taking Schlottburg, ordered that a new and excellent fortress be built on an island one mile from the former in the direction of the Eastern [Baltic] Sea. The fortress is to consist of six bastions constructed by 20,000 labourers and to be named in honour of the ruler himself — Petersburg.” It is interesting to note that the way the city was named is explained in precisely the same way in both the famous Dictionnaire universel de commerce (1723) by the French lawyer and economist Jacques Savary (called Savary des Bruslons) and in the Concise Synoptic Description of St Petersburg by Andrei Bogdanov, the first Russian description of the newly built city.

Throughout almost the entire summer of 1703 the weather on the Neva delta was very cold and windy and the swampy islands on the river seemed even more damp than usual. Scurvy raged in the Russian camp. The Swedish forces held the mouth of the Neva within the sights of their guns until October. Nevertheless, work on “het Mooiste Lust Eiland” did not stop for a single day. As early as September it was possible to transfer the general headquarters and main Russian military camp from Schlottburg and establish it within the protective walls of the new fortress located on the big island nearby. As soon as the Swedish war ships left for their winter harbour at Vyborg, Peter the Great embarked for the long island of Kotlin located in the Gulf of Finland at the entrance to the Neva Inlet. Near its eastern end (where subsequently the fortress city of Kronstadt was built) he chose the site for construction of a fort which was to become the “naval lock” of the Neva mouth (in the early eighteenth century the latter was considered to be located right near Kotlin).

Erected in less than one year, the earthen St Petersburg Fortress took the shape of a multi-angled rampart, closed on all sides, with defensive bastions, a design which incorporated elements of all the then major Western European fortification systems: French, Dutch and German. And this is not surprising since in the beginning of the eighteenth century Russian engineers were familiar with the original works of the most prominent European military engineers, the Frenchman Sebastien Leprestre de Vauban, the Dutchman Menno van Coehoorn, and the German Georg von Rimpler. In 1709 and 1710 the major essays of Coehoorn appeared in Russia in translation under the title New Fortified Structures Built on Wet or Low Lands … the Manner in Which It Is Proper to Build a Fortress Today on the Sea or on Rivers. Somewhat later there appeared the Russian translations of the essays of Rimpler and Vauban.

The St Petersburg Fortress consisted of six bastions and six curtain walls. Its overall plan — an irregular hexagon with bastion points at each exterior corner — followed the approximate contour of the island from east to west. Three of the six bastions stood on its southern bank, lapped by the waves of the Neva, the other three, on its northern shore, were protected by a small fork of the Neva.
Peter the Great personally observed the erection of one of the three southern bastions, the one which is situated higher than the other two on the Neva, and which was named the Tsar Bastion. The Tsar delegated the task of observing the erection of the remaining five bastions to five of his closest associates, and the bastions were named after each one correspondingly: the central southern was called the Naryshkin Bastion; the lower southern, the Trubetskoi Bastion; the lower northern, the Zotov Bastion; the central northern, the Golovkin Bastion; and the upper northern, the Menshikov Bastion. Along the length of the island a narrow canal was dug to supply the garrison with water in case of siege. In the curtain wall connecting the Tsar and Menshikov Bastions, the main gate was built, the approach to which was protected by a transversal moat and a ravelin. A pontoon bridge was installed between the small gate in the left face of the ravelin and the large island across the fork of the Neva and named the Krasny (Red or Beautiful) Bridge. The fork itself served as the main docks for military vessels for more than ten years. The cavalier was built in the Golovkin Bastion. Inside the fortress several other buildings for military use were erected as well, and in addition to these a small wooden Lutheran Church of St Anne, which stood on the site until 1710. On May 7, 1704, exactly one year after the naval victory near the mouth of the Large Neva, Peter the Great again arrived at Kotlin Island, and with a three-day ceremony marked the completion of construction of the fort Crohn-Schlott, whose guns reigned over the fairway near the southern shore of the island. One of Peter’s close associates, Alexander Kikin wrote him a humorous account of the commander of the Swedish fleet who “acted very wisely in deciding to leave this place for good last year.” At last an access had been opened for Russia onto the vast expanses of the sea, although there remained more than seventeen exhausting years of battle before ultimately securing it by means of a peace treaty with Sweden.

Crohn-Schlott became a reliable guard for the sea approaches to the Neva delta. And the delta itself was protected by the earthen St Petersburg Fortress. On May 14, 1704, the first gun salute from the walls of the new fortress took place in honour of the Russian victory on Lake Peipus, and served as well to mark the end of its construction. Under the protection of St Petersburg, on the site to which the Russian military camp had been transferred from Schlottburg in the autumn of 1703, a new Russian city began to grow. It took on the names St Pietersburg (Pietersburg) and St Petersburg (Petersburg), but early on the city received the popular nickname “Piter”. Accordingly, the big island, on which the main part of the new city was originally situated, came to be called St Petersburg (Petersburg) Island. Today the island is called Petrogradsky from the name “Petro-grad” which the city officially received in 1914, after the start of World War I. Since 1710 the fortress itself was officially called the St Petersburg (Petersburg) Fortress. With time it also gained unofficial names such as the “Peter and Paul Fortress” after the cathedral located in its centre.