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 stomff andrei aurel
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| General Description | The Emperor peter I ordered to erect St. Peter and Paul’s fortress. It should protect Petersburg from the assault of foreign invaders. The fortress was under construction from 1703 till 1740-s. Peter I was supposed to be the author of the planning of the fortress. It numbered 6 bastions, joined with curtains, 2 ravelins and crownwork. Each bastion was titled in the honour of the supervisors of the building: Menshikov, Monarchic, Naryskin. The walls of the fortress had the thickness of 20 meters, the height – 12 meters. The ensemble of the fortress consisted of St. Peter and Paul’s Cathedral that was the burial vault of the Emperors, the Boat House where the first boat of Peter I was kept, the grand-ducal burial vault, the Mint, the Engineering and the Commandant’s Houses. It is interesting that the fortress has been never used according to its intended purpose. The fortress immediately found itself in the center of the building Petersburg. Then it was used as a political jail. A first prisoner was the prince Aleksey. The writer A.Radischev, the Decembrists, the writer N.Chernyshevsky and other famous personalities were imprisoned in the fortress. In 1870-s the prison was carried to Trubetskoy bastion of the fortress where were built 69 solitary cells. In 1924 Peter and Paul’s fortress was transformed into museum. In 1991 the monument of Peter I, created by M.Shemyakin, was placed in the court of the fortress. Every day at noon a blank shot is done from the walls of Naryshkin bastion. Nowadays Peter and Paul’s fortress is one of the main symbols of Petersburg. |
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