Peter and Paul Fortress is the heart of St. Petersburg. It is located on Zaichik (Hare’s) island where St Petersburg was founded on May the 27th, 1703.
It is here where Peter the Great founded a fortification structure in order to protect the lands won back from Sweden. The fortress was to become the best fortification structure of the time, and now it is considered to be one of the most important fortresses of the 18th century not only in Russia, but in Europe as well.
On the territory of the fortress there are many structures worth seeing such as the Boat house where the grandfather of the Russian fleet is exhibited (it’s the very first boat which Peter the Great maintained himself), the Mint, the Commandant house, the Commandant pier from which you can enjoy a gorgeous view of the Neva River, the bright buildings on the embankment and the gilded domes of the churches in a distance.
However the whole landscape of the fortress in dominated by the renowned St Peter and Paul Cathedral, the second tallest building inside the fortress at 122.5 meters. The gilded spire of the cathedral has a weather-vane shaped like an angel with a cross that can be seen from almost every point of the embankment.
The cathedral is the resting place of almost all the Russian Tsars and Tsarinas from Peter the Great up to the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family (including Anastasia, famous because of the Disney story according to which she had escaped death and lived abroad under another name).
During a tour of the cathedral you will enjoy the unusual interior of one of the oldest churches in St Petersburg with a splendid gilded iconostasis which reveals the skill of Russian craftsmen (the iconostasis was crafted in Russia during the beginning of the 18th century).
Peter and Paul Fortress is one of the most outstanding historical and architectural landmarks in St Petersburg, a fortification structure of the early 18th century and the first building of the new capital of Russia. The beginning of the construction works (May 27th, 1703) is considered to be the birthday of St Petersburg.
For the citizens of St Petersburg, Peter and Paul Fortress is both like the Westminster Abbey because it is where all the Russian emperors are buried, starting from Peter the Great and finishing with Nicholas II and the Tower of London at the same time, for it was in the fortress where the scariest political prison of the Russian Empire was located.
The first prisoners of the fortress were confined to casemates in the walls of the fortress. Among them was Alexey, the son of Peter the Great, the heir to the Russian throne because he participated in a plot against Peter. The Tsar questioned his son himself and Alexey was confined to the dungeons where he soon died under mysterious circumstances. At the time of Catherine the Great, in 1790, a well-known Russian writer Radishchev was confined to one of the dungeons of the fortress for his book “Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow” for in that book he criticized autocracy and serfdom. Among other famous prisoners of the fortress was Fyodor Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky and Alexander Ulyanov (a brother of Vladimir Lenin).
Today the prison of Trubetskoi bastion is open to public as a museum. The jail was constructed in 1870-72 inside the walls of the bastion. The prison was used only for preliminary detention. The last prisoners of the fortress were the sailors who participated in the Kronstadt rebellion in 1921. Starting from 1924 the prison was already opened to public as a museum.
During a tour of the prison you can see the real cells where the prisoners lived. You will learn about the lifestyle of prisoners and how they managed to even communicate with each other. Of course that was not allowed and people could be sent to a punishment cell, which is also a part of our tour. You can even come inside, without any light it is a rather scary experience!
So if you want to discover the darker side of the Northern capital of Russia, this tour is just what you need! Please contact us for further information!
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