PETER AND PAUL FORTRESS

The first construction of the new Russian capital, the Peter and Paul Fortress,  occupies the central position in the architectural ensemble of the city centre.

In the middle of the fortress stands the impressive Peter and Paul Cathedral, the burial place of all the Russian Emperors and Empresses from Peter the Great to Alexander III. The Cathedral was the first church in the city to be built of stone (between 1712-33) and its design is curiously unusual for a Russian Orthodox church. (Come over to St Petersburg and you can find out why!). The Peter and Paul Cathedral, with its high bell tower, is one of the main landmarks of Saint Petersburg. The silhouette of the Peter and Paul fortress became the main symbol of the city on the Neva River. 

The fortress was originally named "Sankt Pieter Burkh", the town of St. Peter, but was usually referred to as "Peter and Paul's Fortress", after the cathedral. This has been the official name since 1917. During the October uprising of 1917 it housed the field headquarters of the Petrograd Military and Revolutionary Committee, which was the command post for the storming of the Winter Palace. In 1924 a museum was opened here and in 1956 the main structures of the fortress were turned over to the Museum of the History of Leningrad. In 1993 the Peter and Paul Fortress was given the official status of a historical and cultural reserve.

The six bastions of the fortress are named in honour of Peter I and his closest associates, who supervised the construction work: Gosudarev (the Tsar's), Menshikov, Golovkin, Zotov, Trubetskoi and Naryshkin. The focal point of the ensemble is St. Peter and Paul's Cathedral (1712-33, architect Trezzini). Its bell-tower was used as the city's watch-tower and became a symbol of the consolidation of the new capital. Crowned with a gilded spire, the bell-tower remains the tallest building in the city (122.5 m). The centre piece of the interior of the church is the gilded iconostasis (screen decorated with icons that divides the sanctuary from the nave of an Eastern Orthodox church) (1722-29), which was made in Baroque style by Moscow carvers from a design by Trezzini and Ivan Zarudny. From the very beginning the cathedral served as the sepulchre of the Romanov Dynasty.

All of Russia's emperors, from Peter I to Nicholas II, and their families (except for Peter II and Ioann VI) are buried here. East of the cathedral is the Grand Dukes' Burial Vault (1896-1908, architects David Grimm, Anthony Tomishko, Leonty Benois), where thirteen members of the imperial family were buried before the 1917 revolution. In 1992 Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov, who died in exile, was laid to rest here, and in 1995 the remains of his parents, Kirill Vladimirovich and Victoria Fedorovna, were brought from Coburg (Germany) and interred in the vault.  By the east wall of the cathedral is the Commandant's cemetery where 19 of the 32 fortress commandants are buried. In 1991, a monument to Peter the Great was erected at the central alley, near the cathedral. This was a gift to the city from the famous Russian artist, Mikhail Shemiakin.

The Museum of the History of St.Petersburg has several exhibitions in the fortress. The oldest of these is located in the former prison of the Trubetskoi bastion, built between 1870 and 1872. From the time of Peter the Great, criminals accused of treason against the State were kept in the casemates of the fortress and later in the dungeons of the Secret House in the Alekseevsky ravelin. Among the prisoners of the Russian Bastille were Peter's own son, Tsarevich Alexei; Artemy Volynsky, the cabinet-minister of Empress Anna loannovna; the leader of the Polish revolt, Taddeusz Kosciuszko; members of the Russian liberation movement, including Alexander Radishchev, the Decembrists, the Petrashevtsy, the great writer Fedor Dostoyevsky, the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, the revolutionary democrat Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the geographer and nihilist Peter Kropotkin, the writer Maxim Gorky, members of the People's Will organization, socialist-revolutionaries and Bolsheviks... After the February Revolution of 1917 the ministers of the overthrown Tsarist government were incarcerated in the Trubetskoi bastion and on the night of 26 October 1917 members of the Provisional Government were brought to its prison. During the Civil War, victims of the "red terror" and participants in the Kronstadt revolt of 1921 were held here. The exhibition, which was first opened in the former prison in 1924, gives an idea of its construction and the conditions in which several generations of prisoners were kept.

In 1975, a permanent exhibition about the history of St. Petersburg was opened in the building of the former Commandant's House. It provides insights into the history of the Neva lands from early times to the founding of St.Petersburg in 1703, and traces the development of the city until the mid-19th century. The Engineers' House is now used for various displays of material from the museum's rich reserves.

A museum devoted to Russian rocketry and the history of space travel is also to be found within the Peter and Paul Fortress. It is situated in the halls that served as the testing grounds of the first Soviet rocket engine laboratory in the 1930s. The Gas Dynamics laboratory was headed by Victor Glushko, the man who initiated rocket engine production in Russia. The rooms in which the designers worked have been restored to their original form. The exhibition provides information about the founders of Soviet space research - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Nikolai Zhukovsky and Sergei Korolev, to name but three. Here you can see the starting control apparatus of the spaceship Soyuz-16, models of various types of rocket engines and spacecraft equipment, authentic space suits worn by cosmonauts and photographs of the Moon, Venus, Mars and Saturn taken by Soviet astronauts. Documents and photographic material on the testing of rocket engines and the launch of the first Soviet missiles are also on display.

On top of the cathedrals’ gilded spire stands a magnificent golden angel holding a cross. This weathervane is one of the most prominent symbols of St Petersburg, and at 404 feet tall, the cathedral is the highest building in the city.

Other buildings in the fortress include the City History Museum and the Mint, one of only two places in Russia where coins and medals are minted.

Every day at noon a shot is fired from the cannon on the Naryshkin bastion and every year, on 27 May, the Peter and Paul Fortress is the site of celebrations marking the Day of the City.

Location: Zayachii Ostrov (Island).
All buildings in the fortress complex are closed on Tuesdays.
An admission fee is charged for the cathedral and the museum

The Museum of the History of St. Petersburg
7 Peter and Paul Fortress 197046 St. Petersburg
Open: 10am - 6pm
Closed: Wednesdays Tel. 238-4540, 238-4511
Nearest metro station: Gorkovskaya