The capture of the Swedish Fortress by the Russians. Impregnable fortresses that were taken by Russian troops

Swedish fortresses around St. Petersburg.
M.I. Milchik, from the collection "Swedes on the banks of the Neva" Swedish Institute, Stockholm, 1998, pp. 26-33.

The Karelian Isthmus, Northern Ladoga region, the lands of Izhora and Vodi on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea - this is the territory whose life, since the 18th century, has become increasingly determined by its proximity to St. Petersburg. Before its founding, the main thing here was the centuries-old rivalry between Sweden and Novgorod (and then the Russian state) for dominance. Nowhere was the history of the two countries so closely intertwined as on the eastern shores of the Baltic. The fortresses that arose here, which repeatedly changed hands, seemed to reflect in a mirror the drama of the 500-year-old confrontation.

Next, I will limit myself to a quick overview of the main stages of the construction history of the fortresses founded by the Swedes. These are Vyborg and Kexholm (Korela), Landskrona and Nyenschanz, as well as Russian ones - Oreshek (Hotebor), Yama, Koporye and Ivangorod. During the Northern War, they all became part of the Russian Empire. The founding of St. Petersburg in 1703 initially reduced them military role, and then, as the border moved west, it completely disappeared, with the exception of Vyborg and Ivangorod.

Long-standing alienation, reinforced by 70 years of closure Soviet Union, manifested itself in the historiography of fortresses: their history both in Sweden and in Russia was studied almost exclusively on the basis of their own sources, and therefore gaps inevitably remained, relating primarily to those periods when the fortresses found themselves in the hands of a rival, not to mention the general bias in interpretation of even available sources. This is exactly how the generalizing and in many ways outdated works of Ludwig Munthe and Vladimir Kostochkin were written. Only in recent decades have Russian researchers made attempts to expand the range of sources, in particular, through cartographic materials of the 17th century from the Swedish Military Archives, reports of inspection trips in 1681 and 1697. the outstanding statesman, fortifier and artist Eric Dahlberg (1625-1703), began to use extensive publications of archival documents of the 16th-17th centuries. on Vyborg Castle by Alfred Hackman and on Kexholm by Theodor Schwindt.

Our understanding of the fortifications of Vyborg, Korela (Kexgolm), Oreshek (Noteborg), Koporye and Ivangorod was significantly deepened by archaeological excavations carried out there under the leadership, respectively, of V.A. Tyulepev, L.N. Kirpichnikova, O.V. Ovsyannikov and V.P. Petrenko, as well as architectural and archaeological research by I.A. Khaustova, V.M. Savkov and others in connection with the restoration of these fortresses. This heterogeneous material is still awaiting its generalization, which is impossible without a systematic element-by-element comparison with other Swedish castles and fortresses. Only now that he has disappeared iron curtain, and relations of good neighborliness and trust are established between Russia and Sweden, such a study is quite feasible.

Vyborg Castle was founded in 1293 as a result of the third " crusade" Swedish knights. An island was chosen for it on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, at the beginning of the water trade route that crossed the entire Karelian Isthmus to Lake Ladoga (since the 17th century, there has been a chain of lakes on the site of the western channel of Vuoksa). There was also a land road connecting the Western Karelian region of Savolaks (the basin of Lake Saimaa) and the Neva.

It has now been archaeologically proven that there was a Karelian settlement on the island before. This is indirectly confirmed in the entry about the founding of the castle in the first Novgorod chronicle: “Having come, you built a city on the Korel land.” "Eric's Chronicle" clarifies that the castle was built of stone, but does not mention the ruler Türgals Knutson and Bishop Peter of Westeros, which, as I. P. Shaskolsky believes, indicates their non-participation in the campaign.

The castle became a threat to Novgorod, because it was located on the approaches to the Neva, which served for it the only way out to the Baltic Sea. It is not surprising that in 1294 the Novgorodians tried (although unsuccessfully) to storm Vyborg. On initial stage The castle occupied only the elevated part of the island and was a square tower-donjon of St. built from boulders. Olaf and the fortress wall surrounding it. Soon, around, and then opposite the island, on the city cape, artisans and merchants, mostly immigrants from small towns, began to settle. King Birger already in 1295 wrote to Lubeck, inviting trade with Novgorod through Vyborg, that “the Vyborg castle was built [...] to strengthen the kingdom and ensure the safety of sailors.”

In the same year, the Swedes tried to gain a foothold on the other, Ladoga end of the Vuoksa waterway, as if locking it on both sides. There, on an island at the mouth of the Vuoksa (in the chronicle of Uzierva), they founded Kexgolm (ancient Russian Korela, Finnish name Käkisalmi). Unlike Vyborg, the fortification here was made of wood and earth and was fragile: the Novgorodians easily defeated it in the same year (“[...] the city was raked,” reports the First Novgorod Chronicle). "Eric's Chronicle", talking about the battle, adds that the Russians captured the island and greatly fortified it. Unfortunately, this “fortress” could not be discovered archaeologically.

The third stage of Swedish penetration into the Karelian Ladoga region was an attempt to directly seize the Neva - the main artery of Novgorod trade, and therefore the Izhora land: in May 1300, at the confluence of the Okhta River (in Eric's Chronicle it is called the Black River - Swärta aa (verse 1473), and in the description of E. Dahlberg - Black Stream - Svartbäken) the army led by Türgils Knutson (the Novgorod Chronicle calls him “maskalka” - Mars - marshal) began to build the Landskrona fortress with the help of their craftsmen, as well as “[... ] from the great Rome the master brought him deliberately from the pope,” the same chronicle reports. The river cape was blocked by a ditch and a rampart with a wooden wall and eight towers on which there were throwing machines - vices. However, next year Novgorod army destroyed these fortifications, as the “Chronicle of Eric” (verse 1458-1805) narrates in unusual detail. Events of 1300-1301 on the Neva became, as it were, a distant prologue to what happened here during the founding of St. Petersburg.

In 1310, the Novgorodians moved the “Korelsky town” a little further from the shore of Lake Ladoga and placed it on an island at the mouth of the Vuoksa: “cut down on poroze new.” This fortress, rebuilt many times, still exists today (the city of Priozersk, Leningrad region).

After this, the struggle between Novgorod and Sweden for the Korela land reached a certain balance: the western part of the isthmus with Vyborg became Swedish, the eastern part with Korela and the Neva became Novgorod. As a result, the parties decided to recognize the actual situation, but before the meeting with the Swedish ambassadors in 1323, they “walked around Gorodtsi with Prince Yuri and placed the city at the mouth [source - auto] Neva, on Orekhovoy Island [...]". The founding of a new fortress consolidated the dominant position of Novgorod in the Neva basin and at the same time became a political action associated with the conclusion of peace. This treaty, which prohibited both parties from building new fortresses on Korelsky land, established the border which existed until the end of the 16th century, and became the first agreement in the history of Russian-Swedish relations.

Nevertheless, the confrontation continued. So, in 1348, King Magnus Erikson captured the newly built Orekhov. The Novgorodians soon recaptured the island and in 1352 began building a powerful stone fortress here with several stone towers, which was new for the north-west of Rus' (fragments of the fortress were archaeologically discovered in 1969-1970).

12 years later, in Korel, in Detinets, a “kamen fire” was erected - a tower (the word probably comes from the Latin castrum, Estonian kastre or Swedish kastell). Single-tower fortifications were then common in Scandinavia (in particular in Gotland), as well as in Livonia. Until recently, it was believed that the surviving Round Tower was the “bonfire” mentioned in the chronicle, but during excavations in 1972-1973. not far from it, the base of a trapezoidal structure was discovered, which was probably the “bonfire” of the 14th century. Our research has shown that the Round Tower belongs to XVI century, i.e. to the era of Swedish fortification, which will be discussed further.

Vyborg, meanwhile, continued to develop rapidly: in the 14th century, the city cape was built up, on the northern shore of which a Franciscan monastery (Grey Brothers) was founded, and on the southern shore - a Dominican monastery (Black Brothers). Both monasteries flanked the approaches to the castle. In 1403, Vyborg received city rights from King Eric XIII, but whether it then had a wooden wall is unknown.

During the period of the governorship of Karl Knutson (1442-1448), a wall with battlements was built around the castle, one tier was built on the tower of St. Olof and a convention house was erected - an internal square of buildings, which included a tower. In the spring of 1475, the ruler of Sweden and governor of Vyborg, Erik-Axelson Tott, adopted an extensive fortification program, which included the construction of a castle in Savo, the reconstruction of a castle in Visby and the construction of a stone city wall on the Vyborg Cape. It went around the entire cape, but its most fortified part was the half-kilometer eastern section - the “approach” wall. In its center was the largest tower, designed to accommodate cannons - the tower of St. Andreas, and two gates: in the northern part of Karyaportin torni (Cattle Drive) and in the southern part of Raatin torni (Town Hall). Of the entire wall, only the last tower has survived to this day, and that is only due to the fact that it was built on around 1652, turning it into the bell tower of the Finnish church. Chamber loopholes indicate the suitability of the tower for artillery. The emergence of a centralized Muscovite state in the east increased the feeling of danger in Sweden, and therefore, before the construction of the Vyborg wall had been completed, Tott began the construction of Neishlot (Olavinlinna), designed to prevent the enemy from penetrating deep into Finland by water. In the architecture of this castle one can find elements borrowed from the Gotlandic castle of Stegeborg, because according to the assumption of the Finnish researcher A. Sinisalo, the construction of Neishlot was supervised by a Dutch master, and the masons were probably the same ones who had built the Vyborg wall before. After its construction, Vyborg became one of the four most fortified cities in Sweden; besides it, only Stockholm, Visby and Kalmar had walls in the 14th century.

A kind of response to the strengthening of Vyborg was the foundation of Ivangorod opposite Narva in 1492: the great sovereign Ivan III thus tried to secure the access of the new Russian state to the Baltic and establish control over trade in the entire Gulf of Finland. Vyborg remained an obstacle to this, and already in 1495 the tsar sent a large army there, but in decisive moment siege commandant Knut Posse blew up the tower of St. Andreas (“Vyborg Rumble”), putting the stormers to flight.

The middle of the 16th century - a new aggravation of Russian-Swedish relations. A war between Russia and the Livonian Order was brewing, in which Sweden also intended to join. Vyborg's preparations for war began in the fall of 1353, when King Gustav Vasa visited him, who ordered the construction of two barbicans in front of Karjaportin torni and Munkiportin torni (Monastic Gate Tower) - the most vulnerabilities city ​​steppe. This was a response to the rapid development of siege artillery. Under the leadership of the German master Hans Bergen, the first tower was built in three years (1547-1550). It was connected to Karyaportin by an open gallery. The drawings we discovered from 1763, made before dismantling the old tower, and the archaeological excavations we carried out helped us understand the structure of this defensive complex. The second round tower was never built.

In 1556, the strengthening of the castle began: the wall facing the bridge was strengthened, the towers were lowered to place cannons on their upper platforms, and semicircular bastions were built in the walls. Perestroika went even more intensively under King Eric XIV. In 1568, a new gate with a drawbridge appeared, and later the convention house was built on. In 1561-1564 tower of st. Olofa received an octagonal superstructure made of brick, seven tiers high.

Another Gustav Vase, seeing how quickly it was being destroyed city ​​wall, came to the idea of ​​​​the need to expand the territory of the fortress. However, only his successor Eric XIV ordered in 1562 to develop a project for a new fortification. Its construction began under the leadership of Johan de Messa at next year and ended only by the end of the 1580s. It took more than 20 years to build the hornwork, which consisted of three curtains and two corner bastions, and one of them - Panzerlax - has survived. King Johan III ordered development here according to a regular plan and called on the townspeople to move to a new fortress, which became known as the Earthen City or Val. A round tower with a connecting gallery was included in the line of the northern curtain. The city had now almost doubled in size and received a second line of defense from the east, from where the enemy could most likely be expected.

Plan of Vyborg in the first half of the 17th century. R.A.

In the autumn of 1580, a Swedish army of seven thousand, led by Pontus Delagardie, took Korela - Kexholm. The fortifications of the brainchild then consisted of earthworks with a wooden wall and three wooden towers coated with clay. Johan III. admonishing Delagardi, he indicated: “[...] when the fortress is taken, it should [...] be made impregnable.” In 1581, under the leadership of Jacob van Stendel, who came from Vyborg, the reconstruction of the detinets (castle) and the construction of ramparts along the shore of Spassky (in Swedish documents - City) island began, and behind them they built barracks, gunpowder magazines, and a wooden Swedish church.

On Castle Island, the shores were straightened and ramparts were built along them, which were later lined with stone. By 1589, the construction of three round towers was completed. One of them, which was called the “Lasse Torstenson Tower,” was already turned into a gate at the moment of completion. At the same time, a bridge was built that connected this tower with the Round Gate of the City Island (from the 18th century it began to be called the New Fortress). Judging by the plans of the 17th century, the other two round towers were later converted into basteias protruding beyond the curtains. There were cannons in their open areas. That is why on the Russian map of 1656 Castle Island is shown with one tower. In 1581-1591 a powder magazine was erected next to it (Old Arsenal). To protect the fortress from attack from the water, both islands were fenced with logs connected with chains.

Kexholm plan. 1680 RA.

According to the Treaty of Tyavzin in 1595, Kexholm was returned to Russia (1597), but already in September 1610, Swedish troops led by Jacob Delagardie besieged the city, which capitulated only in March 1611 and remained in the hands of Sweden for almost a hundred years.

So, in 1580-1597. a radical reconstruction of the Castle was carried out and the Round Tower was built (before that the main gate was located on the site of one of the chambers of the Old Arsenal), and in the 1630-1640s. The fortifications of the City Island were rebuilt. Now it was surrounded on all sides by five bastions and stone-lined curtains, but by the end of the century they had fallen into disrepair, and E. Dahlberg gave them a very unflattering description.

On throughout the XVIII The Russians maintained the fortress until after the war with Sweden in 1808-1809. the border was pushed far to the west, and Kexholm lost all military significance. Conducted in the 1980s. On Castle Island, extensive restoration work brought it closer to the appearance it had at the end of the 18th century.

In the first quarter of the 16th century, the Russians rebuilt most of the fortresses on their northwestern border: Ivangorod was expanded, which began to occupy the entire rocky plateau above Narova, its walls and towers were built on, in Oreshka and even earlier in Yamgorod the walls came close to the water, forming a polygon , with seven towers and internal three-tower citadels surrounded by a moat, in Koporye the walls were also placed along the border of the rock, and two round towers, three-quarters of their volume extended towards the “field”, began to flank the only gate.

At the end Livonian War Sweden opposed the Russian state. In the Time of Troubles for Russia, it began to seem to her that her long-standing goal - complete dominance over the Gulf of Finland - was close to realization. Delagardi's plans included the capture of all Russian fortresses of the former Novgorod land. And he succeeded. Only Korela (Kexholm) and Oreshek (Noteborg) resisted for six and two months, respectively, but they too resisted in 1611 and 1612. were taken. Russia's loss of these fortresses was secured by the Stolbovo Peace Treaty (1617), which was unfavorable for it; Vodskaya and Izhora lands now became Ingria. At the peak of their military successes, as if in opposition to Oreshk, on the site of Landskrona, the Swedes built their Nyenschanz fortress in 1611, so that they could, as Charles IX put it, “defend the entire Neva under the auspices of the Swedish crown.”

Archbishop Afanasy Kholmogorsky described Kanets (as Nyenschanz was called in Russia) this way: “the city [...] is earthen, small [...], from the great Neva river to the small river from the field, it has a very large and deep ditch, like ten fathoms deep Against that hail small river[...] the streets [...] Posad Velikaya are arranged. It has 450 households." Judging by E. Dahlberg's report, all of the named fortresses (with the exception of Ivangorod, Noteborg and Nyenskans) did not undergo major changes during the 17th century, and he even proposed to destroy Koporye and Yama due to their disrepair.

Plan of Noteborg (Oreshka). 1681 Swedish Royal Archives.

According to the instructions of E. Dahlberg, the walls in Noteborg were repaired, the citadel moat was cleaned, a curtain was erected in front of the Church and Pogrebnaya towers, and the Black Tower was rebuilt. By the time of his arrival in Nyenskans, there was a pentagonal castle built there by the engineer G. Seilenberg in the late 1650s, and the city on the other bank of the Okhta was protected by an earthen rampart. Dahlberg believed that this fortress was of special strategic importance for Sweden. “If you don’t hold Nien, then neither Kexholm nor Noteborg will help protect Karelia, Kexholm County and even Vyborg itself.” He further prophetically warned the king: “The Russians [...] can easily settle forever [...] between these rivers [Neva and Okhta - auto] and thus, God forbid, they will get access to Baltic Sea" However, projects for the construction of powerful fortifications on both banks of the Okhta River, which were repeatedly developed during the second half of the 17th century, were never implemented.

On the eve of the Northern War and in its first years, two forts were built from the south of Nien (in the area of ​​​​modern Zanevsky Prospekt), a trench in Duderdorf at the intersection of the Vyborg - Narva road and another that ran along the southern bank of the Neva (on the southern outskirts of Krasnoye Selo, as well as at the mouths of the Neva tributaries - Izhora and Tosno). But most of all was done to strengthen Ivangorod and Vyborg. E. Dahlberg. although he believed that Ivangorod was “equipped with very strong towers and walls,” he proposed to surround the fortress with boulder bastions, after which it “could be considered one of the best fortresses of the state.” However, these recommendations remained on paper. Only in the early 1690s. the southeastern front of the fortress (from the Russian side) was reinforced with a vaulted arsenal. Perhaps at the same time it was lined with stone and received a Gornverk parapet. Trenches were built in front of the fortress.

In Vyborg, the 15th century ring wall continued to collapse. It had not met the requirements of the fortification of that time for a long time, and therefore all attention was paid to Gornwerk, where in 1703 large work began according to the plan developed by the fortification captain Lorenz Stobeus: the old walls that ran along the banks were rebuilt into curtains, in front of the curtain that connected the Panzerlax and Europa bastions, the new Eleonor bastion was built on the principles of the New Italian system, and the Carolus ravelin was built in front of the north-eastern curtain, a trench was laid on Cape Tervaniemi, a glacis was poured in front of the Gornwerk ditch, which, together with the covered path, became the outer line of defense. At the time of the siege, the construction of the Crown Ravelin and the ditch in front of Panzerlax had not yet been completed.

During the Northern War, the troops of Peter I took all the fortresses of Karelia and Ingria: May 1, 1703 - Nyenschanz, May 14 - Yama, May 27 - Koporye, October 12 - Noteborg, August 16, 1704, Ivangorod fell. June 13, 1710 - Vyborg, September 8 of the same year - Kexholm. Center huge ring, composed of the named fortifications, becomes St. Petersburg with a new fortress being built on Hare Island. Over the years, their functions are increasingly transferred to it. The history of former Swedish fortresses begins new period, for some marked by rise, for others by decline, but the only fortress that completely ceased to exist with the founding of St. Petersburg was Nyenschanz. To what extent did Russian fortifiers and town planners “understand” their predecessors and continue what they started? The answer to this question is the topic of another study.

Vyborg. Bird's eye view. 1780 Atlas "Image of the fortresses of the St. Petersburg Department." Russian State Administration of the Navy.

Nut. Bird's eye view. 1780 Atlas "Image of the fortresses of the St. Petersburg Department." Russian State Administration of the Navy.

Kexholm. Bird's eye view. 1780 Atlas "Image of the fortresses of the St. Petersburg Department." Russian State Administration of the Navy.

Notes

1. Munthe, L. Kongl. fortificationens historia. Stockholm, 1902, b. 1; 1906. t. 2; 1906. b. 3, 1909. b. 3B.
2. Kostochkin. V.V. Russian defensive architecture of the 13th – early 17th centuries. M., 1962.
3. Erik Dahlbergs dagbok. Uppsala-Stockholm. 1912. About E. Dahlberg’s trip in 1681, see: Kaljundi, E.A./Kirpichnikov, A.N. "Fortresses of Ingria and Karelia in 1681." Scandinavian collection. Tallinn, 1975. vol. XX. With. 68-69. Milchik, M.I. "Panorama of Vyborg based on a drawing by Eric Dahlberg and an engraving by Jan van Aweelen", PKNO 1995. M. 1995. p. 446-453.
4. Hackman, A. "Bidrag till Viborgs slots byggnadshistoria". Analecta Archeologika Fennica. XI. Helsinki. 1944.
5. Schwindt. T. "Kakisalmen pesalinnan ja entisen linnoitetun Kaupungin rakennushistorian aineksia." Analecta Archeologika Fennica, II. 2. Helsingisa. 1898.
6. Tjulenev, V. "Viipurin arkeologisen tutkimuksen tuloksia". Viipurin Suomalaisen Kirjallisuusseuran toirmilleita. Helsinki, 1987. 8, s. 8-17.
7. Kirpichnikov, A.N. 1) "Historical and archaeological research of ancient Korela." Finno-Ugrians and Slavs. L., 1979, p. 52 et seq. 2) Ancient Nut. Historical and archaeological essays about the fortress city at the source of the Neva. L., 1980.
37. Sorokin, P.E. "Archaeological research and problems of preserving the cultural layer on the territory of St. Petersburg." Archeology of St. Petersburg, 1996, 1. SP6., 1996. p. 31.
38. Kauppi/Miltsik 1993, s. 38-39, 42-43, 38, 40.

/ M. I. Milchik, from the collection “Swedes on the banks of the Neva” Swedish Institute, Stockholm, 1998, pp. 26-33.
The article is published with the kind permission of the author. /

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Russia is a country of Kremlins and Baroque palaces. But we also have our own real medieval fortress. Built in 1323 by Prince Yuri Danilovich, the Oreshek fortress staunchly guarded the exit to the Gulf of Finland and did not bend under the onslaught of reconstruction. It managed to become famous as a famous political prison, where, for example, the young Emperor Ivan Antonovich languished. Ekaterina Astafieva will tell you about the history of the Shlisselburg fortress.

Nut fortress

It all started back in the 14th century, when the grandson of Alexander Nevsky, Yuri, decided to build a fortress at the source of the Neva. A record of this can be found in the Novgorod Chronicle: “In the summer of 6831, Novgorod Khodish with Prince Yuri and established a city at the mouth of the Neva, on Orekhovoy Island.” It was from the name of the island that the fortress received its first name - Oreshek. The construction site was chosen wisely: the island is located between two strong currents of the Neva, and wooden fortress additionally surrounded by an earthen rampart. Oreshek blocked the Swedes' path to Lake Ladoga, which allowed the Novgorodians to retain an important trade route along the Neva to the Gulf of Finland.

The Oreshek fortress was built in 1323 by Prince Yuri Danilovich

A few years later, the fortress burned down in battle, and a new stone one was built in its place. The remains of this second fortress were discovered in Shlisselburg in the late 60s of the 20th century. It reflects the typical features of defensive structures of the pre-gun period: the curvilinearity of the walls, repeating the bend of the river bed, towers that barely protrude beyond the façade of the walls.

Oreshek Fortress (Shlisselburg)

Under Moscow's rule

By the 15th century, the fortification was already outdated: powerful artillery began to be used in battle, and Oreshko could not hold back the onslaught of guns. In 1478, Novgorod the Great submitted to Moscow, and its lands became part of the state. The government began a radical reconstruction of the former Novgorod fortresses of Ladoga, Yama, Koporye and Oreshek. The stone fortification on the island was dismantled almost to the ground and a new, powerful and impregnable one was built. A special trick was used against rams: the passage to the fortress, located on the first floor of the Sovereign Tower restored by restorers, was made not through, as is customary, but curved at a right angle. Inside the fortress there was a citadel in which ammunition and food supplies were stored. By the 16th century, a settlement with houses of farmers, traders and artisans had grown on the lands around Oreshek.

How Peter I got the Nut

In 1612, after a long siege, Oreshek went to Sweden, where it existed until 1702. Swedish troops besieged the fortress for 9 months, and out of 1,300 defenders, only 100 survived - the rest died from hunger and disease. In 1702, Peter I, deciding to “get Oreshek,” besieged Noteburg (as the Swedes called the ancient Russian fortress). The Emperor personally took part in the capture of the city as a bombardier-captain.

Peter I in 1702 renamed Oreshek to Shlisselburg

After a 13-hour siege, the fortress fell. To celebrate, Pyotr Alekseevich renamed the former Oreshek to Shlisselburg, which means “key city.” The fortress really became the first key that the emperor picked up to the lock on the shutters of the window to Europe. Shlisselburg was covered in stone, but it did not play a key role in the defense of the borders for long: in 1703 the sovereign built Kronstadt, and the former Oreshek was transformed into a political prison. Until 1917, the fortress regularly fulfilled its function.

Ruins of the IV prison building. Major destruction dates back to World War II

Royal dungeon

In the first half of the 18th century, the fortress “sheltered” members of the royal family in disgrace, pretenders to the throne, disgraced courtiers and nobles. She became a direct witness to numerous intrigues and palace coups. 1718−1719 Maria Alekseevna, Peter's sister, languished there, sentenced to imprisonment for participating in a conspiracy against the emperor. In 1725, the first wife of Peter I, Evdokia Lopukhina, fell into the walls of the fortress. The reigning Empress Catherine I saw her as a threat. After 2 years, Lopukhina was released by her grandson, Emperor Peter II. At that time there were no special prison premises in the fortress, so prisoners were kept in former soldiers' barracks or wooden houses.

In 1756, Ivan Antonovich was imprisoned in Shlisselburg

In the 30s, Prince Dolgoruky and Prince Golitsyn were imprisoned, forcing Empress Anna Ioannovna to sign conditions limiting her power. After Anna's death, the two-month-old baby Ivan Antonovich ascended the throne, under whom the favorite of the late empress Biron was appointed regent. But mother young emperor Anna Leopoldovna ordered Biron to be arrested and imprisoned with his family. In 1756, sixteen-year-old Ivan Antonovich was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress. The location of the pretender to the throne was kept strictly secret. In 1764 a failed attempt was made to free the prisoner.

Shlisselburg Prison

Dreamers and rebels

In 1792, by order of Catherine II, Nikolai Novikov, a famous educator and publicist, was taken into custody. Novikov was kept in inhumane conditions: he was starving, needed medication, had no right to read any books other than the Bible, and was also prohibited from going for walks. During the 19th century, the Shlisselburg fortress saw a lot within its walls. outstanding personalities. After the Decembrist uprising, 17 rebels were thrown into prison.

In 1887, Lenin's brother Alexander Ulyanov was executed in Shlisselburg

Mikhail Bakunin also spent three years in Oreshk. Almost all the prisoners kept in the fortress complained of dampness and poor nutrition. Bakunin told Herzen about his conclusion: “ Scary thing- life imprisonment. To drag out a life without a goal, without hope, without interest! With a terrible toothache that lasted for weeks... not sleeping for days or nights - no matter what I did, no matter what I read, even during sleep I felt... I am a slave, I am a dead man, I am a corpse... However, I did not lose heart. I only wanted one thing: not to reconcile, not to change, not to stoop to seek consolation in any kind of deception - to keep intact the holy feeling of rebellion until the end.”

Plan of the fortress, 1906

By 1883, the fortress was rebuilt into a real prison, with 10 solitary cells and a new building for 40 prisoners installed within the walls of Shlisselburg. In 1884, 22 Narodnaya Volya members were taken into custody. Among them was Yegor Minakov, who became the first person to be executed within the walls of the fortress. Once in prison, he began to demand that the prisoners be allowed to read non-spiritual books and smoke tobacco. His request was refused, so he went on a hunger strike. After 7 days of abstaining from food, he hit the doctor who entered his cell. Minakov was sentenced to death. A portrait of a rebel hangs near one of the fortress’s cells. Lenin's brother, Alexander Ulyanov, was also executed in Shlisselburg.

Shlisselburg Fortress before 1917, photograph by Karl Bulla

Sweden controlled many of the lands of Finland for almost seven centuries. After the Northern War, which was unsuccessful for Stockholm and many defeats from Peter I, the kings of Sweden became concerned about strengthening their Finnish possessions. In 1748, to protect Helsinfors (now Helsinki) on seven rocky islands, the so-called “Wolf Skerries”, a powerful fortress was built, simply named Sveaborg - that is, “Swedish Fortress”. Its powerful stone fortifications on the rocks took almost 40 years to build.

During the Russian-Swedish war that began in 1808, the Sveaborg fortress was supposed to play a strategic role - according to Stockholm's plan, the Swedish regiments were retreating to the west of Finland, and the powerful Sveaborg fortress, remaining in the Russian rear, was supposed to distract our forces and facilitate the deployment guerrilla warfare Finns against Russian troops.

Our army besieged Sveaborg on March 14, 1808. The “Swedish fortress” in Helsinki was indeed a tough nut to crack - almost 8 thousand garrison men with more than 2 thousand cannons on the rocks and powerful bastions. The siege of such a fortress could drag on for many months, and an assault would cost a lot of blood and significant losses. It seemed that the bastions of Sveaborg would play their strategic role in this war, according to the completely reasonable and effective plan of the Swedish commanders.

But the reality turned out to be different. Less than two months later, the impregnable fortress capitulated to the Russians, virtually without a fight. Of the entire Sveaborg garrison, only 6 Swedes died in firefights with our troops. Two thousand Swedish guns surrendered to only 46 Russian guns.

It turned out that Russian soldiers and commanders are capable of not only launching heroic attacks, but also skillfully waging psychological warfare. Our troops took advantage of the uncertainty and doubts of the Swedish garrison to take Sveaborg.

Erupted in 1808 Russian-Swedish war was already the fourth clash between Russia and Sweden since the time of Peter I. K early XIX centuries, the Swedes had already lost the fighting spirit of the times of Charles XII; for most of them, the war with huge Russia seemed to be a dangerous, extremely difficult and, most importantly, futile task.

In addition, our country then skillfully used the split that arose in the Finnish-Swedish elite, when part of it decided to separate from the weakening Stockholm. It is no coincidence that the first Russian governor-general of Finland annexed to Russia was appointed Swede Georg Magnus Sprengtporten, the son of one of the close associates of Charles XII and a former colonel Swedish army, transferred to Russian service.

Therefore, throughout the two months of the siege of Sveaborg, Russian troops skillfully combined fighting with what is today called “psychological special operations” aimed at disintegrating enemy troops.

Throughout March and early April 1808, every night small detachments of our fighters secretly made their way across the ice to the islands and bastions of Sveaborg, imitating unexpected attacks and causing the entire Swedish garrison to jump up in alarm. When the Swedes, in complete darkness, opened fire with all their rifles and cannons, our soldiers hid behind the rocky cliffs and stones of the rugged shores and retreated from the fortress without losses. Especially in such “raids”, which exhausted the enemy garrison, they distinguished themselves Don Cossacks- newly created Life Guards Cossack regiment took part in the siege of Sveaborg.

Simultaneously with these demonstrative “attacks,” Russian troops did not prevent the families of the besieged from leaving the fortress, and deserted Swedish soldiers were sent home, providing them with money. As a result, the moral decay of the Sveaborg garrison quickly began. It got to the point that the wife of the Swedish captain Reutersjöld, commandant of one of the key bastions of Sveaborg, repeatedly walked from the city occupied by the Russians to the besieged fortress and back, convincing her husband and his officers of the pointlessness of resistance.

Commander of the defense Swedish fortress“Admiral Kronstedt was unable to cope with the growing defeatist sentiments of his garrison. The Swedes, who had settled behind the powerful bastions of Sveaborg, were exhausted by constant night alarms, confused after the retreat of the main forces of the Swedish army far to the West, and frightened by the demonstrative preparations of the Russians for the assault. They no longer believed that it was possible to win the war against Russia. The Sveaborg garrison has broken down morally...

The first step towards surrender was the decision of the Military Council of the “Swedish Fortress” to agree to a truce with the Russians. Admiral Kronsted's subordinates agreed to surrender the fortress if reinforcements from Stockholm did not arrive by sea within a month. By that time, many officers of the Swedish garrison had already come to terms with the idea that Finland would become part of Russia and were even thinking about going into the service of the Russian Tsar.

Reinforcements never reached the besieged Sveaborg, and on May 4 the garrisons on individual islands and bastions of the “Swedish Fortress” began to surrender to Russian captivity. Over the next few days, Russian troops gradually and without a fight occupied all the islands and fortifications. At 11:30 a.m. on May 8 (April 26, old style), 1808, the Russian flag was raised over Sveaborg, which was announced by 121 cannon shots.

In fact, without a fight, Russia won an impressive victory, occupying not only an almost impregnable strategic fortress, but also receiving huge military trophies, including 11 Swedish banners. More than 200 officers and 7,300 “lower ranks,” soldiers and sailors of the Swedish army were captured by the Russians. Russia received 2,033 cannons, a large supply of cannonballs, bombs and grenades, 8,680 rifles and 119 warships that had previously taken refuge in the “Wolf Skerries” of Sveaborg.

For Russia, the bloodless fall of the “Swedish Fortress” demonstrated that Finland would now inevitably become part of the empire of the Russian Tsar. For Sweden, the fall of Sveaborg was actually the end military history of this country.

It is significant that the wife of the Swedish captain Reiterschöld, who played a significant role in the moral decay of the garrison of the Sveaborg fortress, soon after the end of the war received a large pension from Tsar Alexander I. The Swedish authorities announced that they were putting Commandant Kronsted and his officers on trial in a military tribunal on charges of treason , therefore, the former Swedish admiral himself, and Captain Reutersjöld and his wife, and many of their subordinates chose to stay and live in Russian Finland from now on. Kronsted's relatives who remained in Sweden had to change their last name to avoid shame.

Russia, with the skillful and bloodless capture of Sveaborg, the powerful “Swedish fortress,” not only ensured the annexation of Finland, but also proved that it can take enemy strongholds not only by force, but also by cunning.

Sweden controlled many of the lands of Finland for almost seven centuries. After the Northern War, which was unsuccessful for Stockholm and many defeats from Peter I, the kings of Sweden became concerned about strengthening their Finnish possessions.

In 1748, to protect Helsinfors (now Helsinki) on seven rocky islands, the so-called “Wolf Skerries”, a powerful fortress was built, simply named Sveaborg - that is, “Swedish Fortress”. Its powerful stone fortifications on the rocks took almost 40 years to build. During the Russian-Swedish war that began in 1808, the Sveaborg fortress was supposed to play a strategic role - according to Stockholm's plan, the Swedish regiments retreated to the west of Finland, and the powerful Sveaborg fortress was supposed to remain in Russian to the rear to distract our forces and contribute to the unfolding of the Finnish partisan war against the Russian troops. Our army besieged Sveaborg on March 14, 1808. The “Swedish fortress” in Helsinki was indeed a tough nut to crack - almost 8 thousand garrison men with more than 2 thousand cannons on the rocks and powerful bastions. The siege of such a fortress could drag on for many months, and an assault would cost a lot of blood and significant losses. It seemed that the bastions of Sveaborg would play their strategic role in this war, according to the completely reasonable and effective plan of the Swedish commanders. But the reality turned out to be different. Less than two months later, the impregnable fortress capitulated to the Russians, virtually without a fight. Of the entire Sveaborg garrison, only 6 Swedes died in firefights with our troops. Two thousand Swedish guns surrendered to only 46 Russian guns. It turned out that Russian soldiers and commanders are capable of not only launching heroic attacks, but also skillfully waging psychological warfare. Our troops used the uncertainty and doubts of the Swedish garrison to take Sveaborg. The Russian-Swedish war that broke out in 1808 was the fourth clash between Russia and Sweden since the time of Peter I. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Swedes had already lost the fighting spirit of the times of Charles XII, most of them were at war with huge Russia seemed to be a dangerous, extremely difficult and, most importantly, unpromising occupation. In addition, our country then skillfully used the split that arose in the Finnish-Swedish elite, when part of it decided to separate from the weakening Stockholm. It is no coincidence that the first Russian governor-general of Finland annexed to Russia was the Swede Georg Magnus Sprengtporten, the son of one of the close associates of Charles XII and a former colonel of the Swedish army who switched to Russian service. Therefore, throughout the two months of the siege of Sveaborg, Russian troops skillfully combined military operations with , what is today called “psychological special operations” aimed at disintegrating enemy troops. Throughout March and early April 1808, every night small detachments of our fighters secretly made their way across the ice to the islands and bastions of Sveaborg, simulating unexpected attacks and forcing the entire Swedish garrison to jump up in alarm. When the Swedes, in complete darkness, opened fire with all their rifles and cannons, our soldiers hid behind the rocky cliffs and stones of the rugged shores and retreated from the fortress without losses. Especially in such “raids” that exhausted the enemy garrison, the Don Cossacks distinguished themselves - the Cossack regiment recently created by the Life Guards took part in the siege of Sveaborg. Simultaneously with these demonstrative “attacks”, Russian troops did not prevent the families of the besieged from leaving the fortress, and deserted Swedish soldiers were released to their homes, providing them with money. As a result, the moral decay of the Sveaborg garrison quickly began. It got to the point that the wife of the Swedish captain Reiterschöld, commandant of one of the key bastions of Sveaborg, repeatedly went from the city occupied by the Russians to the besieged fortress and back, convincing her husband and his officers of the pointlessness of resistance. Admiral Kronstedt, who commanded the defense of the “Swedish Fortress,” was unable to cope with the growing defeatism of his garrison. The Swedes, who had settled behind the powerful bastions of Sveaborg, were exhausted by constant night alarms, confused after the retreat of the main forces of the Swedish army far to the West, and frightened by the demonstrative preparations of the Russians for the assault. They no longer believed that it was possible to win the war against Russia. The garrison of Sveaborg broke down morally... The first step towards surrender was the decision of the Military Council of the “Swedish Fortress” to agree to a truce with the Russians. Admiral Kronsted's subordinates agreed to surrender the fortress if reinforcements from Stockholm did not arrive by sea within a month. By that time, many officers of the Swedish garrison had already come to terms with the idea that Finland would become part of Russia and were even thinking about going into the service of the Russian Tsar. Reinforcements never reached the besieged Sveaborg, and on May 4, the surrender of garrisons on individual islands to the Russians began and bastions of the “Swedish Fortress”. Over the next few days, Russian troops gradually and without a fight occupied all the islands and fortifications. At 11:30 a.m. on May 8 (April 26, old style), 1808, the Russian flag was raised over Sveaborg, which was announced by 121 cannon shots. Without a fight, Russia won an impressive victory, occupying not only an almost impregnable strategic fortress, but also gaining huge war trophies, including 11 Swedish banners. More than 200 officers and 7,300 “lower ranks,” soldiers and sailors of the Swedish army were captured by the Russians. Russia received 2,033 cannons, a large supply of cannonballs, bombs and grenades, 8,680 rifles and 119 warships that had previously taken refuge in the “Wolf Skerries” of Sveaborg. For Russia, the bloodless fall of the “Swedish Fortress” demonstrated that Finland would now inevitably become part of the empire of the Russian Tsar. For Sweden, the fall of Sveaborg actually became the end of the military history of this country. It is significant that the wife of the Swedish captain Reutersjöld, who played a significant role in the moral decay of the garrison of the Sveaborg fortress, soon after the end of the war received a large pension from Tsar Alexander I. The Swedish authorities announced that they were giving Commandant Kronsted and his officers were put on trial by a military tribunal on charges of treason, therefore the former Swedish admiral himself, and Captain Reiterschöld and his wife, and many of their subordinates chose to stay and live in Russian Finland from now on. Kronsted's relatives who remained in Sweden had to change their surname to hide from shame. Russia, with the skillful and bloodless capture of Sveaborg, the powerful “Swedish fortress,” not only ensured the annexation of Finland, but also proved that it knows how to take enemy strongholds not only by force, but also cunning.

All large fortresses of the Russian North-West (with the possible exception of Izborsk) were built on the main water trade routes. Therefore, it is somewhat surprising that until the end of the first quarter of the 14th century, neither the Novgorodians, nor the surrounding Karelians, nor the visiting Swedes paid attention to the island on the Neva (somewhat closer to its northern shore), located at the very source of the river right in front of the Neva Bay of Lake Ladoga. Moreover, for a long time there were not only fortifications on the island, but even any small fishing village. Only the crews of merchant and military ships sailing up or down the Neva made short stops on its banks to rest or to wait out the storm that raged on Ladoga.

Since ancient times the island was called Orekhovets (later Orekhovy). It really resembles the outline of a fruit growing in Novgorod land hazelnut, and perhaps in ancient times the island was covered with hazel thickets.

The first mention of the island at the source of the Neva is dated in Russian chronicles in 1228. It is said in them that during the campaign against the Finnish tribes, the Novgorodians “retreated to the island of Letts.”
For a long time he didn't have permanent population, and it was used as an observation post, temporary shelter, safe parking. In all likelihood, here in 1284

the Novgorodians and Ladoga residents “stashed to the mouth of the Neva” and defeated the Swedes, who wanted to “take tribute from Korel.”
The history of the emergence of the Russian fortress on the island is closely connected with the long-term confrontation between Russia and its western neighbors - Sweden, Denmark, and the Livonian Order. The struggle for the Karelian Isthmus and Izhora lands, for the territory around Lake Ladoga and the Baltic Sea lasted several centuries, and the reason for this struggle is obvious. In order to secure these lands for themselves, control over the Neva was necessary. The river was the most important transport route on the famous route “from the Varangians to the Greeks,” ships with cargo sailed along it, and armed detachments of Vikings, Swedes, and Livonians sailed along it into the depths of Rus'.
The famous trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” passed along rivers from the Baltic Sea (the Neva-Ladoga River - the Volkhov River - Lake Ilmen - the Lovat River - portage to the Western Dvina - Western Dvina - portage to the upper reaches of the Dnieper) to Chernoe. Such a relatively short route from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean basin became known in the 8th century, when Slavic colonists moving along this route from the south met colonists from across the sea - the Varangians. In the 9th-10th centuries, flows of goods and people constantly moved along this route. It was along the path “from the Varangians to the Greeks” and largely thanks to it that Ancient Rus' arose.

The question remains open of how the portages were overcome from river to river. According to the classical version, ship crews used logs to roll ships from river to river, but modern attempts to drag ships like ancient boats have shown that the muscular strength of people alone is not enough. Therefore it is expressed alternative version- they did not drag the ships themselves, but only goods from one ship to another.

In an effort to secure these lands for themselves, the Swedes captured the territory of modern Finland, then Karelia. In 1300, at the confluence of the Okhta River with the Neva, they erected a powerful fortress with eight towers - Landskrona - “Crown of the Earth” (see “Disappeared Fortresses”). Thus, the Swedes managed to take control of the lower reaches of the Neva and the exit
to the Baltic Sea. And although in 1301 the Novgorodians destroyed the new fortress, the threat to the Russian lands did not disappear, and the reasons for it were the weakness of defensive lines and the absence of a powerful Russian fortification on the Neva.

In 1310-1322 between Novgorod and Sweden there was constant
conflicts occurred. Opponents besieged and destroyed each other's fortresses and settlements. Endless mutual raids, clashes and accusations could have continued for a very long time, but the Novgorodians, realizing one of the main reasons for their weakness, made a very timely decision to strengthen their defenses on the Neva. In 1323, under the leadership of Prince Yuri Danilovich (grandson of Alexander Nevsky and son of Daniil Alexandrovich, the first Moscow prince), they erected the first wood-earth fortification on Orekhovoy Island. The chronicle says this very briefly: “In the summer of 6831, the Novgorodians ruled Prince Yury and built a city at the mouth of the Neva, on Orekhovoy Island.”

Orekhovy Island, on which the Novgorodians erected a new fortress, was small. Its dimensions were approximately 450x220 meters. River branches, each 400 meters wide, separated it from both the northern and southern banks of the Neva. Thus, it was very difficult to get to the island from the shores - body of water was clearly visible to the defenders of the fortification. Initially it took about 8500 square meters, was surrounded by an embankment, along the top of which there was a wooden palisade. Inside the fortification was closely built up with one-story wooden residential buildings. The taxes received by Novgorod from the fortress and surrounding residents began to constitute the income of the Novgorod prince.

The fortress was erected in the summer of 1323, and in the fall it was first seen by the ambassadors of the Swedish king, who arrived to conclude peace.
new contract. Signed on September 12, 1323, it was named Orekhovsky and became the first official peace treaty between Russia and Sweden.

The Orekhov Treaty defined the Russian-Swedish border, suspended Swedish aggression into the interior of the country, and provided for free trade. Finally, the treaty assigned the eastern part to Novgorod Karelian Isthmus and the banks of the Neva. (Although the articles of the treaty were not strictly observed by both parties, it should be noted that its legal and legal force was in effect for almost three hundred years!)
Alas, both Rus' and Sweden did not keep the peace for too long. Murders and attacks, robberies and robberies began again. Particularly dramatic events erupted around Oreshek in 1348, when he was attacked by the Swedish king, the religious fanatic Magnus Erikson.

Incited by the Pope, he sent a provocative letter, almost an ultimatum, to the Novgorod veche. In it, the king demanded that the Novgorodians put Orthodox philosophers up for debate, and he, for his part, would put up Catholic philosophers. The clause according to which, as a result of the dispute, either the king had to convert to Orthodoxy or the Novgorodians had to recognize the supremacy of the Pope was unacceptable. If the dispute was refused, the king threatened war.

The Novgorodians diplomatically responded that they accepted their faith from the Greeks and the king should not turn to them with such proposals, but to Constantinople. Having received the occasion, the king immediately struck. Swedish troops besieged Oreshek. At the same time, they scattered along both banks of the Neva and forcefully baptized Karelians on the northern bank and Izhorians on the southern bank. Those who refused to convert to Catholicism were killed.
Residents of Oreshok bravely defended themselves and asked for help from the Novgorodians. At first they hesitated, then they sent help, but it was insignificant. Meanwhile, Nutlet fell. Indignation and anger over the violation of the Orekhov Treaty gripped not only Novgorodians. Squads from Pskov and Moscow came to the rescue.

True, the Pskovites immediately declared that they were not going to participate in the siege for a long time. However, taking even a small but island fortress turned out to be a difficult and lengthy task. Discontent was brewing among the Pskov detachment. Finally they announced that they were going home. Novgorodians begged to do this at night,
so that the Swedes would not find out about the weakening of the besieging army. But the resentment of the Pskov residents for wasting their time was so great that they deliberately left at noon, and even with music.

The Swedish garrison resisted desperately, but after nine months of siege it finally weakened from hunger, and in February 1349 the Russians recaptured Oreshek, forcing the Swedes to surrender. During the assault, both the walls and the fortress itself burned down. A year later, a new agreement was signed between Sweden and Novgorod, according to which Sweden forever renounced its claims to Oreshek.
But even the new treaty signed did not guarantee real peace. The Novgorodians did not trust the Swedes, and in 1352 the head of Novgorod, Archbishop Vasily, at the request of the townspeople, ordered the restoration of the Oreshek fortress.

This is how the Novgorod chronicles wrote about the events mid-XIV century: “I ordered the Novgorodians, boyars and black people to the Archbishop of Novgorod, Vladyka Vasily, so that “if you, sir, go and set up fires in Orekhovo,” and he, riding, set up fires.”
His order was quickly carried out, and on the island at the source of the Neva, the sixth all-stone fortress in Rus' and the first (in terms of the time of its appearance) multi-tower fortress appeared.
Ruthless time wiped out this ancient building from the face of the earth, but excavations made it possible to get an idea of ​​its original appearance from the remains found. The fortress measuring 90x100 meters was located in the southeastern part of the island. Quadrangular in plan, it was about five

times smaller than what we see today (about 350 meters in perimeter). Two of its walls ran along the shore, and two were separated from the main part of the island by a three-meter canal, which also served as a mooring place for small ships under the protection of the fortress. Traditionally, the walls, made of boulders and limestone slabs with lime mortar, were 5-6 meters high and about 3 meters thick. Along the top of the walls there was a battle passage with square loopholes. Three towers (one gate) did not protrude beyond the lines of the walls and, therefore, could not cover the entire perimeter of the curved walls of the fortress.

In the northern part, near the northwestern corner, there was an entrance gate. They were a two- or three-tiered tower with a lowering grate. And the southwestern corner of the fortress was most likely occupied by a tower with a quadrangular plan. It was in the Oreshek fortress that straight wall walls were built for the first time in Rus'. This technique subsequently became traditional for Russian defensive architecture.
The fortress in Oreshka was built on the eve of the advent of firearms and, therefore, was not adapted to protect against it.

But for its time it was a strong fortress. The Swedes who arrived in 1392 to plunder the banks of the Neva did not even dare to approach it and stopped five miles downstream. The service prince Simeon (Lugvenii) Olgerdovich, who came out from Oreshek, caught up with their detachment and defeated them.

Such a fortress served as a reliable defense, so a settlement quickly arose on the unoccupied part of the island, which became the settlement of the city of Oreshek. It was separated from the fortress by a channel up to 4.8 meters wide, which was located 25 meters west of the fortress. The banks of the channel, which later became a canal, were lined with wood at the beginning of the 15th century, and then a wooden embankment with railings was built along the banks. This was a great rarity for the cities of medieval Rus'. In 1410, the settlement was surrounded by a stone wall.
Residents of Oreshek became one of the main organizers of navigation on the Neva, and Oreshek itself became a fortress, a port, and shopping center. After all, trade routes of Novgorod and the West passed along the Neva, and Oreshek was the first river port on the route of overseas guests. In addition, the Orekhovites were not engaged in
only peaceful navigation, but also protected peace on these borders. The inhabitants of the island also dealt with the sea robbers who were harassing the merchants.

Little is known about what happened in Oreshek between 1410 and 1478. Several times the fortress and settlement passed to the Swedes, but the Novgorodians always returned quickly enough. In 1478, Novgorod lost its political independence and was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Oreshek went to Moscow with it. With the expansion of its borders, Moscow also found new opponents, among whom the Swedes were one of the most dangerous (however, the Swedes themselves also looked at their new neighbor with great caution). Without much delay Moscow government began strengthening new frontiers, including rebuilding fortresses to meet the needs of fire combat.

After Oreshek passed “under the hand of Moscow,” its strategic importance increased even more. It was Oreshek who played a decisive role in the campaign carried out by the Moscow sovereign Ivan III. foreign policy. At his order, reconstruction and serious strengthening of the fortresses of the North-West were carried out: Ladoga, Yama, Koporye and Oreshka. This strengthened the state’s defensive lines in the North-West. The Oreshek fortress was completely rebuilt. The previous one, from Novgorod, was completely dismantled, almost to the foundation, as completely unusable. The new one, built in its place (with a number of later reconstructions and restorations), occupied almost the entire island, with only a narrow coastal strip remaining between its walls and the water’s edge. In addition, the fortification became double, with an internal citadel located inside the outer walls. The outer perimeter of the fortress was defended by 7 towers and three more defended the inner citadel. Each, according to tradition, had a name: Royal, Flagnaya, Golovkina, Pogrebnaya (or Podvalnaya; from the 18th century Unnamed), Naugolnaya (Golovina), Menshikova, Vorotnaya (from the 18th century Gosudareva); citadel towers: Svetlichnaya, Kolokolnaya or Chasovaya, Melnichnaya. Of these ten towers, only six remain to this day.

An attack had to be expected, first of all, from the west, from the mouth of the Neva, which is why the western tower, Naugolnaya (Golovina), became the most powerful, with a guard post located on its top. To the south of Oreshek there were several small islands on which the enemy could try to place artillery, so from the south the fortress was also covered by powerful towers - Bezymyannaya and Golovkina. The entrance to the fortress was on the opposite side, through the northern one - Vorotnaya

(Governor's) tower. The entrance to the fortress inside the tower was not through, but at a right angle (approximately like in Ladoga), this made it difficult to use rams and cannon fire on the gates from afar. The gates were locked with lowering gratings. Before entering the fortress, an additional barrier was created by a palisade, a ditch connected to the Neva, and a drawbridge. Many loopholes, both of the tower itself and of the walls, were aimed at the area in front of the entrance to the fortress.

All towers, except Vorotnaya, were round in plan (this made it possible to distribute sectors of fire evenly and equally conveniently). In the lower part, the diameter of the towers was 16 meters, the thickness of the walls was 4.5 meters, and the height of the towers was from 14 to 16 meters. All towers had fires above them, that is, tent-like wooden coverings. Each tower had 4 tiers: the lower one traditionally had a vaulted ceiling, the upper ones were separated by wooden beams with flooring, but stone stairs from tier to tier were hidden in the thickness of the walls. On each tier there were 5-6 loopholes, and so that the upper ones were not directly above the lower ones, due to which each section of water in front of the fortress was shot point-blank from some loophole, and the smoke from the firing from the lower tiers did not cover
overview for the fighters of the upper tiers. Most towers had two entrances: one -at the level ground, the other was located at the level of the second tier. All the towers were extended far beyond the line of the walls, which made it possible to conduct cross-fire at the enemy if he landed on the coast of the island.

The total length of the fortress walls was now 740 meters, more than twice the length of the walls of the previous fortress. Their height reached 12 meters, the thickness of the masonry at the base was 4.5 meters. Along the entire perimeter of the fortress walls with inside there was a covered military passage, from which through passages led to each of the towers. To prevent a crowd from forming at the entrances to the towers in the event of an unexpected attack, stone ladders led directly from inside the courtyard to the walls of the fortress; they also served as a kind of buttresses supporting the walls.

It is difficult to name another Russian fortress that would make such a strong impression on opponents and simply outside observers. Here is what Swedish and Danish eyewitnesses said about it: “Noteburg (Oreshek.-Let.) is a powerful fortress. It can be defeated either by hunger or by agreement...” Another statement: “I consider this fortress one of the most impregnable in the world.” And one more remark: “Except for hunger or a friendly agreement, nothing could have brought Oreshek to surrender.”
The material from which the fortress was built is traditional for the Novgorod region - a limestone slab, raw blocks inside the walls, hewn slabs outside.

The citadel - a fortress within a fortress - was separated by a 12-meter wide canal (filled up more than a hundred years ago), over which a wooden drawbridge was thrown. He was the one who locked the gate in the raised state. As at the entrance to the fortress, a lifting grate-gersa was equipped here. The light tower covered the entrance to the citadel, an alarm bell hung on Kolokolnaya (later a clock was strengthened on it and the tower became known as the Clock Tower), and Melnichnaya was also a windmill. It was inside the citadel that the fortress well was located. The Royal Tower became both the tower of the main fortress and the fortification of the citadel. Until the 18th century, there was an inconspicuous second exit from the fortress towards Lake Ladoga, also with a gate and a gersa. The fortress also had two water gates. The canal that separated the citadel from the inner courtyard of the fortress had both ends facing the Neva directly under the fortress walls, that is, small ships could go inside the fortification and take refuge here from enemies and bad weather.

There was no room left for the civilian population in the new fortress; civilians were evicted to both banks of the Neva, and they were allowed to move to the fortress only if the enemy was approaching. Most residents preferred the southern shore, where in case of emergency there was a chance to escape from the Swedes on land, and when the Ladoga canals were dug from here in the 18th century and a flow of goods flowed through them to St. Petersburg, the city of Shlisselburg (now Petrokrepost) arose here. Settlement on opposite bank grew only into the village of Sheremetyevka.

The new fortress received its first serious baptism of fire in mid-16th century century. The reason was the letters that Ivan the Terrible sent to the Swedish king not personally, but on behalf of his Novgorod governor, thereby insulting the king: according to the laws of diplomatic negotiations of that era, only equal could address equal. In response, the Swedes detained several Russian merchants, including those from Oreshek (in fact, they took them prisoner). Then the almost 5,000-strong Swedish army launched an offensive. “And Yakov came from Vyborg (Vyborg. - Author) by land on horseback, and there were many people on foot with him, and in beads from the Neva sea at the same time many people came with an outfit to Oreshek, and around the city from along they beat and fought the land,” noted Russian chroniclers.
In 1554-1555, royal troops approached Oreshek, partly on ships, partly along the shore. The Swedish bead ships* had cannons, from which they fired at the walls directly from the water. In the third week of the siege, the defenders of Oreshek made a bold foray, during which they captured one bead, and with it 150 people and 4 cannons. Not daring to directly assault the fortress, the Swedes besieged it, but unsuccessfully. Detachments of Moscow troops immediately moved to Swedish Vyborg and besieged it from all sides. Neither one nor the other side was able to take the fortress, but they caused terrible devastation throughout the entire space from Vyborg to Oreshek. Dejected columns of prisoners wandered both to Stockholm and Moscow (that year prices for slaves in Moscow fell to 1 hryvnia for a man and 5 altyn for a girl). Then, however, the ambassadors agreed that the Swedes would ransom their prisoners and return the Russians without money.

Oreshek was subjected to a more serious test in 1582. In September, at the end of the Livonian War, a Swedish army of up to 10,000 people concentrated near the walls of Oreshek. And on October 6, 24 siege mortars began continuous shelling of the fortress. A landing force rushed inside through the destroyed wall and managed to capture one of the towers. However, with a swift counterattack, the Russians pushed back the enemy and forced him to retreat with heavy losses. On November 7, the Swedish army, commanded famous general Pontus Dela-Gardi, after the second unsuccessful assault, left from under Oreshek.
This victory of the Russians had national significance - under the m.v. Skopin-Shuisky.
The powerful Swedish army was stopped and defeated by the nut. The nut has become the most important fortress The Moscow state throughout the North-West, playing a key role in the defense of these lands. It is no coincidence that during peace talks In 1585, the Swedish ambassadors offered to exchange Yam and Koporye, which then belonged to them, for Oreshek, but the Moscow negotiators, who also understood the importance of strengthening at the source of the Neva, refused an offer that was advantageous at first glance: to get two fortresses for one.
The beginning of the 17th century became a very difficult stage for Russia. Internal civil strife and strife caused confusion and confusion in the Russian province, which did not know who to consider the real tsar. In 1608, governor Oreshka Saltykov sided with False Dmitry II, but a year later he was expelled from the fortress by the Russian-Swedish army of Skopin, who fought for Tsar V. Shuisky. Taking advantage of the fact that in 1610 Moscow recognized the Polish prince, an enemy of Sweden, as king, the Swedes began to take over the weakened Russian lands. They took

Novgorod, then Koporye, Ivangorod, Yam, Gdov, Ladoga, Kore-lu. Oreshek resisted longer than all other Russian fortresses. The first assault, in February 1611, was successfully repulsed by the defenders.
At the end of September 1611, the Swedes took Oreshek under a tight blockade. The besiegers did not have to worry about supplies; everything they needed was delivered to them from Novgorod. The defenders of Oreshok did not hope for anyone’s help. After a nine-month siege, having lost nine-tenths of the defenders from hunger, disease and enemy fire, having spent all available food supplies and almost all ammunition, seeing that the Swedes were able to besiege the fortress indefinitely, the remnants of the Russian garrison decided to surrender it. Of the original thousand defenders, only a hundred exhausted people fell into the hands of the Swedes. As a result of the Peace of Stolbovo, Oreshek came under the Swedish crown.

In the summer and autumn of 1656, Russian troops under the command of Voivode Peter Potemkin attempted to recapture Oreshek from the Swedes. At the same time, the government of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich tried to return the fortress through diplomatic means. But neither military nor diplomatic efforts brought success. When the Russians invited the staunchly defending Swedes to surrender, the commandant of the fortress, Major Frans Grave, replied: “An apple and a pear are easier to bite through than such a nut.” (This
the phrase would later be remembered by Peter I, who managed to crack this “nut”.) The Russians were forced to retreat.

So, for almost 90 years the fortress passed into the hands of the Swedes. They renamed Oreshek to Noteburg (from the Swedish Note - “nut”, Burg - “city, fortress”). The new owners did not carry out any major overhaul of the fortress and its fortifications. Although the Swedish experts who inspected Noteburg wrote in their reports about the deplorable state of the fortifications, only at the very end of the 17th century, in 1686-1697, the Swedes rebuilt the completely dilapidated Black (Royal) Tower. It was built into four floors and covered with a powerful roof vault.

The famous Swedish town planner and engineer Erik Dahlberg wrote in a report on his visit to Noteburg in 1681: “This is an excellent place and the key to Lake Ladoga... neglected and abandoned. Large and high walls stand without a roof; they are cracked inside and separated from one another so that they stand at an angle. The beautiful, magnificent vaulted towers have also cracked and burst, partly from the top down to the ground, so much so that it now represents great damage.”

The Swedes had to greatly regret the fact that Oreshek had not been modernized for 90 years in the fall of 1702. By that time, the Northern War, started by Peter I for access to the Baltic, had already been going on for two years. After the defeat at Narva, Peter managed to carry out significant transformations of the Russian army and was eager to test his new regiments in action. On September 26, 1702, the Russian army besieged Noteburg. Peter's soldiers faced a difficult task: without a fleet, they had to storm the fortress on the island. The Swedish garrison of Oreshek under the command of Gustav von Schlippenbach numbered about 500 people, but the strength of the fortress lay primarily in artillery. Noteburg was defended by 140 cannons, meaning the fortress was armed to the teeth. There is no way to do without ships, but it was impossible to build them in the area of ​​Lake Ladoga while maintaining secrecy. However, Peter solved this problem.

Two ships were assembled in distant Arkhangelsk. Ready ships, the surrounding peasants, straining, last bit of strength, dragged in two months through the taiga and swamps of Karelia to Lake Onega, approximately in the places where the famous White Sea-Baltic Canal would later be dug. (The remains of this “Sovereign Road” have survived to this day.) From Onega, the ships entered the Svir River and along it descended into Lake Ladoga, on which, in the meantime, they collected dozens of yawls - capacious boats on which they could transport troops to the walls of the fortress.

Peter concentrated infantry units and artillery in the Ladoga fortress and, as soon as the ships arrived from Onega, he marched with them to Noteburg.
On September 27, 1702, the siege of Noteburg began. No one could predict its outcome. On the one hand, the Russians had an overwhelming numerical superiority, on the other, the Swedes, having provided themselves with more than enough guns and ammunition, settled in the island fortress, and the Russian army had no experience in capturing fortified islands. However, the Swedish garrison of Oreshek did not have to count on outside help; the main forces of the Swedish army were hopelessly far away.

Russian regiments camped on the left bank of the Neva. Peter did not immediately decide to bring the boats into the river; they were dragged through a three-verst forest clearing from the lake and downstream of the Neva they were made into a pontoon crossing, along which 1000 soldiers of the Semenovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments crossed to the other bank to complete the blockade of Oreshek. By October 1, the fortress was completely isolated from the outside world; all routes out of it, both by water and by land, were blocked by Russian soldiers. On the same day, Peter sent an envoy to the fortress with a proposal to surrender it to a treaty. Commandant Schlippenbach requested a delay of four days in order to consult with
command located in Narva (the Swedish generals at that time already understood that surrendering positions in a hopeless situation was a reasonable decision, and not treason). Peter considered such a request a senseless delay (has it ever been seen that a military man would ask the command whether he can surrender or not!) and immediately opened fire on the fortress.

As soon as the first cannonballs began to destroy the walls of Oreshok, another envoy arrived from there - Schlippenbach's wife. The fact is that over nine decades, the Swedes managed to settle down these places, and in addition to the garrison, families of officers and soldiers, and just colonists from Sweden lived in Oreshka and its environs. Having learned about the approach of Russian troops, they all took refuge in Oreshka, so that the fortress was jam-packed civilian population. Schlippenbach's wife asked Peter for permission for women and children to freely leave Oreshek and go to Sweden. And then let the men in uniform begin the battle. Peter replied that he was ready to release them, but only together with their husbands, that is, he actually refused mercy.

For 11 days, Russian cannons, firing grapeshot, battering and incendiary cannonballs, turned the inside of Oreshok into hellish inferno. The garrison only had time to extinguish the wooden structures, but they caught fire again and again. For six days the mighty walls of Oreshek stood indestructible (about 6,000 bombs and 10,000 cannonballs were fired at them); on the seventh day of the bombardment, they collapsed in three places, but not completely. All three gaps formed so high that the assaulters still could not do without ladders.

Residents of St. Petersburg know that they pay for the white nights of spring with the dark days of autumn. Night is always the ally of attackers and the enemy of defenders. On October 11, at 2 a.m., black as ink, Russian soldiers embarked on the assault, boarding boats. They could clearly see where to row: on the eve of the assault, the artillery, having sighted in advance during the day, bombarded the fortress with incendiary cannonballs, and the burning Nut was the only and terrible sight in that pitch-black night. The first to set sail

to Oreshek there are boats with hunters, that is, volunteers. This kind of troops, such as amphibious assault, did not exist in the Russian army at that time, but the hunters on October 11, 1702 actually became its prototype.
The meager texts describing the assault make it possible to only guess about the course of the fierce battle that broke out at the walls of Oreshek. It started with a disaster. The assault ladders were made the day before, by eye, and they were mistaken; they were not long enough to climb any of the three collapsed walls. Huddled on the shores of the island, pressed against the water, the Russian soldiers turned out to be a target at which the Swedes fired point-blank from the walls from a distance of three to four dozen meters. Schlippenbach's subordinates fired not only from rifles, but also from cannons, shooting buckshot at point-blank range as if at a shooting range.

Heroism of soldiers and officers Russian army, shown on a narrow strip of shore between the walls of the fortress and the waters of the Neva, is amazing. Peter I, observing the assault on the fortress from the southern bank of the Neva, sent a messenger by boat to the commander of the assault, Lieutenant Colonel of the Semenovsky regiment M.M. Golitsyn with the order to retreat. Golitsyn disobeyed the will of the tsar, sending a messenger back with the message: “Tell the tsar that now I am no longer his, but God’s.” Being under direct fire from the fortress, right under its walls, Golitsyn’s soldiers tied together ladders with whatever they could, and along these shaky structures they climbed into gaps bristling with Swedish bayonets.

The battle inside Oreshek lasted 13 hours (!), despite the fact that the space of the fortress does not exceed the size of a modern medium-sized city yard. When it became clear that Golitsyn had managed to break in, they came to his aid with
The tsar's favorite A.D. Menshikov volunteered for the Semenovsky regiment. Seeing that the Russians had arrived, the Swedes despaired. At five o'clock in the afternoon, Schlippenbach ordered the drums to be beaten. In the military language of that time, this meant the same thing as a white flag now. But the Swedes still held some part of the fortress, and the citadel remained completely in their hands. Negotiations began on the terms of surrender of the fortress, which took three whole days.

The remnants of the Swedish garrison (86 healthy soldiers, 156 wounded) surrendered the fortress on the most honorable terms. They left Noteburg with four guns, banners flying, personal weapons and bullets in their mouths (this short-lived tradition meant that, despite the surrender, they retained their military honor). The Russian soldiers who died during the assault were buried inside the fortress in a mass grave.

The victory was won by the Russian army at the cost of huge losses. During the storming of the fortress, more than 500 soldiers and officers were killed and about 1000 were wounded. Peter I said that the city was taken “through every human opinion,” and ordered that all participants in the assault - both soldiers and officers - be awarded special medals. This happened for the first time in Russian history and became a tradition over time. It was about this victory that Peter I wrote in a letter to his assistant A. A. Vinius: “This nut was extremely cruel, however, thank God, it was happily chewed.”

The capture of Noteburg was the first major victory in the Northern War. Fascinated by European culture, Peter did not return the Novgorod name of Oreshek to the fortress, but ordered it to now be called Shlisselburg, that is, Klyuch-city, the key to the Baltic Sea. Now there were a little over 60 miles left to this sea.
But the tide of war can always turn in the opposite direction. Tsar Peter never forgot this. Therefore, unlike the Swedes, who had been careless for 90 years, he ordered the immediate start of repairing the previous fortifications of Oreshek and building new ones, since the fortress went to the winners badly damaged: there were several gaps in the walls and towers, almost all the wooden buildings burned down. It was urgent to eliminate the consequences of the destruction - the enemy could appear at any time. The general plan of the fortress was outlined by Peter I himself, and the work to strengthen the bastions was led by Peter’s closest associates, “chicks of Petrov’s nest” - K. A. Naryshkin, A. D. Menshikov, N. M. Zotov, F. A. Golovin, G. I. Golovkin.

In just three years, at the cost of incredible sacrifices and mass hardships, the fortress was restored and a new line of bastions was created, ensuring an effective all-round defense. The restoration of the fortress cost the lives of hundreds and thousands of ordinary Russian people. According to available information, of the 2856 people herded to Shlisselburg from Rzhev, Olonets, Beloozero, Kargopol, 1054 worked, and the rest were sick or died.
Now the fortress had the shape of an elongated triangle. The outer perimeter of the walls was crowned by 6 towers, reaching a height of 16-17 meters. Five of them are Golovkina, Golovina, Flazhnaya,
The Royal and Menshikov were round, the sixth - the Gosudareva - was square.
Golovkin's tower was located at the bend of the long southern wall and was located closest to the front edge of the defense. (It is no coincidence that it was the one that suffered the most from the frontal fire of the besiegers.) The tower had the shape of a cylinder that tapered towards a tent. In the middle of the 18th century, a powder magazine was located here.

In the south-eastern corner was the Flag Tower, whose loopholes looked towards Shlisselburg. The name of the tower is due to the fact that it was on it that the fortress flag was raised in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Three-tiered, rising more than 14 meters,
built of cut stone, the tower controlled the entire middle course of the Neva with the fire of its guns.

The Royal (or Naryshkin) tower was located in the northeastern corner of the fortress, and its bell-shaped loopholes looked out onto Lake Ladoga. Through them it was possible to fire at the enemy at the moment of his landing from ships on the shore. Like most other towers, the Royal one, built of cut stone, had 5 tiers.

The towers of the fortress were surrounded by bastions. They had the shape of irregular pentagons and protruded far forward. As a result, the defenders had the opportunity to conduct crossfire on the enemy even before he landed on the shore. Originally earthen, in 1755-1765 they were replaced with stone ones. These works were supervised by Abram Hannibal, the ancestor of A.S. Pushkin.
At the same time, the individual bastions covering the towers were connected by curtains (walls) along the entire perimeter of the island. Now the outer contour of the bastions and curtains was made of hewn limestone slabs, but the battle platforms on them remained earthen. Each bastion had 5-7 cannons. Much later, when Oreshek was removed from the jurisdiction of the War Ministry, this entire system of fortifications was simplified to a road leading along the outer perimeter of the fortress.

To build these fortifications, an artificial bank had to be specially laid out. Tens of thousands of fascines were dumped into the coastal waters and covered with earth. A parapet was erected on top - a wall made of the same fascines and earth with cells for cannons. The primary fortifications were completed by December 1702, and the work was finally completed only in 1715. In order to protect the new bastions from erosion, they were reinforced with wooden frames and cobblestones, but running water inevitably eroded these fasteners every year, most often in the spring.

Despite the fact that throughout the 18th century the fortress was constantly strengthened and rebuilt, its military and defensive importance declined. But unlike most
ancient Russian fortresses, which were awaiting decay and oblivion, fate changed the status of Shlisselburg - it became the main political prison of the Russian Empire.

The place where prisoners were kept was isolated soldiers' barracks, located on the territory of the citadel in the northeastern part of the fortress. The Citadel, or Secret Castle, was small in size - approximately 45x45 meters. It was separated from the rest of the fortress by a moat with water and walls with four towers. The Black Tower (it was also called the Royal Tower, and later Naryshkina) was located in the extreme north-eastern corner of the entire fortress. The Svetlichnaya or Cross Tower was located at the intersection of the citadel and the northern fortress wall. On its upper part were the “light rooms” of Peter I. During his stay in Shlisselburg, they were a kind of command and observation post. Bell, or Clock tower rose in the southwestern corner of the citadel. Built in tiers, it resembled the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, and it was also crowned with a spire almost 20 meters high.

The spire of the Clock Tower served as a kind of landmark - a beacon for ships sailing along Ladoga. And its similarity with the Peter and Paul Cathedral is not accidental - the architect of both buildings was the wonderful master Domenico Trezzini.
Finally, at the intersection of the citadel with the eastern wall of the fortress there was a Mill (Powder) tower, dismantled in the 19th century. According to surviving information, appearance it resembled the round Svetlichnaya Tower.

Let's return to the prison role of the Shlisselburg fortress. Criminals did not end up here, they were sent to hard labor in
Siberia and Sakhalin. In the Shlisselburg dungeons, as in the cells of the Peter and Paul Fortress, exclusively political prisoners languished. The first prisoners appeared here under Peter I, and the last ones were released February revolution 1917.

The disgraced courtiers of the era of palace coups were replaced by convicted Decembrists, after them the cells were filled with members of the Polish resistance, followed by populist revolutionaries (mainly members of the terrorist organization "People's Will"), and finally this series was completed by members of numerous revolutionary parties and groups that participated in the revolution 1905-1907.

The first prisoner was the sister of Peter I, Tsarevna Maria Alekseevna. It was 1718, when her crowned brother destroyed everyone who was believed to be involved in the conspiracy of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich. The second prisoner also turned out to be a woman, Evdokia Lopukhina, the first wife of Peter I. In 1725, after the death of the emperor, his second wife, Catherine I, became queen, and, wanting to strengthen control over her dangerous rival (who had previously been kept under supervision in the monastery), she transferred Lopukhina to the fortress. Both Maria Alekseevna and Evdokia Lopukhina suffered from politics, but they were not politicians themselves. And princes V.L. Dolgoruky and D.M. Golitsyn, who were imprisoned in the late 1730s, were “real” political prisoners. After the death of Peter II, they tried to limit the power of Anna Ioannovna, who was ascending the throne, but were defeated and ended up behind bars.
The most innocent victim of the Shlisselburg dungeons was Ivan Antonovich. In infancy, he was proclaimed Emperor Ivan VI, on whose behalf the favorite of the deceased Anna Ioannovna, Biron, ruled first, and after his overthrow (he also had to be a prisoner of Shlisselburg before exile), Ivan VI’s mother (Anna Ioannovna’s niece), Anna Leopoldovna, ruled. But after she, in turn, was overthrown by Elizaveta Petrovna, the baby Ivan VI Antonovich ended up behind bars. The unfortunate Tsar Ivan spent his entire short life as a nameless prisoner in prison cells. The security didn't know who they were protecting. She didn't even see Ivan. Only three officers with secret instructions were allowed to enter the chamber, but they were also forbidden to communicate with the deposed king.

In 1764, second lieutenant of Smolensky infantry regiment V.Ya. Mirovich, having somehow found out who was hiding under the name of the nameless prisoner, decided on an extremely risky political adventure. He planned to free Ivan Antonovich and, having elevated him to the throne, receive titles, land and money as a reward. The security officers had an order from Catherine II (this happened already during her reign): “If it happens beyond your expectations that someone wants to take a prisoner away from you, then kill the prisoner, and do not give the living one into the hands of anyone.” When Mirovich and his soldiers burst into the cell, the nameless convict was already pinned to the bed with a bayonet. Second Lieutenant Mirovich was tried and hanged.

One of the most famous prisoners of Shlisselburg in the 18th century was the journalist and publisher N.I. Novikov. He was imprisoned in 1792 (for 15 years) for daring to criticize the literary works of Empress Catherine II herself and for belonging to the Freemasons.

Back in 1762, the construction of the Secret House began in the fortress, that is, a building specially equipped for a prison (it is curious that in the Russian language, which has been enriched over the centuries with such words as “prison”, “dungeon”, “hard labor”, “casemate” , “punishment cell”, “guardhouse”, etc., then there was no term for places of detention at all). The building was completed only in 1798. Later, the building of the Secret House was more often called the Old Prison. Interestingly, there were only 10 cells in the prison; the authorities did not imagine that it would have
there will be many opponents.

The first mass transport of prisoners to Shlisselburg occurred at the beginning of 1826; these were 17 participants in the Decembrist uprising. Among them is I. I. Pushchin, V.K. Kuchelbecker, three Bestuzhev brothers. From here, over the course of several years, they were sent to Siberia. Despite the fact that the guards were ordered to prevent any communication between prisoners, they managed to develop a whole system of tapping, so that they managed to communicate while in rooms separated from each other by six rooms. I. V. Poggio spent the longest of the Decembrists, six and a half years, in the Shlisselburg prison. In addition to physical torment (all his teeth fell out due to the conditions of his detention), there was also moral oppression. The prisoner did not receive any information; to any question, even a mundane one, the guards were obliged to answer “I can’t know.” Poggio's relatives who lived in St. Petersburg also could not find out where he was being held in custody.

The longest imprisonment in the fortress fell to V. Lukasinsky. This major of the Polish army spent an endless 38 years in a solitary dungeon in Shlisselburg. All his official guilt was that he, as a member of the military court, refused to approve the harsh sentence of three officers passed by Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. In the seventh year of his imprisonment in the Zamosc fortress, he tried to organize a riot of prisoners, after which his death sentence was commuted to 14 years of hard labor. In the ninth year of his imprisonment, Lukasinsky found himself in Shlisselburg. At the age of 36 he was imprisoned, and died in prison on the island as a 75-year-old man.

Three years (1854-1857), spent in the Shlisselburg fortress famous revolutionary, rebel, preacher of anarchist ideas Mikhail Bakunin. Before that, he had been in many German prisons, languished in Petropavlovka for three years, but it was Shlisselburg that undermined his health. Later, after a successful escape from Siberia, he wrote about the Shlisselburg period of his life: “A terrible thing is life imprisonment. To drag out a life without a goal, without hope, without interest! With a terrible toothache that lasted for weeks... not sleeping for days or nights, no matter what I did, no matter what I read, even while sleeping I felt... I am a slave, I am a dead man, I am a corpse.”

In 1866-1868, Nikolai Ishutin, the organizer of the first attempt on the life of Alexander II, was kept in custody in the fortress. From here he went to Siberia for hard labor.
By 1870, there was only one participating prisoner for the entire prison Polish uprising Bronislaw Schwarze. Despite the fact that all the efforts of the guards went into observing him alone, Schwarze almost succeeded in escaping. While walking around the yard, he unnoticedly picked up a nail and at night he used it to dig into a secret passage in the ceiling above the stove. During the day I masked the hole with a sheet of white paper. So he managed to get into the attic, but the boards there caught fire from his candle, and he himself had to call the guards.
In 1870, the Shlisselburg prison was closed, but not for long. After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by Narodnaya Volya revolutionaries, the political prison was not only revived, but also a new building was erected inside the fortress for 40 solitary confinement cells.

Prisoners were given only the bare minimum of things: a folding bed (during the day it had to be fixed against the wall in a vertical position), a stool and a table (like the bed, they were made of iron), a metal bowl, a plate, a wooden spoon, and a clay mug. But the new cells had a water tap and a water closet. The glass on the windows was frosted, as a result, all prisoners’ vision quickly deteriorated; only 10 years later the glass was replaced with transparent glass. Despite the heating system, in winter and autumn
the temperature in the cells on the lower floor dropped to 8-12 °C.

The psychological atmosphere of solitary confinement was oppressive. Many prisoners went crazy. Behind the slightest violations They were punished with a punishment cell (shackles, bread, water). To the credit of the prison guards, it should be noted that, despite the fact that the “Instructions for Prisoners of the Shlisselburg Fortress” provided for punishment with canes, they were never used in practice. But any assault on the part of a prisoner against any prison employee led, according to the instructions, to the death penalty.
neither. For knocking, they were put in a punishment cell; for walks, prisoners were taken to courtyards isolated by blank walls, 15 steps long, 3 steps wide.

The first prisoners arrived at the new prison on August 2, 1884, and there were 36 of them. And in total, during the period from 1884 to 1906, 68 people were kept in the fortress, of which 15 were executed, 15 died of illness, 8 went crazy, 3 committed suicide. The terms were long, three prisoners stayed in Shlisselburg for the entire specified period from beginning to end. The most terrible prison disease was tuberculosis, which claimed the most lives of prisoners. But it was very difficult to commit suicide - the prison guards controlled it very tightly. Thus, M. Klimenko was able to hang himself using a sash from his robe on the fan above the water closet. This was the only corner of the cell that was not visible through the peephole by the gendarme on duty. After this incident, all invisible corners were blocked with bricks, and the covers were removed from the fans. Some prisoners who decided to commit suicide deliberately beat one of the guards, knowing that this would result in execution.

In 1890, the regime for keeping prisoners was slightly relaxed. They were allowed to work in the gardens and in workshops, as well as read books (before that, the only printed texts in the cells were allowed to have the Bible).
In 1887, in the Shlisselburg fortress, a group of Narodnaya Volya terrorists who were preparing the assassination of Emperor Alexander III was executed, among whom was V.I. Ulyanov’s (Lenin’s) older brother, Alexander Ulyanov. Many other famous revolutionary terrorists - A. Balmashev, I. Kalyaev, Z. Konoplyanskaya - ended their lives on the gallows in the fortress.

In 1907, the prison was expanded again, and the new building was given the name “Menagerie” by the prisoners.
Inside, the device resembled American prisons. The wall in which the cell doors were located consisted of iron bars from floor to ceiling. The guard on duty, walking along the corridor, could see everything that was happening in the cells located on both sides, without looking through the peephole. The cells were now shared by 15 people. The solitary cells of the Old Prison were dismantled and also made common for 12 people.
In 1911, another, largest prison building appeared. Now Shlisselburg could accommodate about 1000 prisoners. If previously only prominent figures of the Russian revolutionary movement ended up here, now the cells were filled with ordinary revolutionaries. There were soldiers and sailors, participants in military riots in Kronstadt, Sevastopol, Kyiv, Turkestan, Vyborg, workers, active participants in riots in St. Petersburg, Odessa and Riga, etc.

Among the famous prisoners one can name a prominent member of the Bolshevik Party G.K. Ordzhonikidze. Anarchists, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists (terrorists) found themselves on the bunks adjacent to the Bolsheviks. One can imagine how heated political discussions rumbled in the cells of the fortress prison!
On February 27, 1917, the revolution won in St. Petersburg, and the next day 70 prisoners were released from the Shlisselburg prison, and the next day everyone else was free. Thus ended the “prison” period of history
Shlisselburg. Shlisselburg, along with Peter and Paul Fortress, was the Russian Bastille. Following the example of the French, Russian revolutionaries decided “to destroy the prison by the will of the insurgent people” - on the night of March 4-5, all prison buildings burst into flames at a signal.

Two and a half decades later, Oreshko had to remember his military past again. During the Great Patriotic War, the fortress played important role in the defense of Leningrad. On September 8, 1941, German troops entered the city of Petrokrepost (as Shlisselburg was then called), thereby closing the blockade ring. But in the turmoil of the sudden breakthrough of the Nazis, there were two dozen people who were not confused. These were sailors of the Ladoga flotilla who were in the fortress. Having found two cannons with faulty sights in the warehouses, the sailors dragged one cannon onto the wall, the other into the tower and opened fire, aiming by eye at the concentrations of German troops on the southern bank. The Germans assessed the situation according to the laws of military science: since the fortress opened fire first, it means that there is a strong garrison in it and it is impossible to attack Oreshek on the move. Perhaps it was these fearless heroes who saved Leningrad. After all, if the Nazis had managed to take Oreshek, it would have become a springboard for them to land on the northern shore, and this would have given them the opportunity, moving along the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, to connect with Finnish troops, that is, to cut the future route of the Road of Life.

Then reinforcements arrived at the fortress. Thus began the heroic 498-day defense of the Oreshek fortress. At the same time, fascist artillery began direct fire at the fortress. The shelling became daily; on one September day, 250 heavy shells and several thousand mines fell on the fortress at once. The defenders lost count, counting the sounds of explosions, and the mines kept falling and falling. The fortress survived. On November 7, 1941, a red flag was raised over it, and although the Nazis repeatedly managed to knock it down with targeted hits, the defenders of Oreshok immediately restored the flag pole, and the scarlet banner again rose above the fortress walls.

The soldiers showed particular heroism, supplying the defenders of the fortress with everything they needed on boats. Residents of the Neva banks always joyfully await the onset of white nights, but for our soldiers they have become a real nightmare. The Germans saw the boats and opened dagger fire on them. The path from the fortress was easier: the boats walked calmly until the middle of the channel, they were covered by the fortress, and the second part of the path passed under machine-gun fire. It was much more dangerous to sail from the shore to the fortress: the shelling began immediately, and when the boats disappeared from visibility behind the walls of the fortress, the Germans launched mortars, trying to cover the daredevils with overhead fire.