Everything about Oreshek totally explained
Shlisselburg is a
town in
Leningrad Oblast,
Russia, situated at the head of the
Neva River on
Lake Ladoga, 35 km east of
St. Petersburg. From 1944-1992 it was known as
Petrokrepost. The town's population was 12,401 as of the
Russian Census of 2002. The fortress and the city center are
UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The fortress
Built originally as a wooden fortress named
Oreshek (also
Orekhov) ("Nutlet") by Grand Prince
Yury of Moscow (in his capacity as
Prince of Novgorod) on behalf of the
Novgorod Republic in 1323, it guarded the northern approaches to
Novgorod and access to the
Baltic Sea. The fortress is situated on Orekhovets Island, whose name refers to
nuts in
Swedish,
Finnish (
Pähkinäsaari, "Nut Island"), and
Russian.
After a series of
conflicts, a peace
treaty, was signed at Oreshek on August 12, 1323 between
Sweden and Grand Prince Yury and the
Novgorod Republic which was the first agreement on the border
between Eastern and Western Christianity, running through present-day
Finland. A modern stone monument to the north of the Church of St. John in the fortress commemorates the treaty.
Two and a half decades later, King
Magnus Eriksson attacked and briefly took the fortress during
his crusade in the region (1348-1352). It was largely ruined by the time the Novgorodians retook the fortress in 1351. The fortress was rebuilt in stone in 1352 by Archbishop
Vasilii Kalika of Novgorod (1330-1352), who, according to the
Novgorod First Chronicle, was sent by the Novgorodians after several Russian and Lithuanian princes ignored the city's pleas to help them rebuild and defend the fort. The remnants of the walls of 1352 were excavated in 1969 and can be seen just north of the Church of St. John in the center of the present fortress.
The fort was captured by
Sweden in 1611 during the
Ingrian War. As part of the
Swedish Empire, the fortress was known as
Nöteborg ("Nut-fortress") in
Swedish or
Pähkinälinna in
Finnish, and became the center of the north-Ingrian Nöteborg county (
slottslän).
In 1702, during the
Great Northern War, the fortress was taken by
Russians under
Peter the Great in an
amphibious assault. It was then given its current name,
Shlisselburg, a
transcription of
Schlüsselburg. The name, meaning "Key-fortress" in
German, refers to Peter's perception of the fortress as the "key to
Ingria".
During the times of
Imperial Russia, the fortress was used as a notorious political prison; among its famous prisoners were
Wilhelm Küchelbecher,
Mikhail Bakunin and, for 38 years,
Walerian Łukasiński.
Ivan VI of Russia was murdered in the fortress in 1764, and
Lenin's brother,
Aleksandr Ulyanov, was hanged there too.
Out of ten towers, the fortress retains only six (five Russian and one Swedish). The remains of a church inside the fortress were transformed into a memorial to the fortress's defenders. The fortress has been the site of an annual rock concert since 2003. There is also a
museum of political prisons
of the Russian Empire, and a small collection of World War II artillery.
The town
The town on the mainland opposite the island fortress was founded in
1702 by
Peter the Great. It doesn't retain many historical buildings, apart from a handful of 18th-century churches. Perhaps the most remarkable landmark is the
Old Ladoga Canal, started at the behest of Peter I in 1719 and completed under the guidance of
Fieldmarshal Munnich twelve years later. The canal stretches for 104
versts; its granite sluices date from
1836.
During
World War II, the town (not the fortress) was seized by
Nazi Germany. The recapture of Shlisselburg in 1943 by Soviet forces
reopened access to besieged Leningrad. Between 1944 and 1992, the town's name was Russified as
Petrokrepost (literally: "Fortress of Peter"). Shlisselburg
regained its former name after the
fall of the Soviet Union.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Oreshek'.
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