Peter and Paul Fortress laid May 27, 1703 .
According to legend , Peter I chose a place for the new fortress - a small island Rabbit (in Finnish - Enisaari ), located at the mouth of the Neva River. The Citadel in the form of a six-pointed star was constructed under the project drawn up by the French engineer Jean -G. Lambert , with the participation of the king.Six curtains combine six powerful bastions, named after the companions of Peter I. Defensive system of the west and east and close the St. John Alexis ravelins . Two bridges - St John and Kronverksky - join Rabbit Island with the Petrograd .
October 1, 1703 the fortress was consecrated.At the Czar bastion was raised flag of St. Andrew , on the ramparts set three hundred guns.
June 29, 1703 in the center of the fortress lay a small wooden church of St. Peter and Paul , in the place which was built in 1712-1732 's stone cathedral .
From 1731 to 1858 and Paul Cathedral was the status of cathedral church of the capital, then was attached to the court department. The cathedral was the burial place of the reigning House of Romanov. Here are buried Russian emperors and empresses from Peter I to Nicolas II, with the exception of Peter II and John VI.From the cathedral covered gallery connected Velikoknyazheskaya tomb.
In the XVIII-XIX centuries on the territory of the fortress were constructed buildings and facilities for different purposes: Botnia House , Artillery armory , the Mint, and the Commandant of Engineers building , guardhouse , and others.
is already in the XVIII century it became a place of conclusion of the state of criminals, in the XIX - the main political prison in Russia.
When Alexander I at the beginning of the XIX century castle was first opened to visitors. In the 1900s, in the Peter and Paul Cathedral conducted tours of the imperial necropolis.In 1924, the prison Trubetskoy bastion into a museum.
In 1954, the buildings of the fortress was handed over to the State Museum of History of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).
Information taken from the official website of the museum.
.
