Fortress of St. Peter and Paul

Peter and Paul Fortress
Native name Russian: Петропа́вловская кре́пость
An aerial view of the fortress
Type	Fortress and Museum
Location	Saint Petersburg, Russia
Coordinates	59°57′00″N 30°19′01″E / 59.950°N 30.317°E / 59.950; 30.317Coordinates: 59°57′00″N 30°19′01″E / 59.950°N 30.317°E / 59.950; 30.317
Built	1703-1740
Architect	Domenico Trezzini
Location of Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg

The Peter and Paul Fortress (Russian: Петропа́вловская кре́пость, Petropavlovskaya Krepost) is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740. In the early 1920s, it was still used as a prison and execution ground by the bolshevik government.

Today it has been adapted as the central and most important part of the State Museum of Saint Petersburg History. The museum has gradually become virtually the sole owner of the fortress building, except the structure occupied by the Saint Petersburg Mint.

The fortress was established by Peter the Great on May 16 (by the Julian Calendar, hereafter indicated using "(J)"; May 27 by the Gregorian Calendar) 1703 on small Hare Island by the north bank of the Neva River, the last upstream island of the Neva delta. Built at the height of the Northern War in order to protect the projected capital from a feared Swedish counterattack, the fort never fulfilled its martial purpose. The citadel was completed with six bastions in earth and timber within a year, and it was rebuilt in stone from 1706 to 1740.

From around 1720, the fort served as a base for the city garrison and also as a prison for high-ranking or political prisoners. The Trubetskoy Bastion, rebuilt in the 1870s, became the main prison block. The first person to escape from the fortress prison was the anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin in 1876. Other people incarcerated in the "Russian Bastille" include Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, Artemy Volynsky, Tadeusz Kościuszko, Alexander Radishchev, the Decembrists, Grigory Danilevsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Bakunin, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Leon Trotsky and Josip Broz Tito.