🖼 Oreshek Fortress

Ленинградская обл., Шлиссельбург, Ореховый остров

A 14th–18th-century fortress on an island at the source of the Neva: a former political prison and a defence site in 1941–1943.

The fortress was founded by the Novgorodians in 1323, and the Treaty of Orekhovets with the Swedes was signed here the same year.
The present walls and towers were built in 1514–1525; of the ten towers, six survive.
The walls rise up to 12 metres, are 4.5 metres thick at the base, and are about 740 metres long in total.
For almost 90 years, from 1612 to 1702, the fortress was the Swedish Nöteborg.
The first famous prisoner was Peter I's sister Maria Alekseyevna, and in 1725 his first wife Evdokia Lopukhina was held here.
In 1887 Alexander Ulyanov, Lenin's elder brother, was executed here.
A memorial to the defenders of 1941–1943 was opened in the fortress courtyard on 9 May 1985.
The asteroid (8982) Oreshek is named after the fortress.

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