Review
Rating: *****/5
Tour: Peter and Paul Fortress. Prison.
How to get there: by Walking tour
Route: from Gorkovskaya Subway Station
As it has been mentioned Peter and Paul Fortress was used a political prison since early 18th century. It has scored the reputation of the Russian Bastille.
DetailsRead Peter and Paul Fortress Introduction
Its first prisoners were those of the Northern War and emperor's personal enemies. For instance a noted 18th century writer Radischev was incarcerated here by Catherine II for his book "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" in which he dared to expose autocracy and serfdom. Then there were 3 generations of Russian revolutionaries. First came the Decembrists, nobilities of top social position, educated landlords and top-ranking officers. Many of them took part in the Napoleon campaign. They believed in constitutional monarchy and were the first to attempt an armed uprising against autocracy in 1825 (reign of Nickolas I). After a civil execution over a hundred officers were exiled to Siberia for hard labor and the leaders dies on gallows near Crownwork (Pestel, Ryleev, Kakhovskiy, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Muravyov-Apostol). Over a thousand Decembrists passed through the casemates of the fortress. The leaders were kept and questioned in the Secret House of Alexeev ravelin.
The Decembrists were followed by another generation in the 1840's. Mostly intelligentzia - professors, writers, students who gathered to discuss progressive ideas of reorganizing society, abolishing serfdom and autocracy. They were preparing a mass uprising. The gendarmes of the so called Third Department established by Nickolas I spied on them and in 1849 M. Butashevich-Petrashevskiy, an utopian-socialist and members of his secret society including Fedor Dostoevsky and Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin were confined here. After spending 8 months in Secret House they were all sentenced to death. They were forced to go through all execution preparations but the last moment the death sentence was commuted to hard labour in Siberia. This was the cruel punishment Nickolas I chose for them.
In 1862-64 Nikolay Chernyshevskiy, the ideological leader of the revolutionary democrats was incarcerated here. He wrote a famous novel "What's to be done" in solitary confinement and spent 20 following years in Siberia.
In 1870-72 to the order of Alexander II the prison inside the Trubetskoy bastion was built for additional cells and now you can visit it. The secret prison was taken away and the Secret house was destroyed. The two-stored building is shaped as a pentagon and has 69 cells for solitary confinement plus inner yard for walking. Here prisoners who were under investigation and long-term prisoners were kept. The new prisoner was brought in a closed carriage. He was taken through the guards' room where soldiers had to turn their faces to the wall not to see his face. Except for the emperor only the commandant of the fortress and the head of guards would know who the prisoner was. Next to it there was the reception room where he was undressed, searched, given special clothes and introduced to the prison regulations.
The cells had wooden furniture, oil lamps and wallpaper and other means of sound insulation (cells 1-3). Communication between the prisoners was strictly forbidden. However they would get in touch by tapping. There were 6 lines of 5 letters in their ABC. First the number of line was tapped, then the number of the letter. In 1879 a rebellion against the strict regulations occurred. The conditions became even worse then. The prisoners lost their right to write and receive letters or read books. The cells were re-equipped with iron beds, tables and wash-stands fixed to the floor (cells 4-6). hard regulations were meant to suppress the prisoners physically and morally and make them confess their crimes. The cells were dark and damp with heating irregular and food really bad. Above that there was dead silence everywhere. They were taken for short walks in the yard couple times a week only. Constant observation through the spy-hole at the door which they called Judas got on prisoners' nerves. Solitary confinement often lead to insanity and suicide attempts. One prisoner Maria Vetrova poured oil from her lamp over herself, set fire to it and died of burns the next day.
For any breach of regulation the prisoners were taken to one of the punishment cells. They spent 2-7 days there on bread and water in darkness and isolation. These weren't heated even in winter. All the conditions were the same for men and women except for women were not taken to punishment cells.
The first prisoners of Trubetskoy bastion were followers of Chernyshevskiy, members of People's Will party who believed in the socialist future of the country and were preparing peasants' revolution. For them it was very very important to fight against serfdom but one of the means of it was terrorism. Their last terror act occurred on March, 1 1881 when Alexander II was assassinated. Andrey Zhelyabov was the leader and one of the founders of People's Will. He was accidentally arrested earlier and confessed to make the whole story public. He and four other leaders of this organization were executed in April 1881.
Lenin's elder brother Alexander Uliyanov was a prisoner of Trubetkoy bastion too and was executed in 1887 in the for Schlisselburg for attempting the life of Alexander III. He was only 21 and was also a member of People's Will. He was thew first to introduce Marxist ideas to Russia and his younger brother Vladimir's idol. He was 17 at that time. Later Vladimir Uliyanov (Lenin) came to St. Petersburg too and headed the revolutionary Marxist party which organized the working class movements known as the 3rd generation of the revolutionary development in Russia. Many of Lenin's associates and close friends were also imprisoned here.
The great Russian proletarian writer Maxim Gorkiy was among the prisoners for writing a proclamation in which he called for immediate abolition of autocracy following the Bloody Sunday (On January 9th, 1905 a peaceful demonstration of workers heading with a petition to the tsar was brutally shot down). It was here where his famous play "Children of the Sun" was written.
Later soldiers and sailors who had taken the Bolsheviks' side and organized uprisings in the fleet and army in the years prior to the bourgeois revolution were confirmed here.
The October revolution of 1917 was the only occasion when the fortress put its guns to use. The garrison supported the revolutionary forces. After February 1917 when Nickolas II abdicated power and was assassinated, members of the Provisional Governmebt arrested in the Winter Palace were taken to the fortress. Most of them were released by 1924 and emigrated.
Continue to Peter and Paul Cathedral
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Info
Address:
«Peter and Paul Fortress. Prison. » is close to Gor'kovskaya station
Around
Some bed&breakfasts, cafes and sights we found close to Gorkovskaya Subway Station:
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