Oreshek Fortress

The fortress on Orekhovy Island, where the Neva flows out of Lake Ladoga, was founded by Novgorodians in 1323, and the Treaty of Noteborg with Sweden was concluded here in the same year. The stone walls and towers standing today were laid at the turn of the sixteenth century, when the fortress was rebuilt to carry artillery. From the eighteenth century political prisoners were held inside, and from September 1941 to January 1943 the garrison held out for almost 500 days and kept the blockade ring around Leningrad from closing, the ruins of the Cathedral of the Nativity of St John the Baptist being left as a memorial to that defence.

On the map