Shlisselburg

Lore & Background

The fortress was originally built as Oreshek in 1323, and a peace treaty between Sweden and Novgorod was signed there on August 12, 1323. In 1348, King Magnus Eriksson briefly captured the fortress during his crusade, but it was retaken in 1351. After Novgorod was absorbed by Muscovy in 1478, a new stone fortress with seven towers was constructed on Orekhovy Island. The fortress was captured by Sweden in 1611 after a nine-month siege, and later retaken by Peter the Great in 1702 during the Great Northern War, who renamed it Shlisselburg, meaning 'Key-fortress' in German.

Reader's Guide

Shlisselburg's significance lies in its long history as a contested border fortress between Sweden and Russia, and later as a symbol of imperial repression. During the Imperial period, the fortress lost its military role and became a notorious political prison. In World War II, a garrison of 350 Red Army soldiers held the fortress for 500 days against German forces, preventing the cutting of the last transit route from Leningrad to the mainland. The town was renamed Petrokrepost in 1944 and regained the name Shlisselburg in 1992. Today, the fortress is a tourist destination accessible by ferry from May to October, and its ruins include six surviving towers and a monument to the 1323 peace treaty.

Did You Know?

• The fortress was originally named Oreshek, meaning 'little nut' in Russian.
• Peter the Great renamed the fortress Shlisselburg, a transliteration of the German Schlüsselburg, meaning 'Key-fortress'.
• The Old Ladoga Channel, dividing the town, was constructed from 1719 to 1731 based on a plan by Peter I.