Kronslot

The Kronslot Fortress was the first defensive structure on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland. Peter the Great designed the fort and chose the location himself on a sandbank in the south of Kotlin, laying the foundations in the winter of 1703/04. The fortress was built by the soldiers of the Tolbuchin and Ostrovsky regiments under the direction of Prince Alexander Menshikov. A three-tier timber-frame tower with a steeple and fourteen canons was erected on wooden frames filled with stone. The fortress flag was hoisted on 7 May 1704. The fortress beat off several attacks by the Swedish navy (summer 1704 and 1705). The naval base was widened and an inner harbour was created (1716–24). The walls were partially faced with granite (1797–1807). Rearmed (1808). Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich – admiral, commander of the Russian navy and head of the Naval Ministry – submitted a project for the reconstruction of Kronslot to Tsar Nicholas I (1848). Work on the construction of the casemates of the three-tier battery was headed by engineer Joseph Zakarzhetsky and interrupted by the start of the Crimean War (1850–54). Excluded from the composition of the defensive structures (1896). Subsequently used mainly for storing ammunition.