Kronstadt also spelled
Kronshtadt,
Cronstadt ( for "
crownA crown is the traditional symbolic form of headgear worn by a monarch or by a deity, for whom the crown traditionally represents power, legitimacy, immortality, righteousness, victory, triumph, resurrection, honour and glory of life after death. In art, the crown may be shown being offered to...
" and
Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in
Kronshtadtsky DistrictKronshtadtsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the 18 in Saint Petersburg, Russia....
of the
federal cityThe Russian Federation is divided into 83 federal subjects, two of which are federal cities....
of
St. PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
,
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, located on
Kotlin IslandKotlin is a Russian island, located near the head of the Gulf of Finland, west of Saint Petersburg in the Baltic Sea. Kotlin separates the Neva Bay from the rest of the gulf...
, 30 kilometres (18.6 mi) west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the
Gulf of FinlandThe Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...
. Population:
It is also St. Petersburg's main seaport. In March 1921 it was the site of the
Kronstadt rebellionThe Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
.
Traditionally, the seat of the Russian admiralty and the base of the Russian
Baltic FleetThe Twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet - is the Russian Navy's presence in the Baltic Sea. In previous historical periods, it has been part of the navy of Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. The Fleet gained the 'Twice Red Banner' appellation during the Soviet period, indicating two awards of...
were located in Kronstadt guarding the approaches to Saint Petersburg. The historic centre of the city and its fortifications are part of the
World Heritage SiteA UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of MonumentsHistoric Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments is the name used by UNESCO when it collectively designated the historic core of the Russian city of St...
.
Kronstadt has been a place of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians for many years due to the holy memory of
Saint John of KronstadtSaint John of Kronstadt was a Russian Orthodox archpriest and member of the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was a striking and somewhat unconventional figure in his personality but was deeply pious and immensely energetic...
. Bus and water tours to Kronstadt are taken daily from
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
History
Kronstadt was founded by
Peter the GreatPeter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
, who took the island of Kotlin from the
SwedesSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
in 1703. Pushkin's great-grandfather,
Abram Petrovich GannibalMajor-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, also Hannibal or Ganibal or Ibrahim Hannibal or Abram Petrov , was brought to Russia as a gift for Peter the Great and became major-general, military engineer, governor of Reval and nobleman of the Russian Empire...
, oversaw its construction. The first fortifications were inaugurated on 18 May 1704.
These fortifications, known as Kronstadt's Forts, were constructed very quickly. During the winter the Gulf of Finland freezes completely. Workers used thousands of frames made of oak logs filled with stones. These were carried by horses across the frozen sea, and placed in cuttings made in the ice. Thus, several new small islands were created, and forts were erected on them, closing all access to Saint-Petersburg by the sea. Only two narrow navigable channels remained, and the strongest forts guarded them.
Kronstadt was thoroughly refortified in the 19th century. The old three-decker forts, five in number, which formerly constituted the principal defences of the place, and defied the Anglo-French fleets during the
Crimean WarThe Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
, became of secondary importance. From the plans of
Eduard TotlebenEduard Ivanovich Totleben was a Baltic German military engineer and Imperial Russian Army general. He was in charge of fortification and sapping work during a number of important Russian military campaigns.-Early life:...
a new fort, Constantine, and four batteries were constructed (1856–1871) to defend the principal approach, and seven
batteriesIn military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of guns, mortars, rockets or missiles so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems...
to cover the shallower northern channel. All these fortifications were low and thickly-armored earthworks, powerfully armed with heavy
KruppThe Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
gunA gun is a muzzle or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are various definitions depending on the nation and branch of service. A "gun" may be distinguished from other firearms in being a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer or mortar, as opposed to a small arm like a rifle or pistol,...
s in
turretIn architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...
s. The town itself is surrounded with an
enceinteEnceinte , is a French term used technically in fortification for the inner ring of fortifications surrounding a town or a concentric castle....
.
In summer 1891, the French fleet was officially — and triumphally — received in Kronstadt. It was a first step towards the coming
Franco-Russian AllianceThe Franco-Russian Alliance was a military alliance between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire that ran from 1892 to 1917. The alliance ended the diplomatic isolation of France and undermined the supremacy of the German Empire in Europe...
.
Civil War
During the Petrograd riots of the
February revolutionThe February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
, the sailors of Petrograd joined the revolution and executed their officers, and received a reputation as dedicated revolutionaries. During the civil war, the sailors participated on the red side, until 1921, when they rebelled against the Bolshevik rule.
Kronstadt and the supporting forts and minefields were the key to the protection of Petrograd from foreign forces. Despite this, the cruiser
OlegThe Bogatyr-class were a group of protected cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy. Unusually for the Russian navy, two ships of the class were built for the Baltic Fleet and two ships for the Black Sea Fleet.- Ships :...
was
torpedoThe modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
ed and sunk by a small motor boat after participating in a bombardment of
Krasnaya Gorka fortKrasnaya Gorka is a coastal artillery fortress west of Lomonosov, Russia on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, opposite Kotlin Island and the Baltic Fleet's base at Kronshtadt...
that had revolted against the Bolsheviks. this was followed on 18 August 1919 by a raid of seven
Royal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
Coastal Motor Boats into the harbor of Kronstadt itself damaging the Soviet
battleshipA battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
s and
Andrei PervozvannyThe Andrey Pervozvanny class were a pair of predreadnought battleships built in the mid-1900s for the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. They were conceived by the Naval Technical Committee in 1903 as an incremental development of the Borodino class battleships with increased displacement...
sinking a submarine supply ship, the .
Kronstadt Rebellion
In 1921, a group of sailors and soldiers and their civilian supporters
rebelledThe Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
against the
BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
government in Soviet Kronstadt. The
garrisonGarrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
had previously been a centre of major support for the Bolsheviks, and throughout the
Civil WarThe Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
of 1917–1921, the sailors of Kronstadt had been at the vanguard of the main Bolshevik attacks. Their demands included "freedom of speech", a stop to the deportation to work camps, a change of Soviet war politics, and the removal of the soviets (workers' councils) from "party control"
http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob19.html. After brief negotiations,
Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
(then the Minister of War in the Soviet Government, and the leader of the
Red ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
) answered by sending the army to Kronstadt, along with the
ChekaCheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
, and the uprising was suppressed.
World War II
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Kronstadt was bombed several times by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
's air force, the
LuftwaffeLuftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
. The most notable bombing was Stuka ace
Hans-Ulrich RudelHans-Ulrich Rudel was a Stuka dive-bomber pilot during World War II and a member of the Nazi party. The most highly decorated German serviceman of the war, Rudel was one of only 27 military men to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, and the only...
's sinking of the Soviet
battleshipA battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
Marat.
Main sights
The town of Kronstadt is built on level ground and is thus exposed to inundations, the most famous being in 1824. On the south side of the town there are three harbors: the large western or merchant harbor, the western flank of which is formed by a great mole joining the fortifications which traverse the breadth of the island on this side; the middle harbor, used chiefly for fitting out and repairing vessels; and the eastern or war harbor for vessels of the Russian navy. The Peter and Catherine
canalCanals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
s, communicating with the merchant and middle harbours, traverse the town. Between them stood the old
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
palace of Prince Menshikov, the site of which was later occupied by a pilot school.
The modern town's most striking landmark is the enormous
Naval CathedralThe Naval cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Kronstadt is a Russian Orthodox cathedral built in 1903–1913 as the main temple of the Baltic Fleet and dedicated to all fallen seamen. The cathedral was closed in 1929, and was converted to a cinema, a House of Officers and a museum of the Navy...
, built from 1908 to 1913 and considered to represent a culmination of the Russian Neo-Byzantism. The older St Andrew Cathedral (1817), formerly Kronstadt's pride and beauty, was destroyed on communist orders in 1932. St
John of KronstadtSaint John of Kronstadt was a Russian Orthodox archpriest and member of the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was a striking and somewhat unconventional figure in his personality but was deeply pious and immensely energetic...
, one of the most venerated Russian saints, served there as a priest from 1855-1908.
Among other public buildings are the naval hospital, the British seamen's hospital (established in 1867), the civic hospital, admiralty (founded 1785), arsenal, dockyards and foundries, school of marine engineering, and the English church. The port is ice-bound for 140–160 days in the year, from the beginning of December to April. A very large proportion of the inhabitants are sailors.
The Kronstadt Sea Fortress used to be considered the most fortified port in the world. Kronstadt still retains some of the "forts", small fortified artificial islands. Formerly, there were 42 such forts, situated in line between the southern and northern shores of the Gulf of Finland. Some
fortificationFortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defence in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs...
s were located inside the city itself and one was on the western shore of the Kronslot Island (on the other side of the main navigational channel).
Nowadays, the construction of the
Saint Petersburg DamThe Saint Petersburg Flood Prevention Facility Complex , unofficially the Saint Petersburg Dam, is a complex of dams for flood control near Saint Petersburg, Russia...
has led to some of the forts being demolished. The dam also permitted Kronstadt and some of the forts to be reached without using a boat. Among the most important surviving forts are the
Fort Konstantin, the biggest in the Gulf of Finland; the
Fort Rif on the western shore of the island; and the particularly well-preserved
Chumnoy Fort (Plague Fort). The largest and the newest of the forts, constructed at the beginning of the 20th century, is
Fort Totleben, named after
Eduard TotlebenEduard Ivanovich Totleben was a Baltic German military engineer and Imperial Russian Army general. He was in charge of fortification and sapping work during a number of important Russian military campaigns.-Early life:...
.
Twin towns/sister cities
Kronstadt is
twinnedTwin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...
with:
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