Peter and Paul Fortress

The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of Saint Petersburg, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 on Hare Island at the mouth of the Neva River and built out as a star fortress between 1706 and 1740 to a design by the architect Domenico Trezzini. At its center stands the Peter and Paul Cathedral, completed in 1733 with a bell tower 122.5 meters tall topped by a gilded angel, alongside the Saint Petersburg Mint, the Trubetskoy Bastion prison cells and a city history museum. From around 1720 the fortress served both as a garrison and as a prison for high ranking political detainees, a role it kept until the early 1920s. Converted to a museum in 1924, and restored after damage in the Second World War, it remains a major tourist site, and a ceremonial cannon has been fired from its walls at noon every day since 1873.