Description of the attraction
The Kiev fortress is an 18th century fortification of the Western Russian fortification line. A fortress was built in the Pechersk region and was called the New Pechersk fortress. According to the decree of Peter I, the fortifications were turned into an earthen fortress of a new fortification, and later, in 1810, the famous Russian fortifier Lieutenant General K. Opperman worked out a project to create a large camp intended for reserve armies with the simultaneous construction of new fortifications from the south and west and strengthening Pechersk and Starokievskaya fortresses.
The structure of the Kiev fortress, once the largest in Europe, includes many structures that were built over several centuries. There are fortifications, the history of which goes back more than a millennium, and there are much younger ones. Among them are the fortifying structures of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, buildings on the territory of the present Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War, the Arsenal plant and other objects. The oblique caponier, a part of the fortification of the fortress, was erected in 1844 to defend the Hospital fortification. By the beginning of the 60s of the 19th century, the caponier turned into a political prison and very soon, for its brutal regime, it was named "Kiev Shlisselburg". At the end of the 19th century, having lost its strategic importance, the Kiev fortress was used for army needs (headquarters, barracks, warehouses).
The creation of the historical and architectural monument "Kiev Fortress" took place in 1927, and it was founded as a branch of the Museum of the History of Kiev. Now the complex of fortress structures (under state protection since 1979) is a kind of museum of the history of fortification. The main fund of the museum has seventeen thousand exhibits.
