Description of the attraction
The prison castle in the city of Tobolsk is one of the city's museums, located not far from the Tobolsk Kremlin.
The history of the Prison Castle began in March 1838, when the project for its construction was approved. The author of this project was the provincial architect Weigel. The construction was planned to be carried out in four years, starting in 1841. The provincial architect Suvorov was instructed to plan the site for the construction of the castle. Such a place was a piece of land in the upper part of the city of Tobolsk on the Troitsky Cape.
The construction of the prison complex was completed in 1846-1849. However, when accepting it, the commission did not like the too high premises of the one-story side wings, as a result they were lowered. Due to the reconstruction and construction of the church, the opening of the Tobolsk prison was delayed until 1855. The consecration of the prison castle and the prison church in honor of Alexander Nevsky took place in November of the same year.
The main tasks of the Prison Castle were to keep the prisoners in the fortress and send them to hard labor. The inmates were involved in such household chores in the prison as cooking food, fetching water, preparing firewood, keeping the prison clean, caring for the sick, mending clothes, doing laundry, and so on.
In July 1907 and October 1918, two large riots took place at the Prison Castle. During the Soviet years, the prison was also used for its intended purpose. In 1941, prisoners from Lipetsk and Butyrka prisons were evacuated to Tobolsk from Moscow. The Tobolsk convict prison was one of the most serious prisons, with a very strict regime of imprisonment. In 1989 the prison was abolished. Many thousands of people have passed through this prison. Such famous personalities as M. Petrashevsky, F. Dostoevsky, N. Chernyshevsky and A. Solzhenitsyn visited the walls of the Tobolsk prison.
The Prison Castle has survived to this day with minor changes. The prison complex consists of a criminal, stage and political building, a high security barrack, a headquarters building and a hospital building.
Currently, the prison functions as a museum facility.
