Ivangorod fortress

At the current location of Ivangorod, in the 1470s there existed a New Settlement on the Narva. The fast-flowing Narva, which hardly ever froze at that location served as the border between the Russian lands and Livonia. The ancient chronicles of 1473 mention a delegation of Pskov merchants and boyars sent ambassadors here to Novgorod to meet with the Livonians. Ten days thereafter, Novgorod boyars also came here, being sent by Ivan III to meet with the Germans "near Rugodiv."

When these lands were first entered into the centralized Russian state, a fortress was laid here near the New Settlement, on the Maiden Hill. The legend has it that the Maiden Hill was named after the dances young maidens held there.

Construction of the fortress was dictated by the necessity to strengthen the border in the Russian Northwest, and to protect these lands from frequent attacks by the Livonians and the Swedes. It also served as the Russian outpost in the fight for access to the Baltic Sea.

Ivangorod was settled across from the medieval castle of Narva on the western bank of the river. The distance between the Narva fortress and the Russian citadel was figuratively described by the chronicles as "within the distance one throws a stone." History had known no other fortresses of two different countries located as close to one another.

Russian chronicles and Livonian documents show that the Ivangorod Fortress was built very quickly. Within several summer months of 1492 the Russian builders put up a powerful stone fortress right across from the enemy lines.

The slab stone the walls of Ivangorod were made off was prospected near the Maiden Hill, upstream from the Narva. Here, hidden from the Livonians by the thick woods, Russians prospected slabs of stone right from the surface.

Ivangorod was a fortress unrivaled in Russia in terms of the scale of its military construction. Unlike the freely planned fortresses before it, the new fortress had a regular layout. The walls were 15 meters high, and the rectangular towers at the corners were 19 meters high. The passage along the walls was shielded by scallops, reminding one of the scallops on the walls and towers of the Moscow Kremlin.

Shielded from the south and the west by the Narva, seen as if growing from the mountain and dominating above the surrounding area, the Ivangorod fortress boasted state-of-the-art achievements in fortification and looked like an invulnerable citadel. Indeed, over 150 years, from the late 15th through mid-17th century Ivangorod successfully survived enemy assaults and was never taken by a direct attack.

The fortress did not stand in its initial form for a long time. In August 1496, the Swedes used the treason of the Ivangorod mayor to their advantage and took over the fortress. In several days, after they learned that a Russian army was on the way to Ivangorod from Pskov, the Swedes ran from the city. As they retreated, the Pskov chronicles say, "the enemy burnt houses and people." Reconstruction work in the fortress resulted in considerable reconstruction and improvement. In fact, an entirely new fortress was built. Big Boyar Town, as it was called, was about eight times as large as the original fortress. The Big Boyar Town, added to the original fortress, was rectangular in shape. Seven round and rectangular stone towers were located symmetrically at the corners and along the axes of the fortress walls. Soon the new fortress of Ivangorod stood against enemy assault, when in 1502 Livonian knights suffered a defeat at its walls.

The work to improve the defense resilience of the fortress continued in the 16th and the 17th centuries. In 1507 -1509 a trapezoid-shaped castle was built on the Western side of the Boyar Town.

From 1613 through the beginning of the 18th century Ivangorod was under Swedish rule. In August 1704, during the Northern War between Russia and Sweden, this old Russian fortress was freed from foreign invaders by the troops of Peter the Great. After the founding of St. Petersburg Province, Ivangorod was included in it, and by the 19th century became one of its largest industrial centers.

The young Red Army fought its first battles near the fortress. February 23,1918, the day when the Soviet troops successfully drove away the German invaders near Narva and Pskov, became the day the Soviet Army was born.

On February 2, 1920, Ivangorod, which was then known as the Ivan side of Narva, was included in the bourgeois Republic of Estonia. On August 6,1940, along with the rest of Estonia, it became a part of the Soviet Union.

During the WWII, when Kingisepp District was occupied by the Germans, the Ivangorod fortress was turned into a POW camp. Well preserved until the war, the fortress was destroyed by the retreating German troops. Six of the eleven towers were exploded, and the buildings inside the fortress were destroyed.

The walls and the towers of the fortress were restored during the recent renovations, as were the Church of St. Nicholas and the Church of Assumption. There are church services held in the churches.

To leam more about the Fortress of Ivangorod, come visit the Ivangorod Art and Architecture History Museum, located at 6/1 Kingiseppskoe Shosse, Ivangorod, Leningrad Region, 188454. Phone (813)755-1792. Open daily except Monday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Also join tours organized by the Ivangorod Center of Sustainable Development.