Vyborg and Surroundings

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Vyborg, the only European medieval city in Russia, with a history spanning over eight centuries, cannot help but have mysterious stories about its past.

Jermaine

Vyborg – Origin of the City and Its Name

3 Severnny Val St., Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

The Swedish feudal state, from the mid-12th century to the 1320s, conducted crusades to the East, the official goal of which was the spread of Christianity in the lands of pagan peoples.

Jermaine

Legends and Facts about the Dungeons of Vyborg Castle

3 Severnny Val St., Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

According to available information, in the private houses formerly owned by Mr. Wolf and Mr. Hackman, located near the city guardhouse, there are underground passages leading from the mentioned houses to the guardhouse and further to the embankment near the Abosky Bridge.

Jermaine

Vyborg Thunder

3 Severnny Val St., Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

The events of November 30, 1495, known to us as the "Vyborg Thunder," are quite well studied and described by Swedish and Finnish historians. Although there are very few sources about them, the picture painted by these researchers seems quite realistic. In my work, I will not describe the stages of the assault in detail but want to focus on the actions of the Russian voivode. Of course, today we do not know what orders the commanders of that time gave; in our conclusions, we can rely only on the events that actually happened, as described in the sources. The Swedes resisted desperately, but numerical superiority and military skill were on the side of the Russian warriors. The city was doomed, but at a certain moment, everything went wrong.

Jermaine

Vyborg Castle

3 Severnny Val St., Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

Vyborg Castle is the only castle in Russia built in the finest Western European military traditions of the Middle Ages. The castle, also known as the Holy Fortress, is a grand structure around which an entire city grew.

Jermaine

Monument to the Dog Knight

Krepostnaya St., 2, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

The history of the monument to Marshal Torgils Knutsson, the founder of Vyborg Castle, is full of adventures, just like his life. In 1203, he ordered the construction of a new outpost of Swedish expansion on the narrow isthmus between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland with a single purpose — to cut off Novgorod from the trade route to the Baltic Sea. The next step was the construction of the Landskrona fortress at the mouth of the Neva River.

Jermaine

The round tower or Fat Catherine - the place where "Kemska volost" was handed over

Krasnoarmeyskaya St., 17, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

One of the most interesting landmarks of Vyborg is the Round Tower. It is located on the Market Square, where in the 16th century there was a wall with towers that surrounded the city with a stone ring.

Jermaine

Vyborg Treaty

Krasnoarmeyskaya St., 17, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

How the Window to Europe Was Closed, "Kemska Volost" Was Given Away – Secret Protocols to the Treaty of Charles IX and Vasily Shuisky

Jermaine

Monrepo Landscape Park

Ural Street, 72, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188811

Vyborg and Surroundings

Vyborg: Monrepo Landscape Park

A picturesque landscape park is located on Tverdysh Island on the shore of the Protective Bay of Vyborg Bay.

Jermaine

Vyborg Massacre

Petrovskaya St., 4a, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188807

Vyborg and Surroundings

"At the core of all these noble races, one can discern a predatory beast, a luxurious, lustfully wandering blonde beast in search of prey and victory; this hidden core from time to time requires a discharge, the beast must come out anew, must return anew to the thickets": Nietzsche

Jermaine

Old Town Hall of Vyborg

Krepostnaya St., 2, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

One of the most beautiful buildings in Vyborg is the Old Town Hall on the square of the same name. This elegant building was erected back in 1643, and at that time the Town Hall, where the local government bodies met, became the largest structure in the city overall. Usually, the Town Hall refers to the building on Old Town Hall Square, right in front of the entrance to which stands a monument to Torgils Knutsson.

Jermaine

The Horned Fortress of Vyborg

Powder Magazine, P.F. Ladanova St., 3, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

The Horn Fortress is a bastion fortification attached to the Vyborg city wall in the 16th century. The territory, once located within the Main Vyborg Fortress, is called the Old Town.

Jermaine

Church of St. Hyacinth in Vyborg

4 Vodnoy Zastavy St., Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg and Ingria: Swedish Influence and Legacy

The building at 4 Vodnaya Zastava Street is sometimes called the Knight's House, but actually, the Knight's House — the noble assembly — was located there for only five years. For much longer, almost a century and a half, there was a Catholic parish here.

Jermaine

House of the Merchant Guild of the Holy Spirit

8 Vyborgskaya St., Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

The House of the Merchant Guild of the Holy Spirit is one of the most valuable monuments of Vyborg, as it is one of the few surviving examples of European medieval civil architecture preserved to this day.

Jermaine

The oldest residential building in Russia

Krepostnaya St., 13, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

The Citizen's House is an ancient residential building located in the center of Vyborg on Krepostnaya Street (house 13a), a medieval architectural monument. This low two-story tower-type house with a basement and thick walls made of granite boulders, along with a similar burgher estate, the House of the Merchant Guild of the Holy Spirit, and another guild house, is part of a group of four small private "fortresses" from the 14th–17th centuries—medieval burgher houses that can only be seen in Vyborg within the territory of Russia.

Jermaine

Kron-Saint-Anna, Annenkron, Fortress of St. Anna, or simply – the Anneskie fortifications.

Petrovskaya St., 4A, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188807

Vyborg and Surroundings

The construction of the fortifications took place from 1730 to 1742, during the reign of Anna Ioannovna, so it is not surprising that the fortifications were called Kron-Sankt-Anna, Annenkron, or Fortress of St. Anna at different times. Today, we simply call them the Anneskie Fortifications. The construction project was designed by the military engineer and commander B.-Kh. Minikh. The construction work was carried out under the supervision of the Vyborg ober-commander de Coulon. There is information that Abraham Hannibal, the "Moor of Peter the Great," participated in the construction of the Annenkie Fortifications.

Jermaine

New Cathedral (Vyborg)

Sovetskaya St., 16, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Russia: Lost Monuments

It was called the Vyborg Notre-Dame. It was depicted in panoramic photographs and greeting cards. Everyone admired it without exception. The refinement of the Gothic spire, the monumentality of the main building, the spacious hall with painted vaults and a majestic organ. Now, only the foundation and the plinth of the building with the underground part remain of this masterpiece of northern Gothic architecture. This refers to the new cathedral (Finnish: Viipurin tuomiokirkko), the main Lutheran church of Vyborg, which no longer exists. In 1925, it was granted the status of the cathedral of the Vyborg diocese.

Jermaine

Monument to Mikael Agricola

Pionerskaya St., 6, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

The monument to Mikael Agricola — humanist and Lutheran bishop — was located at the entrance to the Vyborg Lutheran Cathedral. The monument was lost as a result of the Soviet-Finnish War (1939–1940) and was restored in 2009 on Theater Square, near the Vyborg Lutheran Cathedral of Peter and Paul. He is the creator of Finnish writing, and therefore of the Finnish literary language.

Jermaine

Place of death of Mikael Agricola

7W86+6C Luzhki, Leningrad Oblast, Russia

Vyborg and Surroundings

In the Vyborg district of the Leningrad region, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland at Cape Kyurenniemi, a restored monument to the great Finnish enlightener, founder of the Finnish literary language, and church reformer Mikael Agricola (1510–1557) has been unveiled. This memorial stone with a decorative fence was placed in 1900 by the youth society of the Koivisto settlement (now Primorsk) to mark the place of Agricola's death.

Jermaine

Trongzund - 19th century fortress

JHMF+X7 Vysotsk, Leningrad Oblast, Russia

Vyborg and Surroundings

The Trångsund Fortress — a 19th-century defensive structure, the remains of which have been preserved on the outskirts of the town of Vysotsk. It was built on the islands of the Vyborg Bay to protect the water approaches to Vyborg.

Jermaine

Church of St. Mary Magdalene (Primorsk)

Zavodskaya St., 5, Primorsk, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188910

Vyborg and Surroundings

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene (Finnish name Koiviston kirkko) is a former Lutheran church in Primorsk, built according to the design of Josef Stenbäck in the style of Finnish National Romanticism, a northern variant of Art Nouveau. This building is one of the most remarkable on the Karelian Isthmus. The exterior walls are made of local reddish granite, while the interior walls are brick. The roof is made of galvanically treated tin. The building is shaped like a cross. The length of the building is 37 meters, the width is 28 meters, and the height of the spire is 60 meters.

Jermaine

Labyrinth of Krutoyar Island

9GG9FVF6+HV

Vyborg and Surroundings

On the island of Krutoyar, literally just a few kilometers from the border of the Leningrad region with Finland, one of the strangest structures has been preserved, whose history remains unknown to this day – it is a labyrinth.

Jermaine

The estate "Aholla – Hall," now the "Lesogorskaya" hotel

3V97+R8 Svetogorsk, Leningrad Oblast, Russia

Vyborg and Surroundings

Petersburg: Estates of the City and Surroundings (Leningrad Region)

The estate "Aholla – Hall," now the "Lesogorskaya" hotel, is located in the Vyborgsky District of the Leningrad Region, in a pine forest on the shore of a pristine lake. An astonishingly beautiful former estate of Karl Oskar Eugen Wolf, Aholan kartano (Ahola Estate), was built by the outstanding architect Uno Werner Ullberg, the chief architect of Vyborg, between 1921 and 1923.

Jermaine

House Lallukka

Mayakovskogo St., 4, Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

Karelia - Northern Modernism

The former building of the company "Hyakli, Lallukka & Co." in Vyborg, built in 1906 according to the design of architect Allan Schulman (1863–1937) in the style of National Romanticism. The building was heavily damaged during the Soviet-Finnish wars (1939–1944) and was restored in the post-war years. The structure is one of the most famous architectural monuments in the city, created in the style of National Romanticism.

Jermaine

Witch's House in Vyborg

1 Yuzhny Val St., Vyborg, Leningrad Region, Russia, 188800

Vyborg and Surroundings

At the end of the 19th century, after the demolition of the fortifications of the Stone Town and the Horned Fortress, whose memory was preserved in the names of the streets Severnny Val (Northern Rampart) and Yuzhny Val (Southern Rampart), the architects of Vyborg faced the task of creating an attractive maritime facade for the medieval city blocks by developing these coastal streets. Architect Eduard Dippel took an active part in this work, designing the facades of several notable buildings, such as the Vekrut House. In 1898, an irregularly shaped corner plot on Yuzhny Val Street was occupied by the iron-shaped house built according to Dippel’s design.

Jermaine