The Trubetskoy Bastion is one of the two western bastions of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg, facing Vasilyevsky Island. It is connected to the Naryshkin Bastion by the Catherine Curtain and to the Zotov Bastion by the Vasilyevsky Curtain. This flank of the bastion has additional protection for artillery embrasures—a orillon, which contained a hidden passage called a sally port. To the west, the bastion is covered by the Alekseevsky Ravelin and a half-counterguard, connected by a dam—the batardeau.
The Trubetskoy Bastion is a pentagonal fortification with two faces and two flanks, built in 1703 under the direction of engineer V. A. Kirstenstein, presumably based on a design by engineer J. G. Lambert de Guerin with the personal involvement of Peter I. The construction of the fortification was supervised by Peter I’s associate, Prince Y. Y. Trubetskoy, after whom the bastion was named.
Originally, like the entire fortress, the Trubetskoy Bastion was made of earth and wood. On May 13, 1708, in the presence of Peter I, the stone bastion was laid. Its construction, designed by architect Domenico Trezzini, was completed in 1709. Two-tier casemates and a sally port—a tunnel for safe communication between casemates—were arranged in the left face and flanks. The right face of the bastion was extended by an orillon—a projection protecting its right flank, under which a sally port was arranged—a secret exit for sorties. Between 1779 and 1785, according to engineer R. R. Tomilov’s project, the outer escarp walls of the faces and left flank were faced with granite slabs.
In the first quarter of the 18th century, the casemates of the Trubetskoy Bastion were used as detention cells of the Secret Chancellery. In 1718, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, son of Peter I, accused of participating in a state conspiracy, was held here. From 1724, the bastion housed workshops, warehouses, and living quarters of the Mint. In early 1826, part of the casemates was converted into solitary confinement cells for participants of the uprising on Senate Square on December 14, 1825 (the Decembrist Revolt). In the early 19th century, the bastion was under the Artillery Department, and later housed the lower ranks of the Invalid Company of the fortress garrison. Meanwhile, some casemates continued to be used for holding prisoners, and the bastion earned the nickname “Russian Bastille.”
The Trubetskoy Bastion prison was built within the Peter and Paul Fortress between 1870 and 1872, designed by engineers K. P. Andreev and M. A. Pasyupkin. The two-story, pentagonal building was erected on the site of the dismantled internal walls of the Trubetskoy Bastion. From its inception, it functioned as an investigative political prison, with all prisoners under the control of Russia’s highest political investigation authority—the Third Section (later the Police Department). Between 1880 and 1884, the Trubetskoy Bastion also served as a political penal labor camp, imposing harsher conditions on convicts compared to detainees. The prison established a strict solitary confinement system aimed at complete isolation of prisoners from the outside world and other inmates. Initially, the prison had 71 solitary cells, which were reduced to 69 from 1878. The prison was guarded by the country’s only special Surveillance Team, supplemented from 1880 by a team of gendarme observers.
In October 1917, members of the Provisional Government, participants of the Junker mutiny, then members of the banned Cadet party and others dissatisfied with Bolshevik rule were imprisoned in the Trubetskoy Bastion. The prison cells became a place of mass incarceration, with solitary confinement applied only to certain detainees.
In the early months of Bolshevik rule, prisoners included K. A. Naryshkin, V. M. Purishkevich, V. L. Burtsev, N. D. Avksentiev, A. A. Argunov, P. D. Dolgorukov, D. I. Shakhovskoy, A. I. Shingaryov, F. F. Kokoshkin, P. A. Sorokin, V. S. Voitinsky, A. I. Vyshnegradsky, and others. During the Civil War, the Peter and Paul Fortress was not only a political prison but also an execution site. According to I. M. Lyapin, a former member of the district troika conducting the Red Terror in Petrograd, the Trubetskoy Bastion was a “liquidation” site where “all cells were filled with those to be shot.” In the memoirs of D. S. Likhachyov and the diary of Z. N. Gippius, there are mentions that starting from September 1918 (the Red Terror was declared on September 5, 1918), every night from the direction of the Peter and Paul Fortress, they heard sporadic gunshots and short machine-gun bursts. Hare Island is the burial site of executed hostages. Contemporary witnesses report that in January 1919, seventeen bodies, including four grand dukes—Dmitry Konstantinovich, Nikolai Mikhailovich, Georgy Mikhailovich, and Pavel Alexandrovich—were buried in a mass grave within the fortress “by the wall,” executed as hostages in retaliation for the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Germany (Execution of the Grand Dukes in the Peter and Paul Fortress).
In 1924, the bastion was transferred to the Museum of the Revolution, and in 1954—to the State Museum of the History of Leningrad. In December 2008, after many years of hiatus, the renovated exhibition in the former Trubetskoy Bastion prison was opened, presenting for the first time the Soviet period of the prison’s history.
Officially, the Trubetskoy Bastion prison was closed in March 1918. However, despite this, the building was used for prison purposes until 1921. Its last inmates were participants of the Kronstadt Rebellion.
In 1924, the bastion was transferred to the Museum of the Revolution, and in 1954—to the State Museum of the History of Leningrad. In December 2008, after many years of hiatus, the renovated exhibition in the former Trubetskoy Bastion prison was opened. The exhibition tells the history of the Trubetskoy Bastion prison, the fates of prisoners who passed through its cells, the features of the regime, and the conditions of detention. A separate section is dedicated to prisoners of the Soviet era. Archival materials, photographs, models, multimedia programs, audio recordings with prisoners’ memoirs, and, of course, the original walls, cells, and corridors of the prison preserved to this day eloquently testify to the terrible past of this place. Using models, specific episodes of prison life have been reconstructed: the admission of a prisoner, prisoner searches, the visitation room, etc. The prison library and chapel rooms have been museumified.
Sources:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Трубецкой_бастион_Петропавловской_крепости
https://www.spbmuseum.ru/exhibits_and_exhibitions/permanent_displays/1254/
