Osinovetsky Redoubt, Osinovaya Roshcha Fortress

Osinovetsky Redoubt, Osinovaya Roshcha Fortress, 18th century — an earthen fortress (sternschanze — a fortification in the shape of a pentagonal star), a characteristic example of late 18th-century earthworks, built on the southern side of the fork of the roads to Yukki and Kexholm (Priozersk). It is located in the historic Osinovaya Roshcha district in the north of Saint Petersburg. It had stone entrance gates and ranger barracks.

On F. Schubert’s 1840 map, the name is read as Fortress Osinova (or Osipova) Roshcha. The city historians Zuev and Sindalovsky believed that the area was called Osinaya Roshcha and turned into Osinovaya as a result of a copyist’s error, since aspens are not typical here. However, in fact, the toponym Khabakanka (a distorted form of Khapakangas) in the Vozdvizhenskoye Koroboselskoye parish is mentioned in 1500 in the “Census Tax Book of the Vodskaya Pyatina,” then cartographic mention — the settlement Hapakonagas (archaic Haapakangas — Aspen Grove, forest, dry elevated place) — is marked in the 1630s on the map of the Noteburg district. In modern literature, the name Osinovetsky Redoubt is used.

Historians place the fortress among other field fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus, built in the 1740s and forming a fortified line to protect roads from Swedish troop incursions. However, no documents about the construction of the redoubt have been found. The generally accepted version is that the fortress was built by order of Catherine II in 1789, as reflected on the information board at the monument. Osinovaya Roshcha was the empress’s favorite estate, which she preferred even over Tsarskoye Selo or Gatchina. In 1777, Catherine gifted the estate to Potemkin, after whose death in 1791 the property passed to the treasury.

It is possible that some fortifications existed on this site, being rebuilt throughout the 18th century; at least there is information about battles with the Swedes near Osinovaya Roshcha (the village of Khabakanka) in 1706, and remembering the Swedish raids of the early period of the Northern War, the Russian authorities maintained the combat readiness of the fortifications for quite a long time. For example, the Ulitsky Schanze was listed in the military ministry registers until the early 19th century.

The pentagonal sternschanze was surrounded by an extensive lodgement in the form of a ten-pointed star with alternating ray lengths and a moat, which on some maps is shown filled with water. Currently, the moat is dry. The lodgement was destroyed after the Great Patriotic War, in particular, the modern Golitsynskaya Street runs along it. The monument’s territory was occupied for a long time by Military Town No. 1.

In 1997, preliminary measurements were conducted; the ramparts have a perimeter length of about 650 meters and a height of 6.5 meters.

In the 2010s, housing construction began on the deserted lands around the redoubt, and by 2020 it was surrounded by houses on all sides. The area began to be arranged: a ring of lawns and paved tile paths with wooden benches was laid around the redoubt, which itself remains untouched for now.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Осиновецкий_редут