East Vyborg fortifications

After the Crimean War, the fortifications around the cities began to be built in a new way, with the expectation of a perimeter defense - Vyborg, as a result of the demolition of the obsolete structures of the Horned fortress, remained unprotected from the east. In April 1863, Minister of War Milutin gave Tsar Alexander II a memorandum on the necessity of arranging "barriers 12 versts from the city."

In June 1863, in a letter to the Inspector-General for the engineering part of E. I. Totleben , mention was made of the construction of a new belt of fortifications around Vyborg, scheduled for 1864. In July, Captain Kalugin was sent to Vyborg “for the filming of a position”. In August, the fortress was visited by Adjutant General Count Lieders , who drafted a report for the Tsar on the necessary measures to protect Vyborg from land.

According to his project, a year later, work began on the construction of new fortifications, later to be called Eastern Vyborg. The project involved the construction of four separate redoubts with ammunition cellars, three intermediate batteries and an advanced structure in the form of a bastion front in front of the Petersburg Suburb .

The strip of fortifications stretched from the bay of Hovenlahti to the bay of Papulanlahti (now called Rainbow). The central site with the largest number of structures (redoubt "C", battery "b", "c", "g" and "d") was placed on the hill Vartsmaninvuori - elevations approx. 30 meters above sea level, abundantly littered with granite boulders and overgrown with mixed forest. After the construction of the Eastern Vyborg fortifications, the hill was named the Battery Mountain.

1864 - the time of the main works on the construction of East Vyborg fortifications. Of particular difficulty was the design of the moat in front of the curtain of advanced reinforcement . It was carried out only by the “method of blasting the rock”. Even today, in sections of granite massifs, one can see frequent wells from drilling, where explosives were laid.

Curtain and two batteries of the advanced bastion front, as well as all the redoubts , except the left flank with a turf scarp , had stone clothes. The breastwork of all four redoubts cut through the sort . Before the moat sprinkled glacis . In the immediate vicinity of the installed guns in the redoubts and batteries, seven more consumable powder cellars were built. For the communication between the individual elements of the fortress, they built a rubbed - an underground corridor laid out of brick, covered with a vault. I will lose in the advanced fortification and the adjacent moves were built in the early 1870s. From the side of the city, to the structures of the fortress paved access roads.

In addition to the four redoubts, three batteries, powder cellars, sorted and worn, the East Vyborg fortifications also included a number of buildings and structures: five wooden sheds for ammunition storage, a log house in the form of a log house, two spare powder cellars designed for large stocks gunpowder, five guard houses and five stone wells. The documents of the time noted the high quality of construction work. The vaults of worn and powdery cellars were plastered and whitewashed, the woodwork was especially good: doors, windows, shelves.

East Vyborg fortifications built more than ten years; they cost the state more than a million rubles. The construction was supervised by Lieutenant Colonel Kislyakov, Head of the Vyborg Serf Engineering Directorate.

By 1885, 123 guns were deployed in the Vyborg fortifications:

• 69 guns (12-, 9- and 4-pounders)
• 26 mortars (6 dm, 5 and 0.5 pounds)
• 28 unicorns (0.5 pounds)

By 1892 the number of guns was increased to 179:

• 100 rifled guns (12-, 9- and 4-pounders)
• 34 smooth-bore guns
• 16 smooth-bore mortars
• 20 quick guns

In 1905, a decorative red-brick battlement appeared from the city side with bastions and slots in the form of loopholes-machiculi . It was erected, apparently, as a fence for military warehouses, which were located later in the fortress, and as a spectacular detail of the city landscape, and not as a means of defense during hostilities.

The next time the East-Vyborg fortifications were remembered after the Russian-Japanese war, in 1906-1907, when it was decided to create a defense base on their base, as a result of which a kitchen, a gendarme house, a brick wall with three gates and a granite wall were built with two gates.

However, by 1918, East Vyborg fortifications were already morally obsolete, they were handed over to the city and began to be torn down. In 1920–1930, right-flank fortifications adjacent to the Vyborg Bay and Raduga Bay were demolished, the redoubt on the Quartermaster Mountain in 1932 was used to build the Summer Theater ; after World War II, a military unit was stationed on Battery Mount, then a garage of a consumer services complex.

The most important historical event associated with the East Vyborg fortifications is the civil war in Finland. When Vyborg - the last stronghold of the workers' government and the Red Guard - was surrounded, the counter-revolutionaries who were in the city attacked the guards and released the captured white guards who were kept in the castle . Together with them they captured the Vyborg fortifications. On April 25, 1918, the Red Guards knocked out the White Guards from there. So that the ammunition stored there, which belonged to the former tsarist army, did not reach the enemy, they were decided to be blown up. A huge explosion was shaken by Vyborg and caused great destruction in the fortress.

On the Eastern position on February 28, 1940, the advance of the Red Army during the Winter War was stopped. The Finns kept this line until the conclusion of peace on March 13.

In Soviet times, the Battery and the Quartermaster Mountains became the natural boundary between the quarters of the historical development of Vyborg and the new housing estates erected in the 1960-1980s on the site of the esplanade of fortifications and the southeastern parts of the city. On the territory of the left flank of the East Vyborg fortifications (on Battery Hill) is located the Central Park of Culture and Rest named after MI Kalinin .

• Scheme of buildings and structures. Photo.
• East Vyborg fortifications
• East Vyborg fortifications from the satellite (Google)