Shlisselburg

Shlisselburg (), known as Petrokrepost (lit. "Fortress of Peter") between 1944 and 1992, is a town in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated at the head of the Neva River on Lake Ladoga, 45 km east of St. Petersburg. Population: 12,401 (2002 Census). The fortress and the city center are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Built as a fortress named Oreshek (or Nutlet) by the Novgorod Republic in 1300, it had a key strategic position guarding Novgorod and access to the Baltic Sea. The fortress is situated on Orekhovets island, whose name refers to nuts in Swedish, Finnish (Pähkinäsaari/Pähkinälinna) and Russian.

In 1323, after numerous Russo-Swedish conflicts, a peace treaty was signed in Orekhovets between Sweden and Novgorod Republic (Treaty of Nöteborg), which was the first agreement on the border between Eastern and Western Christianity, running through present-day Finland.

The town was called Nöteborg ("Nut-fortress") by the Swedes after its capture in 1611 during the Ingrian War, after which it became the center of the north-Ingrian Nöteborg county (slottslän). In 1702, during the Great Northern War, the fortress was taken by Russians under Peter the Great in an amphibious assault. It was then given its current name, Shlisselburg, a transcription of Schlüsselburg. The name, meaning "Key-fortress" in German, refers to Peter's perception of the fortress as the "Key to Ingria".

During the times of Imperial Russia, the fortress was used as a political prison. It was there that Ivan VI of Russia was murdered in 1764. During World War II, Shlisselburg was seized by Germany. The recapture of the town in 1943 by Russian forces reopened access to besieged Leningrad.

Today the fortress has five restored towers and a wall. The remains of a church inside the fortress were transformed into a memorial to the fortress's defenders. There is also a museum of political prisons of the Russian Empire (Lenin's brother, terrorist Alexander Ulyanov, who attempted to assassinate Emperor Alexander III, was hanged here), and a small collection of World War II artillery.

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