Alekseevsky Ravelin

The Alekseevsky Ravelin was built in the 1830s to cover two bastions: Trubetskoy and Zotov, and Vasilyevsky Gates. It was named after Alexei Mikhailovich, the father of Peter the Great. Initially, they were separated by a moat, which was later drained and filled in. The fortress was so convenient for holding political prisoners that it soon began to function as a prison, after which a wooden annex was built on the site of the fortress, which was converted into a stone one at the end of the 18th century. There were about 20 cells in the new prison, and everyone who tried to organize resistance to the tsar, from the Decembrists to the Narodnaya Volya, passed through it. This triangular building was called the Secret House of the Alekseevsky Ravelin. In 1884, the ravelin was no longer used as a prison, and nine years later the prison was destroyed, and the Neva riverbed was filled in with earth. Only parts of the vertical wall and the stone dam remained of the Alekseevsky ravelin.