RUS-2016-Aerial-SPB-Peter and Paul Fortress 02

Zayachy Island ( Russian Заячий остров, ) is an island in the

Neva River The Neva ( , ; , ) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of , it is the fourth-l ...

in St. Petersburg,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It is separated by the Kronverksky Strait from Petrogradsky Island to the north, to which it is connected by the Kronverksky and Ioannovsky bridges.

History

Zayachy Island was for the most part swampy, uninhabited, and unremarkable until 1703, when

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

began the construction of the

Peter and Paul fortress The Peter and Paul Fortress () is the original citadel of Saint Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. Between the first half of the 1700s and early ...

there, himself laying the foundation stones. Until the late 19th century, there were three canals inside the fortress, dividing the island into four parts. The canals were filled up by the late 19th century. The island is described as offering picturesque views of central St Petersburg (including the

Winter Palace The Winter Palace is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the House of Romanov, previous emperors, from 1732 to 1917. The palace and its precincts now house the Hermitage Museum. The floor area is 233,345 square ...

and

Vasilyevsky Island Vasilyevsky Island (, Vasilyevsky Ostrov, V.O.) is an island in Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia, bordered by the Bolshaya Neva River, Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva Rivers (in the delta of the Neva River) in the south and northeast ...

) across the

. Zayachy Island is the site of Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral where many members of the

House of Romanov The House of Romanov (also transliterated as Romanoff; , ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russi ...

are buried. On July 17, 1998, the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family were buried there, eighty years to the day after they were murdered by the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

Massacres

During the

Red Terror The Red Terror () was a campaign of political repression and Mass killing, executions in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia which was carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police ...

, the island was the site of massacres of enemies of the state. Bodies were discovered during the building of a road linking a car park. Some estimates put the number of buried in the hundreds and potentially in the thousands.''A national museum to the victims of Stalinist repression: words not deeds?''
, opendemocracy.net Human rights charity

Memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects such as home ...

tried to convince the authorities to investigate the graves properly.

References

Islands of Saint Petersburg River islands of Russia Peter and Paul Fortress Neva River {{SaintPetersburg-geo-stub