Kiev Fortress

The Kiev Fortress (Kyiv Fortress, Ukrainian: Київська фортеця; Kyivs'ka fortetsia; Russian: Киевская крепость; Kievskaya krepost') is a complex of Russian fortifications in Kyiv, Ukraine built from the 17th through 19th centuries. Construction began after the 1654 Council in Pereyaslav, on the site of the already existing fortified monastery of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.

The Kyiv Fortress once belonged to the extensive system of western Russian fortresses that existed in the Russian Empire. The Kyiv Fortress complex features many separate fortifications in Pechersk, Old Kyiv, Podil, and Zvirynets located in various city districts of Kyiv. Currently most of the remaining structures have received a historic designation. The main fortification associated with the Kyiv Fortress (where located the Historic and Architectural Museum) is the Hospital fortification.[citation needed]

Overview

Background

Having lost their military importance in the 20th century, the buildings continued to be used as barracks, storage and incarceration facilities. Some of them played independent historical roles. The Kosyi Caponier ("Skew Caponier") became a prison for the political inmates in the 1900s–1920s and was later turned into a Soviet museum. Now it is the center of the modern museum. A small fortress built in 1872 on the legendary Lysa Hora ("Bald Mountain") in 1906 became a place of executions for convicted political inmates. It is now a landscape reserve and part of the museum complex.

Composition

Description

The fortress complex consisted of about four main areas, the western side which had the hospital fortification and the Vasylkiv fortification, the northern (city) side had the Kyiv Arsenal area including...