Smolensk Fortress (Russia)
Under the cover of the walls of the Smolensk fortress on August 4-5, 1812, the Russian army engaged into a big battle with Napoleon’s troops. The French suffered losses yet were not able to frustrate joining of the two Russian armies, which gained time and retreated but kept their combat ability.
And while the French army was leaving Smolensk in the night on November 17, 1812 (new style), it exploded 9 fortress towers.
Until 1844, the wall was controlled by the military department; it became obsolete and deprecated since no measures were taken in a proper way for its maintenance. By the time it was passed to a civil department, only 19 were intact, besides, some of them were used for storage.
From 1889 to 1917, the wall was overseen by a special commission consisting of a governor, an architect and some officials. In that period of time some measures were taken to maintain the wall in a decent condition, yet the result was insignificant. The walls continued to get deprecated, and they were gradually dismantled on the order of the Civil Department as well as by the dwellers themselves.
The problem was solved by emperor Alexander II who on the report of the Smolensk fortress presented to him wrote wishes about keeping it as “one of the most ancient monuments of the history of the Fatherland.”
During the 1941-1945 war, during defending of Smolensk in 1941 and its liberation in 1943, the wall suffered from both the German and Soviet troops. It is believed that during the Nazi occupation two towers were blown up.
Fragments of the Smolensk wall can be found now in different parts of Smolensk, but the long, partially broken chain of its magnificent curtain walls and towers, embracing the territory of the old city from southern and eastern parts, impresses the most. Along with written materials and stamp images dating to the beginning of XVII century these fragments allow to picture the architecture of Smolensk “town.”
Despite its rich history, the Smolensk fortress, unfortunately, is in a miserable state. The section of the fortress that has been preserved the most is littered and requires restoration. In the facility of one of the towers there is a museum, which, however, is respectively small to show all the magnificence of this fortification construction.
The Smolensk fortress was one of the most grandiose constructions in Europe in the beginning of XVII century. The total length of its walls was “three thousand thirty and eight sajens with an arshin and a half-seventh vershok” — that is 6,575 meters.
In its layout the fortress had a shape of an irregular closed figure that seemed to cling to the Dnieper. The fortress consisted of 38 curtain walls and of the same number of towers. The territory surrounded by them was very uneven — from south the landscape was relatively flat, while form north it was very cut and burrowed. The unceasing row of walls and towers went at times horizontally, and at times lowered down the slopes of the hills to the river bank, or rose from it upwards by passing curved and broadening gullies.
At the center of the territory surrounded by the fortress walls was the Cathedral mountain, which was the site of the old Smolensk Kremlin, while the compositional axis was the main street of the city that ran through it from north to south being at the same time a section of the road leading from Moscow to Poland.
The foundation of the wall in the bottom parts (for instance along the Dnieper) consists of oak poles, upon which transverse and axial boards were laid. The southern and eastern walls of the fortress were set right upon the solid and earthen foundation of the bed rock. The thickness of the wall is not the same differing from 3 to 7.5 meters; height was up to 8.5-12.8 meters.
The pedestal, 1.5 m high, was laid of whitestone while the wall itself –– of brick. On the entire perimeter of the fortress a narrow bolster separated the pedestal section from the upper part of the walls and towers. From the inner side of the wall high arches — niches — were laid. In them, at a distance of 19 meters from one another, combat cells were established (pechuras) ending on the outer side in loopholes of the ground combat (if located lower than the bolster of the pedestal) or the second, middle layer of combat (if located between the bolster and the castellation). At the foot of the wall 11 drains were installed.
The thickness of the Smolensk wall is not equal everywhere. The curtain walls alone have a width of 5.2 m while others –– around 6 meters. Just like in the White Town of Moscow, it is, most likely, because in some areas there was an even space in front of the wall while in others –– deep ravines.
At the bottom the wall is laid of regular well-cut rectangular blocks of whitestone, 92 to 21 centimeters long and 34 to 20 centimeters high, while the section above — of well-burned brick, the average size of which is 31 x 15 x 6 centimeters. The weight of a brick in dry form is 7.5-6.5 kilos. The researchers assure that “it is so hard that, even though you try many times, it is impossible to make anything as good.”
The bricklaying technique of the walls is semi-rough-rubble; it consists of two vertical little walls, the space between which is filled with quarry rock. The outward little walls are laid with several rows of brick that can be well seen where the plaster peels off. The laying of the facial rows is cross-like with tight seams of a lime mortar. The rows of brick, as a rule, are horizontal, but in the north-eastern part, where the wall steeps down to the Dnieper, they are tilted and seem to match the relief of the landscape.
Around the entire perimeter there were 38 towers erected. Of them in nine pass gates were built. Most of the gates are located in the northern towers on the Dnieper’s bank. The fortress here adjoined the suburb with which it had to maintain highly busy traffic through Kryloshevskie, Lazarevskie, Dnieprovskie, Vodyanye and Pyatnitskie gates. From the eastern part there were Avramievskie and Yelenskie gates; from the southern — Malakhovskie and Kopytinskie. There were no gates in the western part of the fortress, facing the Lithuainan-Russian border. On the southern side of the fortress the towers were standing closer to one another than on the northern side where the Dnieper was an additional barrier to the enemy. In average, distance between towers was around 158 meters. The main and the most conspicuous tower was the tower of Frolovskie gates.
The Dnieprovskie or Frolovskie gates had five levels of gun slots, whereas the other towers had three, and small quadrangular towers had even two levels. The rectangular Frolovskaya tower with a barbican and a watch post in many ways resembled the Frolovskie (Spasskie) gates of the Moscow Kremlin. It was 22 meters high. There were 125 gun slots in the tower. A wide arched passway entry was closed by gates and portcullises. The watch post, which was called a little attic, was equipped with a big alarm bell. The Frolovskaya tower standing in front of the Big Dnieper bridge was the main gates of the fortress, out of which the road led to Moscow along the right bank of the Dnieper. The middle part of the bridge was drawable which increased the defensive capacity of the fortress.
In the central section of the southern wall the Malakhovskie gates stood being a rectangular four-level tower 14 meters high. The tower had a plank roof, upon which a patrol attic was made where a watch bell was hung. The Malakhovskie gates on the outside were surrounded by an earthwork and a ditch, crossed by a 15-meter long bridge. The 3-meter bridge span adjoining the gates was hoistable.
All the 13 blind rectangular towers are brought out towards the field. Many-faceted (round) towers (16 of them) alternated with rectangular ones throughout the entire perimeter of the wall. They were located in the corners and were moved out beyond the lines of the wall being strong outposts. It is these towers that were connected underground to secret sortie tunnels, running along the outside of the walls. Round towers also had machicolations. Each one of the towers was a defensive pivot for outward and inward defense and kept within fire range the surrounding territory, approaches to the wall and even the sally ports of the wall.
To protect the towers on the outer side of the fortress timber constructions filled with earth were built, in front of which there was a high palisade. Such fortifications were made in front of the Kryloshevskie and Avramievskie gates, Volkova and Iverskaya towers. In front of the Frolovskie gates an abatis was built — a mound with sharpened poles thickly stuck into it. An earthwork that remained from the previous fortress became a second inner line of defense stretching from the Avramievskie gates to the Gurkina tower.
The remaining towers
2 – Volkova (Semenskaya, Volkhovskaya, Strelka). In 1833, it was completely destroyed and in 1877 it was rebuilt. In architectural design it differs from the original and is fashioned in resemblance with Smolensk’s old towers.
4 – Kostyrevskaya (Krasnaya, Kryloshevskaya, Porokhovaya). It is on the site of this tower that the Polish were able, while attacking the fortress, to explode a 20-meter long section of the wall, break into the city through the breach, and seize it. In 1833, it was completely destroyed and rebuilt. The construction is stylized in the fashion of the old Smolensk towers. At the present time there is a café named “Tower” in the tower.
7 – Veselukha (Lutchinskaya). It received its name because of its location where the local dwellers liked to pass their time in the open air. From the tower “a jolly panoramic view” can be seen — a beautiful sight on the Dnieper. In the title Lutchinskaya we can find topographic connection of this tower to the river valley of the Dnieper — this name was original. During the construction of the tower underneath its foundation a secret sortie tunnel was built (a hider).
8 – Pozdniakova (Rogovka). In 1609-1611, the Polish attacked in the vicinity of this tower during their fiercest storms. In 1633, while besieging Smolensk, the Muscovite army dug a mine sap to it from the Devil’s ditch (Charles James’ camp on Rachevka). This was not carried out through because troops of the Polish king Vladislav came to the defenders’ rescue. The remains of the sap at the foot of the tower could be still seen in the beginning of the XX century.
9 – Orel (Gorodetskaya). Gorodetskaya received its name from an earthwork erected in front of it on the outward side that was originally called “gorod” (town). The other name — “Orel” — is related to the so-called Orlov earthwork located in the middle of the mountain below the tower. It was one of the most fortified eastern posts of the fortress. During the building under its foundation a gallery or “slukh” was constructed. As the legend has it, thieves hid in these underground galleries stretching from the Rachev Lake at the time of Catherine II, and a Pole Zmiyavsky made false coins here; the workshop itself existed for 20 years, and in 1750 the underground was filled with earth.
10 – Avramievskaya (the Avramievskie Gates). Received its name from a monastery founded on this spot by reverent Avramiy in XII century. During the siege of 1609-1611, it suffered from mainstream storms of the Poles.
11 – Belykha (Zaaltarnaya, Avramievskaya, Zolotarnaya). It is believed that the name Zaaltarnaya was given because it was located behind the altar of a wooden church of the Avramievsky monastery. When the tower was being constructed, a secret gallery of “slukh” was constructed under the foundation of its walls. In 1633, it was one of the objects the main strikes of Shein’s troops were aimed at. Sappers dug their underground passes to it.