Smolensk Fortress (Russia)
12 – Voronina.
13 – Shembelevka (Dolgachevskaya). There are different opinions concerning where this name of the tower came from. It was either derived from a historical person — general Shembel, or from the name of its former supervisor Shembel.
14 – Zimbulka.
15 – Nikolskie gates (Yeleninskie gates). The tower received its present name later because of its location. An old temple of Saint Nicolas was situated in front of its gates. In XIX century an icon of this saint was also set in an icon-case above the gates.
19 – Makhovaya. Received its name after a real person — Ivan Makhovtsev, a resident of the town, who headed up the defense of the tower during the storms of the Poles. In 1941-1945, the fascists shot Soviet civilians at this wall. At the present time, there are two modest tombstones at the western side of the section of the wall that remained intact.
23 – Donets. Received its name from the site of the accommodation of Streltsy, among whom there were many Don Cossacks, during the siege of 1610-1611. It survived to this day, though “very much spoiled by further reconstructions.” In 1912, a monument to the heroes of 1812 was set beside the tower. After the 1941-1945 war, curtain walls by the tower were turned into a place of burial of the soldiers fallen in fighting, and the eternal fire was opened in front of it.
24 – Gromovaya (Topinskaya, Tupinskaya). It received its name, as the legend has it, because a strong thunderbolt once rang above it. It was also moved out beyond the line of the wall in a menacing way, which allowed the defenders to open fire from it from all its levels, and it was “like thunder” in its might. The tower was connected by underground passages to both the outward ditch and later directly to the Governor’s house. Nowadays, an affiliate of historical museum — the Thunder Tower Museum — is located here.
25 – Bubleika. There is a theory that the tower received its name because as the enemy approached it, signals were sounded from it — the defenders played tambourines and beat into drums. Before the revolution, the wall and the tower served as the western fence of the Governor’s garden. A little north of the tower there is now the TV tower.
26 – Kopytenskaya Nadvratnaya (Kopytenskie gates). The tower is preserved almost intact. It received its name from the word “kopyta” (hoofs). Before the tower’s construction a road ran across the site, down which the cattle was brought to pastures outside the town. The pass arch was bricked under Catherine II, which made the arch impassable.
37 – Pyatnitskie Water Gates — rebuilt. They were blown up when Napoleon retreated from Smolensk in 1812. In 1816, a church in Empire style, stylized in the fashion of the ancient Smolensk towers, was built on this spot. The church was sanctified in the name of Nicholas the Wonderworker.
22 – Kassandalovskaya (Artashevskaya) – was fully destroyed on the night of November 17 of 1812 (old style) by Napoleon’s troops escaping from the city. In 1911-1912, the building of a city people’s school was erected here. At the present, museum “The Smolensk Land in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945” is located here. Behind the building in a park fenced on one side by the curtain walls of the fortress an exhibition of military machines is located.
1 – Dnieper gates (former Frolovskie gates). It is believed that it got its name because of an old temple of Frol and Lavr which used to stand nearby. The Dnieper tower above the gates was commissioned with the main goal — defense of the section of the fortress wall that covered the most populated and trading part of town near the Dnieper Bridge. From the direction of the Dnieper bridge a half-tower, a barbican, was adjoined to it.
The gates seriously differed from other towers of the fortress both by size and peculiar features of their structure.
When the wall lost its defensive significance the tower was partially disassembled and on the spot of its upper floor in 1728 a wooden temple above the gates for Hodegetria miraculous icon was erected.
In 1793-1800, a stone temple in forms of classicism called Bogomaterskiy was erected in the tower’s place.
According to the legend, from the balcony of this temple in 1812 Napoleon shot from two guns at the retreating Russian troops.
At the present time, in the temple built on the tower’s spot there is an orthodox lyceum.
29, 28 – Royal Bastion. A pentagonal earthen construction erected by the Poles after capturing Smolensk in 1611. Its territory included the remains of two 16-cornered and one 4-cornered Nameless Towers blown up during an attack.
One tower after its destruction became the Bastion’s center; the 16-cornered tower south of it, partially destroyed, was restored by the Poles up to the level of the fortress wall and became part of the southern section of the Bastion; on the spot of the third one curtain walls were erected.
For the building of the Bastion the material of all three towers was used as well as that of the earthworks made to intensify defense by the defenders of Smolensk under the city’s siege. The earthworks directly adjoined the ends of the wall and were laid with stone up to its height.
After the earth used for the building of the Bastion was removed, a wide lake was formed.
During the next several centuries the Royal Bastion became a place of confinement of Polish confederates, rebels and sectarians.
In 1874, Governor A. G. Lopatin turned the deprecated fortification into a beautiful garden with flowers, grottoes and statues. The garden later was given the name “Lopatinskiy.”
In Soviet times the garden was enlarged, improved, and it became a place of recreation for the residents, given the name “The central Park of Culture and Rest.” Nowadays, it bears its original name.
At the present, the shape of the Bastion remains almost the same as it was at the time of its construction. It has the form of an earthen hill, only without earthen partitions that connect the earthen facets. Three western facets are connected into one earthwork; the central one was diminished during the building of a stadium; the eastern ones are separate. The Masses field which is the central part of the former citadel and the summit of the south-eastern facet are an open field occupied by nothing else but entertainment and drinking establishments.
The towers that did not remain:
* Antifonskaya
* Bogoslavskaya
* Versereva (Ivarovskaya, Verjenova)
* Vodianaya (Gorodenskaya)
* Granovitaya
* Gurkina
* Yevstafievskaya (Brikareva)
* Kazanskaya
* Korolevskaya
* Round nameless tower
* Kryloshevskaya (Kryloshevskie gates)
* Lazarevskayaя (Cherepanovskaya)
* Malakhovskie gates (Molakhovskie gates)
* Nickolskaya (Mikulinskaya)
* Stephanovskaya (Stephanskaya, Golyshevskaya)
* Sheinovskaya (Kolomenskaya)