Kronstadt -- that famous naval bastion that every Russian schoolboy learns about -- is the place where sailors mutinied against the Bolsheviks and were ruthlessly crushed.
Until fairly recently, this historic naval base outside St Petersburg was off-limits to foreigners: a secret, closed town of naval institutions and war ships.
Peter the Great -- founder of Kronstadt and the Russian navy
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But today you can go on an excursion to the fortress and spend an afternoon on this fascinating island chosen by Peter the Great to protect his Venice of the North -- St Petersburg.
We joined a tour organized by the Russian firm Electica. Tours to Kronstadt costing 30,000 roubles depart every Saturday at 2pm from outside the Dumskaya Ulitsa clock tower on Nevsky Prospect.
First piece of advice: get there early or you'll end up sitting on the floor of the coach. I'm not joking; this firm tends to oversubscribe its tours and ten people on our trip either had to stand the whole way or their children had to sit on their laps!
Having dealt with the drawbacks, the good news is that the guide was excellent and certainly knew his history inside out. And if you don't understand any Russian, the firm also organizes tours with English guides. These tours will cost you around 100,000 roubles.
Having said all that, the island itself isn't terribly picturesque or interesting today. It lives more on its glorious past and its history, which is fascinating.
Peter the Great captured the island, originally called Kotlin, from the Swedes in 1703 and quickly built a fort and docks there to protect the vulnerable approaches to St Petersburg.
By the end of 1704, there was a three-layer fortress surrounded by embankments. It was called Kronschlot, and Peter the Great gave the order "to defend this fortress with God's help even if the last soldier should fall."
Gradually, the deserted island in the Gulf of Finland became the biggest naval base in Russia, and a small town grew up around it which relied on the fortress for employment.
It takes an hour to get to Kronstadt on the new motorway that is still being completed over a dam across the Gulf. Our first port of call was the dry docks where ships were repaired and made fit for battle. It is also here, on the main canal, that sea-level and altitude are measured in Russia. Our guide pointed out that when Yuri Gagarin was in space, the Kronstadt Mark was used to accurately measure his height above the earth.
After the death of Peter the Great, many of his projects were shelved and nobody seemed in a hurry to replace the wooden walls of the fortress with stone.
After almost 20 years of inactivity, it was decided to invite a specialist capable of modernizing and reconstructing Kronstadt and building docks to repair the ships.
That specialist turned out to be the talented Swedish engineer Baron Johaan Ludwig Von Luberas, who had studied engineering in France. In 1739, he took charge of the canal's construction and was helped by Captain Illarion Golenishchev-Kutuzov, father of the famous general who beat Napoleon.
On July 30, 1752 the canal was officially opened by the Empress Elizabeth, who was surrounded by her courtiers, foreign diplomats and scientists. On August 1 the first ship entered the dock. The canal's chief engineer did not live long to see his creation. Baron Von Luberas was dead within a week after its opening.
The channel to St Petersburg was dredged between 1875-85, and Kronstadt became a commercial port where cargoes were transferred to smaller ships.
Its fortifications, which were rebuilt and strengthened many times, played a notable role in the defense of St Petersburg against the Swedes, the British and later the Germans. Its sailors were involved in several Russian revolutionary movements and famous historic events.
A Kronstadt officer led the 1825 Decembrists uprising in St Petersburg, and it is believed that bombs used in assassination attempts against Tsar Alexander II were made at the naval academy there.
Inheritors of the Russian naval tradition
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A Kronstadt sailor was the leader of the military organization of the revolutionary Narodnaya Volya group (People's Will), and was shot in 1882. Mutinies broke out amongst the troops during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, but were suppressed. A statue of ill-fated Baltic Fleet Admiral Makarov, who perished in the Battle of Tsushima, stands in Kronstadt's main square, the admiral's feet engulfed by a Japanese sea dragon.
After the February Revolution in 1917, the Kronstadt Soviet opposed the Provisional Government and declared Kronstadt a republic. They later took part in the July 1917 mutiny.
The might of the Baltic fleet, silhouetted against the evening sky
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During the October Revolution, the Baltic fleet cruiser "Aurora" from Kronstadt bombarded the Winter Palace with blanks as a prelude to the Bolsheviks' seizure of power.
But Kronstadt is most famous for the Kronstadt Rebellion of March 1921, when its sailors mutinied against the Soviet government. The sailors had heard and felt the plight of the Russian people and the lack of food caused by the Civil War. Leon Trotsky and Mikhail Tukhachevsky led a force which successfully crushed the rebels and shot or imprisoned the survivors of the attack.
Kronstadt was also the cradle of several branches of Russian industry. In 1789 an iron foundry was built there. In 1801 it was transferred to St Petersburg and later became the well-known Putilov Iron Works.
The iron foundry produced cannon balls, small shot and grenades, and its first specialists came from England.
If you are interested in history and fancy seeing a fleet of warships, you'll enjoy Kronstadt. But as for picturesque scenery and stunning architecture, forget it. Practically the only building worth a look is an attractive Byzantine-style cathedral in the town's central square.
Kronstadt's Byzantine-style cathedral
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