## Fortology lessons

After the Crimean War, when the joint English and French squadron had threatened Saint-Petersburg and had been stopped only by miracle and naval mines of Nobel and Jacobi, the Russian Goverment had decided to protect the sea approaches to the city by more reliable means (I have nothing against the naval mines, but they were not sufficient alone). Forts with the strong artillery were built on the Kotlin island as well as on the small artifical islands in the Finnish Gulf. They were later many times upgraded, rearmed and were in use until the 60-th years of the XXth century. After that they were used for different purposes and in the 0th they had become more-less available for visiting.

Beginning: fort "Konstantin".

In 2007 we, at that time called "Children of Underground", had started exploring Kronschtadt and soon decided to visit any fort. We had chosen the fort called "Grand Duke Konstantin", because it was connected with the Kotlin island. In a cold November day we (Mutabor and Soul) got off the bus, for a long time were walking under the cold wind and finally had reached our goal. We had seen the majecstic construction made of bricks, stone and concrete (pic 1). Without a hurry we started to look the fort over, making photos in the most picturesque places (pic 2–6). We had met nobody there. Of course, we also had interest in the fort's interiors. But the fort was looked after: all doors were locked, and other possible ways to get in were closed. There was evidence that the location is not fully abandoned (pic 7). Finally we had luck: in the farest part of the construction the door was opened. With a joy we entered it but soon were disappointed. First, inside was warmer than at the open air, so our glasses and the camera's lens momentarily were misted (pic 8). And the passage leading into the darkness was walled up (pic 9). So we had nothing to do other than coming back outside. With a misted lens the camera started producing the modern art objects like Photoshop :) (pic 10). This was how finished our first trip to the forts.

Copyleft Plutonia 2007
Don't forget your number!

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