Petrovsky Gate of the Peter and Paul Fortress: description, photo. The main entrance to the fortress

Alexander Nevsky is rightly called one of the greatest commanders. He is a symbol of military valor and glory. And also the heavenly patron of St. Petersburg.

The bronze sculpture of Alexander Nevsky stands today on a granite pedestal and faces the same direction as the bronze horseman, as if making a single march. About the history of the creation of the sculpture Lydia Vielba.

LYDIA VIELBA, correspondent:

“Today it is impossible to imagine St. Petersburg without the bronze figure of Alexander Nevsky in military armor. This is the fifth equestrian monument in St. Petersburg. It seems that it has always stood here, from the moment a monastery appeared on the square - the Holy Trinity Lavra, named after the Grand Duke.”

“If it weren’t for him, it would be somehow empty!”
— A reminder to St. Petersburg residents that we are protected by such a great commander.
— I think I fit in with the ensemble.

In fact, the choice of location is still being debated. They wanted to perpetuate the memory of the commander at the beginning of the twentieth century. But installing a secular monument to a warrior next to a spiritual monastery was then considered blasphemy.

A century later, ethical disagreements have subsided. But car enthusiasts did not like the image of the prince. For his pointing gesture, he was dubbed the “Traffic Controller.”

NADEZHDA EFREMOVA,senior researcher at the Museum of Urban Sculpture:

“There were cases when we lost control and flew into the fence. Of course, he lives with the big city.”

The bronze commander is only 15 years old. Its creator Valentin Kazenyuk, after winning the competition for the best projects, wrote: “If I erect a monument on the square in front of the Lavra, then the next day I might die.”

He passed away earlier. And he entrusted the completion of the image, which he had been working on for thirty years, to his student Alexander Palmin.

The sculptor remembers well the hot summer of 1999, when the clay dried out and crumbled right in his hands. What can we say about a five-meter figure? In his workshop, he debunks the myth that the bas-reliefs contain a piece of the relics of the holy noble prince.

ALEXANDER PALMIN,

“I myself found out about this by accident, I was asked the question: “Are there really particles there?” I don’t know about the particles of relics, but about a particle of my soul - this monument definitely contains Valentin Grigorievich.”

On May 9, 2002, the bronze horseman took his place on the granite pedestal. Top officials headed by Governor Vladimir Yakovlev came to the opening.

ALEXANDER PALMIN,sculptor, co-author of the monument to Alexander Nevsky:

“Valentin Grigoryevich Kazenyuk did this. He said himself that he looked like you. I deliberately made him younger, more courageous, so that, God forbid, they would say that he looked like me, but nevertheless.”

There is another unconditional similarity in the image, which Leningraders immediately noticed. In the warrior’s face they saw the features of the legendary actor Nikolai Cherkasov, who was awarded the Order of Lenin for his role in the film “Alexander Nevsky”.

The bas-reliefs on the monument did not appear immediately. They decorated the granite pedestal a few years later. Alexander Palmin is convinced that the author and teacher Valentin Kazenyuk would support the idea.

LYDIA VIELBA, correspondent:

“Moreover, one of them shows the scene of the battle on the Neva in 1240, when the Novgorodians, led by the Grand Duke, defeated the army of Earl Birger that invaded Rus'. After this, Alexander Yaroslavich began to be called Nevsky.”

Trezzini D. A.

Petrovsky Gate is the first triumphal gate in St. Petersburg. This monument is part of the Petrovskaya Curtain of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The Petrovsky Gate is the only such structure preserved in St. Petersburg from the time of Peter I.

In the fall of 1707, Peter I ordered: “In the future 708, the gates will be made similar to the ones in Narva.” The Emperor had in mind the construction of the entrance gate to the St. Petersburg fortress. The prototype was taken from the gate that was built by the architect Domenico Trezzini in Narva. He was also entrusted with the creation of this monument.

By the summer of 1708, the Menshikov and Golovkin fortress bastions and the curtain (wall) between them were already ready in brick. The passage in the wall also had to be made of stone. Most historians believe that it was not possible to quickly find building material. And Peter I demanded that they be built quickly. Therefore, in 1708, the first Peter's Gate was built of wood. This is refuted by K.V. Malinovsky, who in the book “St. Petersburg of the 18th Century” explains this “fact” only as an error in the translation of the German text. He quotes a document written personally by Peter I: " In the next year 708, do stone work in St. Petersburg... 4. Make the gates similar to the Narva gates and build them in three years"[Quoted from: 2, pp. 58, 59]. That is, the period allotted by the tsar also indicates that the Petrovsky Gate was originally built from stone. The assumption about the use of wood comes from the fact that the figure of the saint was made from this material Apostle Peter with two large keys in his hand, installed on the outside of the gate. Presumably, it was created by the German carver Franz Ludwig Ziegler.

At first the gate was called the Upper Gate. Later, Nizhnye also appeared - facing Vasilyevsky Island. The first Peter's Gate was decorated with wooden figures of the Apostle Peter, two geniuses of Glory and allegorical statues of “Faith” and “Hope” standing on volutes. To the right of the arch there was an iron plaque with the date of the fortress's founding. It was because of the figure of the Apostle Peter that the monument was called Peter's Gate.

On April 4, 1714, Peter I ordered to change the sculptural decoration of the Peter's Gate, which was carried out by Trezzini in 1716-1717. The height and width of the monument were about 16 meters. The gate arch gives passage through the entire thickness of the wall of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

At the top of the Petrovsky Gate there is a bas-relief depicting the god of hosts holding a sphere in his hand - a symbol of universal power. Below is the main bas-relief "The Overthrow of Simon the Magus by the Apostle Peter." In Peter's time, this image was interpreted as nothing other than the overthrow of the Swedish king Charles XII by Peter I. In the center of the bas-relief you can see the church - the first building of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The figure to the right of it points to the temple; the face of this figure is given the facial features of Peter I. The width of the bas-relief is 4.9 meters, the height is 3.35 meters. Initially, the order for the casting of the bas-reliefs was entrusted to Trezzini by Bartolomeo Rastrelli. But Peter I considered the demands of this sculptor too great. The author of the bas-relief was the German master carver Konrad Osner. He cast it after the death of Peter I.

In the niches of the gate on the sides of the arch there are figures personifying wisdom (with a snake and a mirror) and power (in military armor).

A lead double-headed eagle is mounted above the arch. In Peter’s time, it was not only the coat of arms of Russia, but also served as a symbol of the victorious Russian army. It is believed that the eagle was originally made of wood, painted “to resemble oak.” Historian K.V. Malinovsky believes that the first figure of an eagle was made of plaster. In the book "St. Petersburg of the 18th Century" he provides references to documents according to which the Office of City Affairs paid money " Ivan Prokofiev and four other people at the Petrovsky Gate in the city for repairing two figures with plaster work, for counterfeiting an eagle again with plaster work"[Quoted from: 2, p. 107].

A double-headed lead eagle was mounted on the Petrovsky Gate in August 1720. Its weight is more than 86 pounds (a little over a ton). The author of the two-headed eagle, sculptor-foundry maker François Vassou, worked on it for more than a year. In 1723, the artist Alexander Zakharov and the gilder Ivan Uvarov painted the figure black and gilded the crowns, scepter, orb, and parts of the shield.

Trezzini's bas-reliefs of the Petrovsky Gate were intended to be made of lead. He planned to cast them in 1722, but three years later Trezzini reported: “ If these basorlevs and figures are not going to be poured out of lead now, then instead of the two figures at those gates, standing ones in niches that were made with care and were damaged by frost, cut out wooden ones and paint them and put them in these niches until the time the lead ones are poured"[ibid]. The creation of wooden statues began in the same 1725. And in 1729, not only ready-made wooden figures were installed on the Petrovsky Gate, but also wooden bas-reliefs. That is, they completely abandoned their production from lead.

In 1730, carver Pyotr Fedorov made wooden bas-reliefs decorating the volutes of the Petrovsky Gate.

In 1756, part of the sculptural decorations of the Petrovsky Gate burned down in a fire.

During the Leningrad blockade, the Petrovsky Gate was damaged by shell fragments. In 1951 they were restored. According to the project of architects A. L. Rotach and A. A. Kedrinsky, the lost details of the sculptural decoration of the monument were recreated.

Boris Romanov
chapter of the book "Mystical rhythms of Russian history".

CULTURAL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD and TOLERANCE
The well-known definition of “St. Petersburg is the cultural capital of Russia” is actually deeply historical and can be expanded in a historical sense to the formula “St. Petersburg is the cultural capital of the world”! Indeed, in our city, in an amazing, sometimes mysterious and mystical way, but always extremely harmoniously and beautifully presented and fused by a common architectural ensemble, the entire world history of culture, philosophy, religion: from ancient Egypt, Hellas, Rome, ancient Russian paganism (images of the Horseman and the Snake ), before Christianity.
It is generally accepted that our city has always, with the exception of the period 1917-1991, 74 years (“the period of Nostradamus”), has been and remains the most tolerant city in Russia. But religious tolerance also has its downside: St. Petersburg is also a city of ups and downs of the heresies of Christianity - Gnosticism and Freemasons. Let us remember that it was from the time of Peter I that Freemasonry flourished in the magnificent colors of the “Order of the Scottish Thistle”.
The history of the beginning and construction of St. Petersburg is full of mystical coincidences, both in itself and in the context of the history of world culture, and the capitals of world culture: from Thebes and Alexandria, through Constantinople and Kyiv, with fatal zigzags to Moscow. If we talk about the mysticism of the history of St. Petersburg itself, then, just as the Apostle Peter, according to the Savior’s prediction, denied Him three times, so St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad, and since 1991 again St. Petersburg, the city of three revolutions, three times changed my name!

NORTH PALMYRA
Peter himself called the city he founded “Paradise” and “Northern Palmyra”. In a broad sense, in our modern understanding, this is, respectively, “heaven on earth” and “the most beautiful city in the world.” The current “average Petersburger” is unlikely to say anything more about this. However, Peter the Great was more educated than many of us. Look in the encyclopedia, and you will find out that “Paradise” is an Avestan (ancient Iranian) place of bliss and peace of spirit (“pairidaeza”), and in the most original sense - royal hunting grounds in a square fence. Such a fence was also called “vara” - magical protection from the attacks of evil forces. It is probably no coincidence that the first plans for the city were drawn out using a ruler: to this day we have almost no “crooked” streets in our city!
Through Greek influence, the word “Paradise” penetrated into Europe first as an image of the architectural embodiment of paradise on earth - the ancient Greeks in the 4th-5th centuries. BC. The stunning palaces of the ancient Iranian kings were called “Paradises”. Palmyra is an actual small kingdom and city on the border of the Roman Empire and Persia in the second century BC. It flourished thanks to the wise reign of Queen Zinovia, by the way, the patroness of the hermetic and occult sciences. She surrounded herself with both Roman and Greek and Persian sages and invited the best architects to her kingdom. Palmyra was famous in the ancient world for its incomparable beauty and the learning of its rulers.
Finally, in the first half of the 19th century, when Nicholas I began to build St. Isaac's Cathedral in our city, erected the Alexander Column and brought granite sphinxes from ancient Egyptian Thebes, St. Petersburg began to be called “New Thebes”. Thus, named in the name of the Holy Apostle Peter, our city from the very beginning absorbed the spirit of the ancient religion of monotheism (monotheism) of the Avesta, and the symbol of the mixture of all cultures and religions of Europe and Asia, and secret knowledge - Palmyra - and the most ancient the source of “post-flood” humanity, ancient Egypt.

PROPHECY AND BLESSING OF THE VORONEZH ELDER
Peter the Great began to build a new capital according to the prophecy and blessing of the bishop, the Voronezh elder Mitrofaniy (1623-1703), who was then canonized. This blessing was received by Peter in his youth, during the construction of the admiralty and fleet in Voronezh, before the second Azov campaign in 1696: “You will live in other palaces in the north, and you will build a new capital - a great city in honor of St. Peter. God bless you for this. The Kazan icon will be the cover of the city and all the people. As long as the Kazan Icon is in the capital and Orthodox Christians pray before it, the enemy’s foot will not enter the city.” These were the words of Bishop Mitrofan’s blessing.

Icon of the Kazan Mother of God - one of the most revered shrines of Orthodoxy.

The Kazan Icon of the Mother of God was solemnly transferred from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 1710, and in 1904 it was stolen from the Kazan Cathedral. After 13 years, enemy forces captured not only Petrograd, but soon the entire country. The further fate of that icon is mysterious. According to some reports, it eventually ended up in Portuguese Fatima and only recently (a couple of years ago) was returned by agreement of the Pope and the Russian Orthodox Church.
Returning to Bishop Mitrofan, in 1696, in Voronezh the elder refused to enter the house built by Peter until he removed all the statues of pagan gods he loved from it, despite all the threats of the young king. Before his death, he accepted the schema with the name Macarius. Peter participated in the removal of his body and after the burial said: “I don’t have another such holy elder left”. The prophetic words of the saint were perceived by Peter as the work of his whole life destined for him from above, which he carried out with unshakable perseverance (V.N. Avseenko. History of the city of St. Petersburg. 1703-1903., reprint 1993). In 1832, the relics of Elder Macarius were discovered incorrupt.
However, fatally, all the royal rulers of the city violated the covenant of St. Mitrophanius Macarius not to surround themselves and their palaces with “pagan” statues and symbols. And is it possible to imagine St. Petersburg without dozens of sculptures and hundreds of bas-reliefs of Poseidons, Hermes-Mercuries, Aphrodites, and finally - without granite sphinxes? In this sense, the most accurate name remains Northern Palmyra.

THE DEPLOYMENT OF SIMON THE MAGIC
In the Christian tradition, all the most dangerous heresies of “paganism” against Christianity are associated with the name of Simon the Magus. His only image in our city is in the Peter and Paul Fortress. This bas-relief appeared in its original form in 1707 and was executed by the architect Dominico Trezzini.

On the attic and pediment of the Petrovsky Gate at the entrance to the fortress there is a relief image of the biblical story “The Overthrow of Simon the Magus by the Apostle Peter.”
Chapter 8 of the “Acts of the Holy Apostles” tells the story of the Samarian magician (magician) Simon, who at first wanted to become a disciple and successor of the apostles of Christ, but at the same time asked them for all their money to buy the gift of grace and the ability to give the grace of the Holy Spirit himself, outwardly expressed in fiery luminous phenomena and speaking in many languages. After the Apostle Peter refused him this and suggested that he repent of the sin of thinking about receiving the gift of God for money, Simon left the apostles and then (according to apocryphal legends), many years later he conquered Rome with his abilities to perform miracles, including flying. air “like a bird”. The Apostle Peter eventually also ended up in Rome and there, according to legend, by the power of prayer he deprived Simon of the support of the demons that were holding him in the air - Simon, with great noise, in front of the amazed crowd (and the emperor), was thrown down from a height and fell to the ground. This is the biblical story.
Simon the Magus is considered the founder of the heresy of Gnosticism, still the main anti-Christian heresy; In the Middle Ages, the term “simony” arose, often used to refer to the trading of church positions, but also including the meaning of receiving grace for money. This, in the briefest form, is the information we need about Simon the Magus. This is what the famous St. Petersburg historian V. Nikitin said about the history of this bas-relief.
Quote:
<<На барельефе Петровских ворот изображена крепость, стоящая на скале, слева и справа от нее - две толпы. Впереди левой группы несколько выделяется фигура коленопреклоненного человека с бородой, в простой одежде, творящего молитву. Симон волхв изображен как бородатый мужик в армяке, подпоясанном веревкой, летящий с высоты вниз головой в окружении демонов. В правой группе людей можно разглядеть фигуру безбородого древнеримского военачальника, взирающего на происходящее.
So, in a whole series of publications, speeches by different authors on radio and TV about this painting (bas-relief), such confusion is created that you don’t even understand who is standing where and what is doing? Either in the face of the Roman commander they see the features of Peter I, and even call him the Apostle Peter, then in the image of the falling sorcerer they see Charles XII (in an Armenian jacket belted with a rope!), then they will come up with something else similar. But all the comments boil down to one thing: the bas-relief is supposedly an allegory of Sweden’s defeat in the Northern War, the triumph of Peter I.

There are a number of obvious inconsistencies here. First of all, a Christian apostle cannot be dressed in the armor of a Roman warrior and, on the other hand, the face of this warrior in the bas-relief bears very little resemblance to the face of the Russian Tsar. But even if someone thinks that it resembles, then the question arises: why then did Trezzini not give an external resemblance to King Charles to the figure of Simon the Magus? Why didn’t he “shave” him and “dress” him in a manner befitting a king? Why does the apostle common to all Christians (Peter) overthrow the Christian king? Charles XII is not a pagan or a demon, not an idol and not an atheist - especially not a bearded man in the clothes of a commoner! Finally, if Trezzini wanted to symbolize with his bas-relief Russia’s access to the sea, then it was possible to use another plot, for example, from chapter 12 of the same “Acts”, where an Angel with a sword frees the Apostle Peter from prison. Or the story from the Old Testament about Samson tearing the mouth of a lion (Lion is the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Sweden) - this symbol was used many years later in Peterhof.

So, what does this plot mean on the bas-relief of the Peter's Gate? Of course, the Apostle Peter is depicted as a kneeling man praying in front of a group of people on the left. But the beardless Roman warrior in the crowd on the right is most likely a symbolic figure of an outside observer: neither a Jew nor a Christian, and that is why she is singled out from the rest. He, this pragmatic European, still has to make a choice.
Well, what does the plot of the bas-relief as a whole mean? Probably, it contains a broader meaning than the victory over Sweden that was still hoped for in 1707, namely, the confidence that the heavenly patron of the city, the Apostle Peter, will overthrow all the enemies of Russia, no matter what clothes they wear. There were many enemies then, both external and internal. Probably, the desire for victory over Charles XII also guided the plan, but was not limited to this. Now, in the 21st century, the figure of the overthrown Simon the Magus and the entire plot of the bas-relief evoke associations rather with the history of Russia from 1917-1991, and to the present day>>.

THREE ANGELS OVER THE CITY
We emphasize, however, that the very name of the city and the crusader angels on its spiers seem to leave no doubt about the true Christian spirit of St. Petersburg. The spirit is impeccable, but the Soul of the city is mysterious, sometimes it becomes dark and breathes heavily with the floods of the pagan god Neptune...
The Golden Angel crowns the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Silver (silver plated) is installed on the dome of the Orthodox Church of St. Catherine on Vasilyevsky Island. During the Siege, the cross was lost, and the townspeople called it “an angel - empty hands.” It was removed for restoration in 2004 and has not yet been restored.
Well, on top of the Alexander Column (on Palace Square) stands a bronze Angel, trampling on a snake.
****
http://proza.ru/2010/05/30/70
In 2011, published in one of

In the future, the purchase and sale of the priesthood will be called simony - after Simon the Magus, who first tried to buy the grace-filled gift of the priesthood from the apostles.

In other sources

The further fate of Simon is known from other sources (mainly through Irenaeus and Hippolytus, who used the “Syntagma” of Saint Justin, Simon’s fellow countryman, that has not reached us). From Samaria, Simon arrived in Tyre, where, with money rejected by the apostles, he ransomed the woman Helen, who had been there for 10 years, from a fornication and declared her a creative thought (Greek: έπινοια ) the supreme Deity, who through her gave birth to the archangels and angels who created our world. He presented himself as this supreme God as manifested in the past, present and future (ό εστώς, στάς, στησόμενος).

Applying Christian terms, Simon the Magus declared that he is the “father”, “son” and “holy spirit” - three manifestations of the one super-heavenly (Greek. ύπερουράνιος ) God: how father he appeared in Samaria in the person of Simon; How son- in Judea, in the person of Jesus, whom he left before the crucifixion; How holy spirit he will enlighten the pagans throughout the entire universe. About inseparable with him thoughts of God he said that the cosmic spirits created by her, driven by the lust for power and ignorance, did not want to recognize her supremacy and, having imprisoned her in the shackles of sensory-corporeal existence, forced her to successively move from one female body to another.

She appeared, like Homer's Helen, as the culprit of the Trojan War, and after 1000 years she found herself a prostitute in Tyre, where Simon the Magus, who followed all her transformations, picked her up like a good shepherd a lost sheep. The news of Simon's journey to Rome and his successes there is completely plausible, but these successes, of course, did not reach the level of public honors from the emperor and the Senate, as reported by church writers, misled by an erroneous reading of the inscription on one statue dedicated to the Latinized Semitic deity Semo Sancus. The pseudo-clementines contain a lot of detailed, but unreliable information about Simon: about his long confrontation with the Apostle Peter in Caesarea and Rome, about his unsuccessful attempt to ascend to heaven and even more unsuccessful - to rise from the tomb, where, at his request, the disciples laid him alive, and three days later he was found dead.

Death of Simon Magus

The main tendency in the fictional portrayal of Simon in Clementines is to identify him with the Apostle Paul as “the enemy of the Mosaic law and the crafty perverter of true Christianity.” The historical Simon, as the founder of Gnostics, and the Apostle Paul had only this common feature that both of them, although in different directions, decisively brought the religious thought of Christians out of the confines of contemporary orthodox Judaism. Although Simon was undoubtedly involved in Hellenistic education, the theosophical work “Great Exposition” (Greek. μεγάλη απόφασις ), from which significant passages are cited by Hippolytus, is questioned; in any case, it is certain that this curious work, with religious and mystical content imbued with the philosophical concepts of Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristotle and the Stoics, came from among the closest followers of Simon.

The author of the “Great Exposition” designates the absolute beginning of everything possible and real as a dual fire - hidden and obvious (Greek. πϋρ διπλουν - το μέν τι κρυπτόν, το δέ τι φανερον ); the first is hidden in the second, the second arises from the first. In addition to the metaphorical name of the supercelestial fire (Greek. το πύρ ύπερουράνιον ), the absolute beginning of Simon is also indicated philosophically through the Aristotelian concepts of δύναμις and ερέργεια (potency and act). The first act of the absolute beginning is an all-encompassing thought (Greek. επινοια ), mentally giving birth to which the absolute is defined as mind and father.

First couple (Greek) συζυγία ) - mind and thought, turning internally towards themselves, develop into two others: sound and name, reason and lust. Hidden in these “six roots of being,” the single absolute principle is itself an invisible force, an incomprehensible silence (Greek. δύναμις σιγή αορατος, άκαταληπτος ); in its pure potentiality, as an unrevealed germ or point of being, it is predominantly small (Greek. το μικρόν ); but, being such only for appearance, it becomes great, defining itself as mind and thought and eternally drawing out from itself all further definitions of the intelligible world - and the mentally great ego becomes limitless in the phenomena of the real world, which develops according to the same scheme of active-passive , male-female combinations, like the intelligible world.

The first syzygy (mind and thought) corresponds here to heaven and earth, the second (sound and name) to the sun and moon, the third (reason and lust) to air and water. The single true agent and engine of this entire logical and physical process is the same absolute principle in its appearance, or “manifest fire”, the great creative force, “depicted” in everything visible and invisible - that έστώς οτάς, στησόμενος with which he identified himself Simon. In the “Great Exposition” this actual being (Greek. ών ) God is represented by the speaker as pre-eternal or pre-existing (Greek. προυπάρχουσα ) to the power of the deity (to the absolute first principle as such): “You and I are one, before me is you, what is behind you is me.” This “second god” - or the entire reality of the absolute - is also called the seventh force, as the completion of all affairs emanating from the seven roots of being in the world above and below. It is impossible to establish a direct connection between this speculation and the mystical romance of mind and thought - Simon and Helena, probably because the "Great Exposition" has not reached us in its entirety. Of the followers of Simon and Helena, church historians do not name major names; stands directly behind Simon

Petrovsky Gate- the “front entrance” to the fortress, the very first and initially only gate of the Peter and Paul Fortress, is located in the Petrovskaya curtain (wall) between the Sovereign and Menshikov bastions. Built in 1708-1717 by Domenico Trezzini in the form of a triumphal (victory) arch in honor of the liberation of the banks of the Neva from the enemy. On both sides of the arch, in niches, there are statues created by the French sculptor Nicolas Pinault. On the left is Athena in the form of Polyadas, patroness of cities. In her hand is a snake (a symbol of wisdom) and a mirror, with the help of which the goddess can even see what is happening behind her back. On the right is also Athena, but in the form of Pallas, a just, victorious warrior in military armor. On her helmet is a salamander, a symbol of invincibility. The gate is decorated with a lead double-headed eagle by the French sculptor Francois Vasse (1720) and a wooden bas-relief.

Bas-relief “The Overthrow of Simon the Magus by the Apostle Peter” (issue 67 – Peter and Paul Fortress)

Bas-relief “The Overthrow of Simon the Magus by the Apostle Peter” sculptor Kondrat Osner on the Petrovsky Gate. According to the New Testament myth, Simon, with the help of demons, rose to the clouds and imagined himself to be the ruler of the world. The Apostle Peter dispersed the demons and overthrew the impostor. As you might guess, the arrogant Simon is identified with the Swedish king Charles XII, and the Apostle Peter with Peter I. In the center of the composition is the first building of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, to the right of which the figure of the emperor himself can be guessed. The general supervision of the construction of the fortress in 1703-1705 was carried out by the German military engineer Wilhelm Kirshenstein. In 1706, the reconstruction of the fortress in stone began according to the design of the French engineer Joseph Lamber and the Italian architect Doménico Trezzini. In 1727, supervision of the construction of the fortress was entrusted to a military engineer of German origin, the future Russian Field Marshal Christopher Minich.