The Most Impressive Forts in Russia
5 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most impressive forts in Russia are Ivangorod Fortress, Pskov Krom and Peter and Paul Fortress. The list covers 5 forts. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Russia's fortresses guarded rivers and frontiers, and the most important of them grew into kremlins, walled citadels holding cathedrals, palaces and the seat of power. Builders mixed local tradition with Italian engineering of the late 15th century, and Peter the Great added a new generation of bastioned forts to defend his window on the Baltic.
The Moscow Kremlin, with red-brick walls and towers raised by Italian masters in the late 15th century, encloses cathedrals where tsars were crowned and buried. The Kazan Kremlin combines Russian and Tatar heritage, with the leaning Söyembikä Tower beside the domes of Annunciation Cathedral and the modern Qolşärif Mosque. Ivangorod Fortress, founded in 1492 by Ivan III, faces the castle of Narva across the river. The Peter and Paul Fortress on Hare Island marks the founding of St Petersburg in 1703, and its cathedral is the burial place of the Romanov emperors.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ivangorod Fortress | Fortress | |
| 2 | Pskov Krom | Fortress | |
| 3 | Peter and Paul Fortress | Fort | ✓ |
| 4 | Qazan Kremlin | Fortress | ✓ |
| 5 | Kremlin | Fortress | ✓ |
01 Ivangorod Fortress
Russia · 2.7 km from Narva59.375° N 28.208° E
Photographer: Mosbatho · CC BY 4.0 Restoration began in the 1960s under Estonian specialists and continued with Russian teams from 1985; the fortress has been open to visitors since 1987, and a joint Estonian–Russian project in the 2010s conserved the original walls of 1492 and a seventeenth-century powder store. Inside the walls are the churches of the Assumption (1496) and St Nicholas, and a museum with paintings by Ivan Bilibin, archaeological finds and displays on the Livonian and Great Northern Wars. The real spectacle, though, is the view: two rival fortresses staring at each other across a border river that has divided powers for more than five centuries.
Did you know? It reached its final shape in 1558, when an earthen rampart called the Boyar Bank completed nearly seven decades of expansion.
02 Pskov Krom
Russia · 1 km from Pskov57.821° N 28.329° E
Alexxx1979 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Above the walls rises the Trinity Cathedral, completed in 1699 as the fourth church on this spot, and nearby stand the Prikaznye Palaty of the 1690s, the only surviving 17th-century civil building in the kremlin. Much of the complex was in ruins by the 20th century and was restored from 1952 onwards; in 2010 a fire destroyed the tent roofs of the Vlasyevskaya and Rybnitskaya towers. Today the Krom is part of the Pskov Museum-Reserve. Visitors can walk the grounds, view the excavated remains of medieval Pskov in Dovmont's Town and look out over the meeting of the two rivers.
03 Peter and Paul Fortress
Russia · 1 km from Saint Petersburg59.950° N 30.317° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by OlgaSadrova from Pixabay At its centre is the Peter and Paul Cathedral (1712–1733), whose gilded spire topped by an angel rises to 122.5 metres and remains a signature of the skyline. The cathedral is the burial place of the Romanov imperial family, with a separate Grand Ducal burial vault beside it. Other sights include the Trubetskoy Bastion prison cells, the Commandant's House, the Boat House and the working Saint Petersburg Mint. Since 1873 a signal gun has been fired from the Naryshkin Bastion every day at noon. On the Neva side, between the Naryshkin and Trubetskoy bastions, a narrow beach under the granite walls is a favourite spot for sunbathing from the first warm days of spring — swimming is not allowed.
Did you know? Nikolai Chernyshevsky wrote his influential novel What Is to Be Done? while held in the fortress in the early 1860s.
04 Qazan Kremlin
Russia · 5.2 km from Kazan55.797° N 49.107° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by 6649312 from Pixabay That pairing of a great mosque and an Orthodox cathedral inside one fortress is what makes the Kazan Kremlin unusual,. UNESCO inscribed the Kazan Kremlin as a World Heritage Site in 2000.
Did you know? The cathedral's five-tier bell tower was built to resemble Moscow's Ivan the Great Bell Tower, but was pulled down by the Soviets in 1930.
05 Kremlin
Russia · 0.4 km from Moscow55.752° N 37.618° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by dondelord from Pixabay The Kremlin still marks the centre of Moscow, the Russian capital. Red Square and St Basil's Cathedral lie against its eastern wall, and the Alexander Garden follows the western side. The complex remains the working seat of the Russian presidency, so visitors see only the museum areas.
Did you know? In the Second World War the Kremlin was disguised from the air: towers repainted, roofs coloured rusty brown, and painted fabric stretched over the gardens.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most impressive forts in Russia?
- On our list, Ivangorod Fortress ranks first, followed by Pskov Krom and Peter and Paul Fortress.
- What is a kremlin?
- A kremlin is the fortified core of an old Russian town, enclosing churches, administrative buildings and residences. Moscow's is the best known, but Kazan, Novgorod, Pskov and many other cities have their own.
- Who is buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral?
- Nearly all Russian emperors and empresses from Peter the Great onward, and in 1998 the remains of Nicholas II and his family were reburied there.
- How many forts are on this list in Russia?
- The list covers 5 forts.