Daugavpils Fortress: A Russian Imperial Military Complex in Latvia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Latvia
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Russian
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fortified Town
On this page15 sections
History
Daugavpils Fortress is a Russian imperial fortification complex in Daugavpils, Latvia, begun in 1810 to strengthen the empire’s western frontier before the expected war with Napoleon I. Originally known as Dinaburg Fortress and renamed Dvinsk Fortress in 1893, it was built in the early nineteenth-century military tradition and remained under construction until 1878, although its main works were complete by 1864.
Foundation and the 1812 invasion
Emperor Alexander I ordered the fortress at Dinaburg, the former name of Daugavpils, as part of Russia’s preparations for conflict with Napoleon. Colonel of Engineers Yegor Fyodorovich Hekel directed the initial works. His first project was rejected, after which he prepared a more elaborate design influenced by the Vauban system, a method of layered bastions, detached defenses, and covered approaches developed from the work of the French engineer Vauban by Cormontaigne and the Mézières engineering school. The project received approval on 8 August 1810.
The original plan called for a main fortress of seven fronts. Six fronts were to contain seven bastions and six lunettes, which were detached or projecting defensive works, linked to an inner rampart. The planned defensive lines measured 2,420 sazhen, and the projected garrison was 4,500 men with 569 guns. Construction was intended to last from 1810 to 1812, but the estimated cost of 761,008 rubles rose to 998,660 rubles spent during those years.
Work advanced slowly because roads were poor, building materials and entrenching tools arrived irregularly, construction teams were disorganized, and hot weather hindered progress. Serious flooding added to the difficulties. The defenses were still incomplete when Napoleon’s army invaded Russia in 1812.
French forces commanded by Marshal Nicolas-Charles Oudinot attacked on 1 July 1812. The first assault was repelled, and the French withdrew on 4 July. On 15 July, after a French brigade under Ricard approached from Marshal MacDonald’s corps, the Russian garrison abandoned the fortress. The soldiers destroyed the crossing and sank guns removed from the fortifications in the river. Ricard’s detachment briefly occupied Dinaburg, demolished parts of the defenses, destroyed the remaining defensive equipment, and then withdrew.
Completion and imperial military administration
Repair and construction resumed after the war under specialists from the Engineering Department of the Russian War Ministry. The fortress was placed under martial law during the Polish uprising of 1830, an insurrection against Russian rule in Polish territories. Jäger battalions left the fortress on 24 March 1831 to suppress the rebellion. Later that year, the artillery arsenal was transferred from Vilna to a purpose-built building within the fortress.
The fortress was consecrated on 21 May 1833 in the presence of Emperor Nicholas I and senior Russian clergy. It was placed under martial law again during the Polish uprising of 1863, when 258 guns of different types and calibres were transferred from the Revel Fortress.
During the 1860s and 1870s, the complex gained a water-supply system, a water-lifting building equipped with a steam engine and pump, cobbled streets, and some improved interior courtyards. A children’s shelter named for Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich opened in 1869 for orphans and soldiers’ children. The Vilna District Artillery Depot and its administration were established the same year. A local Russian Red Cross committee began work in 1875, followed by a government telegraph station in 1881.
A fortress fire brigade and a fortress gendarmerie unit were created in 1887, although both were abolished in 1914. By imperial decree, the city and fortress became Dvinsk and Dvinsk Fortress on 14 January 1893. On 12 April 1897, the fortress was converted into a fortress depot, changing its role from an active fortified position to a military storage and supply center.
War, occupation, and changing institutions
In 1914, the fortress depot was placed under martial law. The Dvinsk Military District was formed on 23 July, and its administrative offices moved temporarily from Vilna into the fortress on 29 July before returning to Vilna on 21 August.
Latvian Army units, including regiments of the Zemgale Division, occupied the fortress from 1920 to 1940. Four to six British-built Vickers tanks were stationed there during this period. German Army units occupied the complex from 1941 to 1944. The citadel contained Stalag 340, a German prisoner-of-war camp for Soviet prisoners. A ghetto for Jews from the surrounding area operated in the Bridgehead and was connected with subsequent mass shootings in the Pogulyanka forests.
A military school used the fortress from 1948 to 1993. In 1998, responsibility passed to Latvia’s State Real Estate Agency. A decision by the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers in 2004 allowed the fortress to be sold in parts or as a whole, leaving its future uncertain at that time. The complex is designated a state-significance monument of urban planning and architecture and has been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage status.
Conservation and adaptive reuse
Modern conservation has addressed both the fortress fabric and its continuing institutional use. Streets and utilities were renewed between 2010 and 2013, the Water-Lifting Building received partial restoration in 2011, the Artillery Arsenal was reconstructed in 2012, and the Nicholas Gate and part of Nicholas Street were restored in 2013. The small powder magazine was repaired in 2021. In 2022, the Engineering Arsenal entered service as a Center for Technology and Industrial Heritage.
The restored Artillery Arsenal opened as the Mark Rothko Art Centre on 24 April 2013. The Water-Lifting Building houses the Dinaburg Fortress Culture and Information Centre. Other former fortress buildings have been adapted for police administration, an art gallery, a historical-furniture showroom, a permanent exhibition on contraception and medical history, and a Buddhist meditation centre.
Remains
Fortifications and urban plan
Daugavpils Fortress forms a unified defensive ensemble on both banks of the Western Dvina, or Daugava. The main fortress, also called the citadel, occupies the right bank, while the Bridgehead, a fortified position protecting the opposite bank and river crossing, occupies the left. The two parts were connected by a floating wooden pontoon bridge described as Latgale’s first permanent crossing.
The defenses include stone-faced escarps, the fortified inner walls or slopes of the ditches, together with eight bastions, ravelins, and casemates. The casemates are protected chambers covered by substantial brick vaults. Rough and dressed stone appear in the facing of the escarps. The fortification system survives as an early nineteenth-century military complex with comparatively little alteration.
The fortress was planned as a fortified town rather than as an isolated fort. Its oval territory was divided into regular blocks around a square parade ground measuring 150 by 150 metres. I. H. Truzson’s detailed development plan of 1816 set the main streets at 21 metres wide and the secondary streets at 10 metres. Military and private buildings occupied separate zones. Historic cobblestone surfaces survive in parts of the streets and in some interior courtyards.
The defensive ditch was cleared of rubbish, shrubs, and self-seeded trees between 2009 and 2013. New electrical cables and reconstructed substations were installed in 2009. A bronze model based on the 1867 plan was placed on the promenade opposite the Seventh Bastion in 2021.
Gates and principal buildings
Gates and ramparts
Four gates provided access through the fortress: the eastern Alexander Gate, the northern Constantine Gate, the southern Michael Gate, and the western Nicholas Gate. They were named for Emperor Alexander I and his brothers. The Michael and Nicholas gates incorporated Egyptian and Gothic motifs based on the Franz fort at Koblenz, while the Alexander and Constantine gates followed similar designs.
The Constantine Gate was demolished in 1962 to permit large equipment to enter the grounds of the military school. The Nicholas Gate was restored in 2013 together with part of Nicholas Street, its historical profile, and the wooden bridge leading to the gate. The Alexander Gate underwent historical, architectural, and technical investigation in 2010. The Nicholas Gate had been investigated in 2008, and its restoration project was prepared in 2009.
Administrative and military buildings
Most principal buildings were two or three storeys high. They included the commandant’s house, headquarters, the Artillery and Engineering Arsenals, a hospital for 1,000 people, the Alexander, Constantine, and Nicholas barracks, and housing for officers and other command personnel. Architect Alexander Yegorovich Staubert designed important buildings and the four gates in a restrained late-Classical style.
Central church and square
The central parade-ground area was dominated by a Baroque church with two towers rising approximately 60 metres. The former Jesuit church began as a small wooden or partly wooden-and-masonry building in the 1670s. Around 1730 to 1746, it was replaced by a large Baroque masonry church. The building was converted into an Orthodox church in the early nineteenth century and served Catholics, Lutherans, and Orthodox Christians during the First Latvian Republic.
The church was blown up in 1944, and its ruins were completely demolished in the 1950s. In 1912, former 12-pound cast-iron fortress guns were installed as decorative elements in front of the church and in the central fortress square, known as the Commandant’s Garden. That year also saw the installation of the “Glory of Russian Arms” monument-fountain and the introduction of electric lighting.
Water, arsenals, and later installations
Water-Lifting Building
The Water-Lifting Building was constructed in 1865 and 1866 in the Russian pseudo-Gothic style. Its machinery included a steam engine and pump, while a tower-like element forms a prominent part of the building. The structure received partial restoration in 2011 and now contains the Dinaburg Fortress Culture and Information Centre.
Arsenals and industrial heritage
The Artillery Arsenal has been reconstructed with renewed engineering systems, lighting, microclimate controls, security, and fire-protection systems, as well as improvements to the adjoining grounds. It now houses the Mark Rothko Art Centre, named for the twentieth-century painter associated with Abstract Expressionism.
The Engineering Arsenal became the Center for Technology and Industrial Heritage in 2022. Its first exhibit was tram carriage RVZ No. 60, moved there in 2021 after restoration at the Daugavpils tram depot. A memorial stone placed in the escarp wall of the Second Polygon commemorates an inspection by the Prussian General von Rauch from 12 to 14 May 1822.
Ecological remains
Daugavpils Fortress also supports a large colony of bats within its historic structures and underground spaces. Winter counts recorded 1,992 individuals in 2019 and 2,153 in 2022, adding a present-day ecological dimension to the surviving military complex.
