Korela Fortress

Priozersk, Leningrad Oblast, Russia, Russia

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The Korela Fortress in Priozersk, Leningrad Oblast, Russia, sits on an island at the Vuoksa River's mouth into Lake Ladoga as one of Russia's oldest border strongholds, first mentioned in 1143 Novgorod chronicles with 12th-century archaeological layers, initially built by Karelians as a trade post and wooden fort that burned in 1360 before stone reconstruction in 1364.

It changed hands repeatedly between Novgorod, Muscovy, Sweden (as Kexholm with bastion upgrades after 1580), and Finland, confirmed Novgorod's in the 1323 Treaty of Nöteborg, briefly a Lithuanian principality in the 1330s, and recaptured by Peter the Great in the Great Northern War after the 1617 Treaty of Stolbovo.

Featuring thick walls, towers like the Swedish Round Gate Tower (1585, aka Lars Torstensson or Pugachevskaya), Old Arsenal (1591), New Arsenal (1776 now a museum), and secret gates, it housed prisoners like Emelian Pugachev and Decembrists, now operating as the Korela Fortress Museum showcasing 800 years of multicultural border history.