KronshtadtArticle Free Pass Kronshtadt, also spelled Kronštadt,
naval port, Leningrad oblast (region), northwestern Russia. It
lies on Kotlin Island near the head of the Gulf of Finland.
Peter I (the Great) captured the island from the Swedes in 1703
and constructed a fort and docks—then called Kronslot—to protect
the approaches to St. Petersburg. Until a channel to St.
Petersburg was dredged in 1875–85, Kronshtadt was also a
commercial port in which cargoes were transshipped to smaller
craft. Its fortifications, which were frequently reconstructed
and strengthened, played a notable role in the defense of the
old Russian capital, especially during the 1941–44 Siege of
Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was then called). The sailors and
garrison of Kronshtadt played major roles in several Russian
revolutionary movements: a Kronshtadt officer led the mutiny of
the Decembrists in St. Petersburg in 1825, and a Kronshtadt
sailor was the leader of the military organization of the
revolutionary Narodnaya Volya group and w