In the middle of the 18th century it was of great military and strategic importance and also was the most powerful among the southern fortresses of Russia.

The fortress was never a direct place of any military operations; at the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, it lost the importance of border fortification.

[1] In the 1740s there arose the need to build a more powerful fortification on the Don for the protection of Temernitskaya Customs, rather than the existing Fortress of Saint Anna.

In 1761 Rigelman ordered to build a brick factory at the Kizierinsky Gully for the needs of construction of Saint Dimitry Fortress.

Stone for construction was extracted from the Rich spring, and logs were brought from the Leontievsky and Glukhie gullies, which are located near Mius and Kalmius rivers.

The fortress was star-shaped in plan and consisted of nine redoubts, surrounded by a moat and connected by eight ravelins.

Redoubts were named Troitsky, Anninsky, St. Andrew, Ekaterininsky, Elizavetinsky, Petrovsky, Pavlovsky, Alexandra Nevskogo and Donskoy.

At the beginning of the 19th century the fortress decayed, the fortifications were gradually destroyed, and the territory was built up.

It presents the sculptures of Alexander Rigelman, Captain Somov (the first commander of fortress), Danila Efremov (the Ataman of the Don Army), and the merchant Hastanov (the first head of the Temernitskaya Customs).