Shlisselburg (Russian: Шлиссельбу́рг, IPA: [ʂlʲɪsʲɪlʲˈburk]; German: Schlüsselburg; Finnish: Pähkinälinna; Swedish: Nöteborg), formerly Oreshek (Орешек) (1323–1611) and Petrokrepost (Петрокрепость) (1944–1992), is a town in Kirovsky District, Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located at the head of the Neva River on Lake Ladoga, 35 kilometers (22 mi) east of St. Petersburg.

[9] After a series of conflicts, a peace treaty was signed at Oreshek on August 12, 1323, between Sweden and Grand Prince Yury and the Novgorod Republic.

The existing small citadel was demolished and a new stone fortress with seven towers was constructed, which occupied almost the entirety of Orekhovy Island.

During the Ingrian Campaign of tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in June 1656 the fortress came under a siege by voevoda Potyomkin which lasted until November 1656 with no success.

[11] Shortly before Shlisselburg was occupied by the German troops (8 September 1941), a garrison of 350 Red Army soldiers was sent to the fortress on Orekhovets island to bring supplies and munitions to the frontline.

The garrison held the abandoned castle for 500 days preventing the Germans from landing there and cutting the last transit route from Leningrad to the mainland.

Tourists can reach the island from May to October via Shlisselburg[13] or from the Northern bank of Neva, via Petrokrepost railway station with regular ferries that run every 10–15 minutes.

[14] A predecessor of the town was a posad that first appeared around the citadel on the island and in the late 15th–early 16th century shifted to both banks of the Neva.

Once Muscovites rebuilt the old citadel into a powerful stronghold leaving no place for residential purposes, residents and merchants were only allowed to the island to seek shelter from advancing Swedish troops.

A posad on the southern bank was more convenient for its population, unlike for those living on the northern coast, it was easier to flee the enemies to the southeast, into the Russian mainland.

During the Russian Revolution he was released from prison and found a job on the gunpowder works of Shlisselburg, where he joined and then headed a commune of pro-Bolshevik workers.

Zhuk supported the revolutionary forces in Petrograd and arranged day care for the children of workers as well as sourced food from Ukraine, where he was born.

[17] He led a group of Red Guards from Shlisselburg that were dispatched to the Russian-Finnish borderland to halt an intrusion of White Finns towards Petrograd and died in an ambush near Gruzino railway station in 1919.

[19] During the Great Patriotic War Shlisselburg was swiftly occupied by the German troops (8 September 1941) that aimed to encircle Leningrad.

Perhaps the most remarkable landmark is the Old Ladoga Canal, started at the behest of Peter the Great in 1719, and completed under the guidance of Fieldmarshal Munnich twelve years later.