Yam (Yama, Yamgorod, Russian: Ям) is a fortress and heritage site located on the eastern bank of the Luga river in Kingisepp, Leningrad Oblast, Russia.

[2] Ivan Fyodorovich was in charge and assisted by Osip Zakharovich, Yury Ontsiforovich, Fyodor Timofeev, Stepan Borisov and other "boyars and philistines".

The fortress was built on the right (eastern) bank of the Luga river crossing that was also the intersection of land and waterway routes from Novgorod to Europe.

[2][4][6] During the Novgorod-Livonian war, the Livonian army attacked Yam in 1443; they burned out the posad (settlement)[8] and destroyed the pier.

Despite the fact that ambassadors of the Order tried to present this attack as an independent raid by an uncontrolled warlord,[9] in the fall of 1444, a large, well-armed Livonian army lay siege to the fortress.

[8] On the last day, reinforcements arrived from Novgorod carrying artillery, forcing the Livonian army to retreat with heavy losses again.

So, by the order of Novgorod's archbishop Euthymius II, who inspected Yam at that time, the old fortress was disassembled in 1449.

[11][12][13] When the Novgorod republic became a part of Great Duchy of Moscow in 1478, Yam fortress remained on its border, so it was repaired and Yamgorod settlement also got a wooden fortification.

[7] In 1580, when Russia was busy fighting in the Livonian War, John III of Sweden decided to capture the Russian Baltic coastline.

In 1633, a Holstein ambassador passed through Yamburg (the Swedish name for the village) and described it as a medium-size fortress with eight towers and high stone walls.

[16] During the Russo-Swedish War in 1658, Russian forces stormed Yam and entered the fortress, but the Swedes hid in the detinets and repelled all attacks.

He pointed that neither Yam nor Koporye was ever repaired after their capture by Sweden, so it would be cheaper to demolish both fortresses to prevent their use by an enemy.

[20] On May 13, 1703, a Russian squad under the command of Major General Nikolay Verden came to Yamburg and began to shell it with cannons.

The bastion fortress was not finished until the fall of the same year following the decree of the Russian tsar and under the command of Field Marshall Boris Sheremetev.

It was not rebuilt using stone because after the capture of Narva and Derpt the border moved far to the west and the only use for Yam was to hold a small garrison in case of a Swedish amphibious assault.

[24] In the second quarter of the 18th century, Yamburg fortress was disarmed because the Russian military command had abandoned static defensive position tactics.

The detinets was destroyed and Antonio Rinaldi used some parts of its stone walls to build a Saint Catherine church in a 1762.

In 1781, Catherine II, traveling from Petersburg to Revel had a look at the Yam fortress ruins and ordered the detinets destroyed completely because of its poor condition.

At the southern part of the territory, all the ground fortifications have been torn down;,[30] the stone ones were completely destroyed during the bridge construction in 1926.

[34] In June, 2022, the park got an addition: the local history museum with financial support of the Presidential Grants Foundation set up a few glass boards with paintings of a fortress, that are merging with current relief.

As an addition they have built a stele with pointers to different objects in the park and published an audio-guide at the «Easy Travel» platform.

[38] Fortress itself was built in trapezoid shape facing the river with a long base that also was slightly concaved.

A gate was placed westwards in two related square halftowers made of coarse limestone blocks stapled with mortar.

[40] The first archeological research of the Yam fortress was undertaken in 1909 during the construction of the commercial school building when workers found remains of the southern tower with an embrasure facing the east.

In 1950, Vladimir Kostochkin claimed that the southern tower was built at the beginning of the 16th century, based on its design features of its embrasure.

[43] All the research proved the accuracy of 1680 Swedish plans of the fortress that were stored in the Royal Military Archive in Stockholm.