Vyborg Castle (, , ) is a
Swedish built
medieval fortress around which the town of
Vyborg,
Russia evolved. Currently it is a museum.
General
Vyborg Castle was one of the three major castles of
Finland. It was built as the easternmost outpost of the medieval
Kingdom of Sweden: it is located on the
Karelian isthmus, on a little islet in the innermost corner of the
Gulf of Finland, in a tight strait which connects
Suomenvedenpohja to
Bay of Viipuri. It was originally constructed in the 1290s.
The town was originally located inside the outer fortifications of the castle, at the fortress island, but it had to be moved to its present location out of the island because of lack of space.
Medieval history
The construction of the fortress started in 1293 by orders of
Torkel Knutsson, the
Lord High Constable of Sweden who made in 1290s a so-called
crusade to
Karelia, the so-called
Third Finnish Crusade, actually aimed against Russians, i.e.
Novgorod. He chose the location of the new fortress to keep the
Bay of Vyborg, which was a trading site used by locals already for a long time. From the bay, a river way goes inland, ultimately connecting the place to several districts, lakes, and indirectly also to rivers going to Ladoga.
The three high-medieval Finnish "castle fiefs" were ruled from the castles of
Turku,
Hämeenlinna and Viipuri, respectively until the 1360s.
In 1366,
Albert III of Mecklenburg was elected king, and according to the German model he began to divide up the...
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