Vyborg is a small, picturesque resort town a short train ride away from St. Petersburg. Medieval fortifications rise above the small peninsula on which the town is set, and the whole place can be seen by foot in a few hours. The highlight is Vyborg Castle, originally built by the Swedish, then captured and recaptured by the Russians and the Finnish. It has a great view of the town.
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First it was the last Russian emperor Nicolas II who showed moral courage to bless a statue of a Swede on Russian soil. It strongly resembles a monument to Birger Jarl aka Birger Magnusson, a prominent Swedish statesman and warrior, on Riddarholmen island in Stockholm. It's not a co-incidence - in 1884 Finnish architect Johan Jacob Ahrenberg who initiated the project specifically asked Carl Wilhelm Vallgren, a Finnish sculptor (both were subjects of Russian empire 'coz Finland was then part of it) that Torkel Knutsson looked somewhat like his famous compatriot. When a plaster version was ready and the gentlemen turned to Russian authorities for approval local governor strongly opposed the very idea of it but in the end of the day in 1908 founder of Vyborg took his place in the center of the city. It stood there till 1948 but then Soviet communists decided that enough was enough and toppled it - at night, like villains always do. They put a rope around his body and pulled it down - only his feet kept standing on the plinth. By incredible play of Doom the statue has not been destroyed but dragged into some barn and forgotten there. It was found quite by chance in 1975 but returned to its present place only in 1993, after the fall of those obscurantists. This time, hopefully, for good. Gorgeous.
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It happenned in March 1710. For this achievement Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called was conferred upon him - the highest state award of the Russian empire. The tzar also made him a count. Fyodor Apraksin was an outstanding personality and a close associate of Peter the Great. Monument to him was erected in 2010 in commemoration of 300-years' anniversary of the city's capture from Sweden. The place is not a co-incidence - it's here where Russian artillery shelled the fortress from and where the final attack started. Imposing.
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