Vyborg Main Guardhouse, Guardhouse on Old Town Hall Square, Vyborg, Russia

The Vyborg Main Guardhouse is a small one-storey rectangular stone building on the south side of Old Town Hall Square, at the corner of Krepostnaya Street and Yuzhny Val Street. Its symmetrical facade has a three-part arcade with pointed openings and two windows on each side. Built in 1776 in Russian classicism, it was given its neo-Gothic look in 1857, when the arcade was added and the roof lowered.

A guardhouse stood on this corner before 1776, when architect Karl Johann Speckle built the present one in Russian classicism for the Vyborg fortress garrison. In 1857 an arcade with pointed openings and a lower roof gave it a neo-Gothic look. On 29 August 1917, soldiers stormed it and killed four officers held there, including General O. A. Oranovsky.

The guardhouse sits at the heart of the old town center, showing how military structures were woven into daily civic life. Today you can see how the surrounding streets and square still orient themselves around this historic building.

The guardhouse is positioned at a central intersection in the old town, easily accessible on foot from most areas of the historic district. The location sits along a main thoroughfare, making it simple to find and visit without special directions.

The guardhouse kept its post after the town walls were demolished at the end of the 19th century: the gates it watched over disappeared, but the sentries stayed. In August 1917 a crowd of mutinous soldiers seized four officers held here and threw them from the nearby bridge into the bay.