Did you know that:

the Swedes participated in the construction of Pechersk Fortress. It is a widely spread opinion that Pechersk Fortress citadel was built to resist the potential attack of the Swedish army on Kyiv in 1706. It is very likely that this was the result of the misinformation taken seriously by the Russian military commanders led by Peter
the Great. The soldiers of Karl XII army captured by the Russians during the battles of the Great Northern War and near Poltava, did reach the Fortress, but as a working power. It is known that detention conditions were very bad in Kyiv. Swedish soldiers lived in «dusty log huts» and crammed quarters, carried out fortification works in handcuffs and suffered from the unknown disease that appeared in the city in the autumn of 1709. Finally, in 1711, the Russian tsar, who was concerned about the possibility of riots that could raise on the back of the new war with Turkey that was coming, ordered that all captured Swedes be transferred from the border fortresses deep into Russia.

Captions to the illustrations:

1. Gustav Söderström. «Recruitment of Sergeants»