A midday shot from a cannon in Saint-Petersburg

The tradition of the noon cannon shot.

Shooting from a cannon about important events really began in St. Petersburg almost immediately after the founding of the city. Since the summer of 1703, the cannon on the Sovereign Bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress announced the beginning and termination of work.

Already in 1704, a flag was raised and lowered on the Sovereign's bastion under a cannon salvo, which was raised "from the breaking of dawn to evening." Later, from the rampart of the Admiralty, the cannon began to notify about the rise of water in the Neva during floods.

The tradition of shooting at noon was born on the Black Sea. In 1819, Admiral Greig, who commanded the Black Sea Fleet at that time, ordered every day at exactly 12:00 to fire a cannon at the forts of Sevastopol and Nikolaev: this signal was used to check all the main service chronometers on ships and on land. In 1865, St. Petersburg joined this tradition, in 1872 - Kronstadt, in 1889 - Vladivostok. On February 6 (18), 1865, a cannon shot was fired over the Neva River for the first time from the Admiralty yard at exactly noon. In the autumn of 1872, the signal cannon was moved to the Peter and Paul Fortress on the Naryshkin bastion.

After the revolution, this tradition was considered bourgeois. In Sevastopol, they stopped shooting back in 1922, and in Leningrad, the townspeople stopped checking their watches by the noon shot in 1934.

They resumed shooting after 23 years. In connection with the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the city, on June 23, 1957, the noon shot began to be fired again.