Daugavpils Fortress

Daugavpils Fortress (historically Dinaburg or Dvinsk Fortress) is an early 19th-century Russian imperial military fortification on the Daugava in what is now Daugavpils, Latvia. Construction began by decree of Tsar Alexander I in 1810 and — despite interruptions during the Napoleonic era and other delays — the complex is recorded as completed in the later 19th century and substantially preserved into the present. The fortress and the town have a long military history through Tsarist, interwar, and Soviet periods; Cold War-era and Soviet military presence in the Daugavpils area is documented in archival material. In popular paranormal literature and local accounts the fortress is named among haunted sites in Latvia. A single contemporary popular compilation of Latvian haunted locations collects reports from a local informant describing audible phenomena (noises and voices), a named witness account of physical contact, and an alleged voice that issues a command rendered in Latvian as "Atstat tagad!" (translated in the source as "Leave now!"). That source also records local speculation the voice may be the spirit of a Soviet-era guard. These claims appear only in that paranormal compilation and are not corroborated by the academic, archival or official sources provided. Parts of the fortress are used today for cultural projects and community events, indicating at least partial public access. Because the specific supernatural claims (the phrase, the named physical encounter) derive from a single popular/folk source, they are recorded here as folkloric local reports rather than as historically or investigatively verified phenomena. The site's documented military past provides plausible cultural context for guard-and-soldier-themed ghost-lore in Daugavpils.