The stamp “Peter I’s Boat. 1723” from the series “History of the National Fleet: Sailing Naval Warships” was issued on December 15, 1971. Print run: 5,500,000 copies. Artist: V. Zavyalov.
The English boat was purchased by the cousin of Peter’s grandfather, Boyar Nikita Ivanovich Romanov, for river прогулки. In 1688, Tsar Peter I found the boat in Izmailovo.
The Dutch ship master Karsten Brandt repaired the boat, fitted it with a mast and a sail, and launched it on the Yauza River. There, with Brandt’s help, Peter learned how to steer a boat. The boat was then transported to the Prosyanoy Pond in Izmailovo. At that time, Prosyanoy Pond was quite large, but the tsar wanted something bigger.
Until about 1701 the boat remained in Izmailovo, and then it was kept in the Kremlin. While celebrating in Moscow in January 1722 the signing of the Treaty of Nystad, Tsar Peter recalled his youth and made the boat a памятник, placing it on a wooden pedestal. On February 7 of the same year, a royal decree was issued ordering that the remains of the ships, yachts, and galleys built for Lake Plescheyevo—on which the tsar had first studied seamanship—be preserved forever.
In May 1723 the boat was delivered from Pereyaslavl to Saint Petersburg, where it took part in a number of ceremonial events and in the Baltic Fleet parade marking the second anniversary of the Treaty of Nystad on August 11, 1723. Peter I served as helmsman on the boat; A. D. Menshikov was responsible for sounding (leadsman); the fleet’s chief artillery officer H. G. Otto served as gunner; and four admirals rowed.
After that, the boat was placed under a canopy in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and in 1761 the architect A. F. Vist built a small Boathouse in the fortress.