Peter I: "If there were ships, I will find the seas". The Presidential Library illustrates the Russian Navy

Traditionally, on the last Sunday of July, Russia celebrates the Navy Day. This year the Russian fleet turns 325 years old.

The birthday of the Russian Navy is October 30 (20 according to the old style) October 1696, when the Boyar Duma approved the decree of Peter the Great on the creation of a regular fleet - "There will be sea vessels". And if this year is a jubilee for the Russian fleet, then in 2022 there will be held events dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the birth of its founder.

Rare editions included in the collection Peter I (1672–1725) illustrate the birth of the Russian fleet and the role of Peter in its creation.

The first Russian warship appeared during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who planned to create a fleet in the Caspian Sea. “In the village of Dednov, on the Oka, the Oryol ship was built and launched down the Volga to Astrakhan; but there it was captured by the rebel Stenka Razin", - says Colonel of the Guards General Staff Alexander Kartsov in the Military-Historical Review of the Northern War (1851).

Pyotr Alekseevich embodied the plan of his father. “Together with the beginning of the regular ground troops, Peter the Great laid the foundation for the naval forces, which before him Russia did not have at all…And here He went to the goal in the same difficult, but correct way. With the duties of a ship's carpenter, He began the science of shipbuilding; with the duties of a cabin boy, he began to study navigation", - says Kartsov.

In 1696, after the victorious second Azov campaign, “Peter I, triumphing in victory, did not forget, however, that Azov, who had fallen from the Russian fleet, could only be held by the Russian fleet through the Russian fleet; and for the construction of inflamed in his subjects their unparalleled love for the fatherland”, - wrote Benjamin Bergman. The great importance of the navy for Russia was also proved by the subsequent glorious naval victories in the Battle of Gangut and the Battle of Grengam in the Northern War with the Swedes (1700-1721).

Peter the Great not only created the Russian fleet, but also “looked for the seas”, taking care of the development of military and merchant shipping. The collected documents Reforms of Peter I (1937), compiled by the historian Vladimir Lebedev, provides the memoirs of Captain John Perry, an English builder of ships, docks and canals, invited by Peter, "... to oversee the work that was done ... to open a message for the military ships, as well as ships with weights from the Caspian to the Black Seas, along ... the Volga and the Don. <...> ... It was supposed ... to dig a channel on solid ground in the place where these two rivers flow at a closer distance from one another".  

There is also an instruction given by the tsar on February 14, 1716 to lieutenant Kozhin: “He should go ... with the water of the Amu-Darya river (or others that flow into it), as far as possible to India under the image of a merchant, but the real thing is to find a water way to India".

The Russian fleet - sea and river, military and commercial - grew and improved, but "upon entering the second decade since its foundation, our fleet, which has already proven its existence in practice, did not yet have the legal provision needed for uniform management," notes the historian of the marine fleet, captain 1st rank Sergei Elagin in the book Materials for the history of Russian maritime legislation (1859).

Thus during the reign of Emperor Peter with his leadership and direct participation, the Russian fleet acquired the greatness that it retains throughout its history. All over the world, the Russian fleet is considered one of the most modern, high-tech and efficient.

The Presidential Library closely cooperates with the Russian Navy. Senate Square, 3 building annually hosts the Naval Knowledge Day and the Cadet Day. They are attended by the Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov Naval Academy, personnel of higher naval institutions, officers, cadets and Nakhimovites.