Why did Peter 1 go to Holland? From the shipyard to the tavern. Keukenhof - tulip paradise

The Great One headed to Europe in March 1697 to seek allies in the war with the Ottoman Empire. After studying artillery in Prussia, he arrived in Holland. Here he became acquainted with Dutch architecture and painting, and then invited foreign sculptors and artists to Russia. For example, he ordered a painting from Jan Tytekuren, and later accepted him into service at the Armory. The account books of the Armory Chamber mention the following: “Given to the arap Jan Tyutekuren, who was accepted into the service of the great sovereign in the Armory Chamber as a painter, for the work of the table, which he made by order of the great and plenipotentiary ambassadors with Austin work, and for the tree and for the box and for gold and for paints for copper punches and rings 44 efimka.”

According to contemporaries, Peter I did not spend even a few hours in idleness. He got up at 4 a.m. to get to the shipyard, the hospital, a lecture, or the botanical garden.

Conversation of Peter I in Holland. (wikipedia.org)

The ladies noted the pleasant appearance of the Russian Tsar, but at the same time complained about his lack of good manners. “The Tsar is a tall man with a beautiful face, well-built, with great quickness of mind, quick and decisive in his answers, it’s only a pity that with such natural advantages he lacks complete secular sophistication,” wrote Princess Sophia of Hanover of the Palatinate.

Sophia of Hanover. (wikipedia.org)

The Italian singer Philip Balatri did not skimp on praise, talking about the appearance of the Russian sovereign: “Tsar Peter Alekseevich was tall, rather thin than plump; His hair was thick, short, dark brown, his eyes were large, black, with long eyelashes, and his mouth was well shaped. The facial expression is beautiful, inspiring respect at first glance.” Subsequently, Balatri moved to Russia.

One and a half pounds of lamb

Peter I spent three months in England. There were no feasts here, which literally made the owners of drinking establishments rich. One of the invoices stated that twenty Russians were given half a lamb, ten chickens, cognac and mulled wine for breakfast. The lunch looked even more impressive - 16 kilograms of lamb, 12 bottles of red wine and, again, several chickens. In 1719, rumors about these feasts forced the Prussian queen to give an order: all valuables were to be removed from the palace. The Russian emperor came here with his wife and decided to give himself a gift by taking several ancient figurines.

Peter I in Zaandam by Dutch masters. (wikipedia.org)

In England, Peter I studied the structure of the political system and came to the following conclusion: “It is fun to listen when subjects openly tell their sovereign the truth; This is what we need to learn from the English.”

In 1716 the ruler again went to Europe. He visited Paris, Amsterdam, Danzig and Hamburg. In Paris, Peter visited a cloth factory, the French Academy of Sciences, a foundry, and met scientists and doctors.

The Great Embassy is the journey of the Russian Tsar Peter 1 to Western Europe, carried out in 1697-1698. to establish diplomatic relations.

The diplomatic mission included more than 250 people. Among them were representatives of various professions from translators to priests, led by diplomats P.B. Voznitsyn, F.A. Golovin, F. Lefort. Tsar Peter 1 himself also went to Europe, introducing himself as Pyotr Mikhailov, a constable of the Preobrazhensky Regiment.

Goals of the embassy

It is believed that the main purpose of the trip was to obtain support from European countries in the fight against the Ottoman Empire.

However, there is a version that this is not so. Even before the trip, Ambassador K. Nefimonov signed a 3-year agreement with Austria and Venice on an alliance against the Turks. Other European countries at that time were not ready for such a union: France was a supporter of Turkey, England and the Netherlands were preparing to divide the “Spanish inheritance,” and Poland had not been able to choose a new king for a year, so there was simply no one there to make a decision.

Thus, the diplomatic goal was secondary, and the main ones were:

• acquaintance with Europe, its political life;
• making changes to the state and military system of Russia following the example of European countries;
• search for foreign specialists to work in Russia;
• sending to Europe to train Russian nobles;
• purchase of materials and weapons.

Journey

The train of the great embassy of Peter 1 left Moscow in March 1697.

The first long stop was made in Courland.

A trade agreement was concluded between Elector Frederick III and Peter I on the possibility of transporting goods.

In August, Peter arrives in Holland. He gets a job as a carpenter at the Linst Rogge shipyard (city of Saardam), and then at the East India Company in Amsterdam.

But in Holland, the Russian Tsar not only worked as a carpenter, he visited various institutions, factories, workshops, attended lectures on anatomy, and studied how a windmill works.

Dutch shipbuilding did not suit Peter, since the Dutch did not make drawings of the ships being built.

At the beginning of 1698, the king reached England, where in Deptford at the royal shipyard he expanded his knowledge of ship construction. Here he inspected warships, saw how artillery shells were made, and even attended a meeting of the English Parliament.

The last point of stay for Peter the Great was Vienna, from where in July 1698 he headed back to Moscow, having learned about the mutiny of the Streltsy.

Embassy results

• Peter 1’s realization that Russia needed access to the sea, the decision to initiate access to the Baltic Sea coast, instead of a war with the Ottoman Empire;
• the emergence of a personal (and political) friendship with the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (aka Saxon Elector) Augustus 2, which later resulted in a military alliance;
• transformations in the Russian state apparatus, taking into account the experience of Western countries;
• introduction of the European way of life (new calendar, new clothes, holidays, schools, books, etc.);
• hiring more than 1,000 specialists in various fields to serve in Russia;
• purchase of weapons, instruments, equipment;
• opening of new enterprises, manufactories, and production facilities in Russia.

Peter the Great went to Europe in 1697 as part of the so-called “Great Embassy” - an official delegation sent to European courts for diplomatic purposes. It was headed by Franz Lefort. Peter enrolled himself in the embassy's retinue under the name of Peter Mikhailov. Incognito was an open secret, but nevertheless left the 25-year-old emperor a lot of freedom. As the outstanding Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky emphasized, Peter traveled abroad not as a “leisure traveler,” but as a “worker.”

Carpenter Peter Mikhailov

The reformer Tsar spent 15 months abroad. He traveled half of Europe, but it was Holland - one of the most developed and richest European powers of that time, the dream of his youth - that Peter chose as the main goal of his journey. His first teachers in maritime affairs and crafts were the Dutch; Dutch was the only foreign language that Peter knew well. It was to Holland that he sent from Russia “a large number of noble people” so that they could learn how to build ships and houses, cast cannons and heal people, perform complex mathematical calculations and write laws. The Tsar did not want to lag behind them in “these arts,” and therefore, as he wrote later, “he himself accepted the march to Holland.”

At first, Peter settled in Zaandam (in Russian tradition - Saardam), a small town near Amsterdam, where he began working as a carpenter at a small shipyard. He didn’t live there long: there was no way for curious people who wanted to look at the worker-tsar. Therefore, Peter soon moved to the East India Company shipyard. Here the frigate "Peter and Paul" was laid down especially for him, in the construction of which the tsar himself took part.

Petrovsky frigate is not the only monument to the stay of the first Russian emperor in Holland. The main thing remains, of course, the house in Zaandam in which he lived. This is not just a museum. This is a place of pilgrimage. Even Napoleon visited here. And the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, who visited Peter’s house together with the future Emperor Alexander II (then still the Grand Duke), left the following lines:

"Over this poor hut
Holy angels fly.
Grand Duke! Reverently:
Here is the cradle of your empire,
Great Russia was born here."

Context

The French ambassador reported to Paris in 1697: “The trip of the Russian Tsar is very strange and completely contrary to common sense.” But Peter knew perfectly well why he came to Holland. He not only worked at the shipyard. He met with scientists and government officials, visited museums, observatories and the anatomical theater, was present at operations, and inspected factories, hospitals, and cabinets of curiosities.

Paintings by Dutch, Italian, Flemish and French artists, sculptures, jewelry and “curiosities”, which were collected by the first Russian emperor, later became the basis of the richest collection of the St. Petersburg Hermitage. Special mention should be made of sculpture. The Orthodox Church had an extremely negative attitude towards sculpture, and therefore it was practically unknown in Russia before Peter. The Tsar broke this “prejudice of the past.” Looking at the ancient beauty of Apollo or Aphrodite, acquired by him personally or on his instructions, you also thank Peter for this.

But sculptures, paintings, knowledge and skills of a craftsman are not the only things that the tireless worker took with him to Russia from Western Europe. Peter brought almost 900 specialists of various profiles to Russia from Holland: from a vice admiral to a ship's cook. And most importantly: he brought ideas for transforming Russia into a country as strong, rich, and developed as those he visited.

The old Moscow state was to be replaced by a power oriented towards the Western European model. The capital of this power was to become a city on the Neva, cut through by canals in the same way as Peter’s beloved Amsterdam...

Several years ago, the exhibition “Peter the Great. Tsar-Seer” was held here. The exhibition impressed not only with its scope (almost 700 exhibits on two floors), but also with the diversity, uniqueness of these exhibits, and unexpected discoveries. The death mask of the first Russian emperor was adjacent to gold jewelry of Siberian nomads from his collection, a chess and a travel first aid kit were next to a stuffed animal of the Tsar’s favorite terrier named Lisa, a huge caftan was with unexpectedly small boots (with a height of more than two meters, the Tsar’s foot size was 39-40 ), a housecoat made of Japanese silk - with Peter's personal weapon, his camp outhouse - with a carpenter's ax... Probably the same one with which Peter cut a window to Europe...

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  Keukenhof - tulip paradise

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Conceptually

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Tradition

It is impossible to imagine Holland without windmills. This one, installed in Keukenhof, turned 125 years old in 2017. For 60 years now, it has remained a favorite of park visitors, allowing you not only to look at flower arrangements from above, but also to learn how a classic mill works from the inside.



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Special flower

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If the weather is bad

The Dutch say that there are too many cloudy days in their country. Tulips compensate for their lack of bright colors. Indeed, according to weather forecasters, the Netherlands has 35 sunny days a year. And tulips, symbolizing the arrival of spring, bring a feeling of joy.

On October 20, 1696, twenty-four-year-old Tsar Peter issued a short but convincing decree: “There will be sea-going ships.” This is how he expressed the cherished idea of ​​the Russian state to create a powerful regular military fleet.

However, the first experiments in building reliable ships for the future Azov flotilla convinced young Peter that the foreign shipbuilders he invited to serve were poorly versed in their field. And then Peter, trying to understand the essence of shipbuilding from the basics, takes up the ax himself... “First learn yourself,” the king decides. For several months he worked together with serf carpenters at the Voronezh Admiralty shipyard. But it soon became clear to Peter that in addition to the enthusiasm of the best people in Russia and monetary contributions from the treasury, a solid knowledge of all the achievements of shipbuilding was also needed. And so he conceives an amazing enterprise. Peter orders the preparation of an embassy to Holland, England and Venice - the largest maritime powers of that time.

The king is in a hurry. Already at the beginning of March 1697, the Russian embassy left Moscow for Amsterdam. It includes Admiral Lefort, boyar F.A. Golovin, Duma clerk Voznitsyn, 30 volunteers and 69 stewards. The volunteers are divided into three groups, in one of which the foreman under the name of Peter Mikhailov is the Tsar himself. In the same group is his favorite, Alexander Menshikov. By the way, we note that from among these volunteers subsequently came the famous naval commanders of Russia - Ivan Sinyavin, Ipat Mukhatov and Ermolai Skvortsov, the shipbuilder - “master of good proportion” - Feodosius Sklyaev and the first Russian naval captain Fedor Urusov.

The embassy convoy moved slowly, and the king was impatient to get down to business as soon as possible. Ahead of his companions, on August 7, 1697, Peter arrived in Saardam, a Dutch town on the shores of the Zuderzee Bay, northwest of Amsterdam, famous for its shipyards. There were fifty of them. Merchant and whaling ships for the whole of Holland were built here.

The Tsar rented himself an apartment on a quiet outskirts, in the house of the anchor master Kist, who had been to Moscow more than once before. Two small rooms in the back half of the house. The dark closet became his bedroom, and the cramped closet at the entrance became his study. Two low windows barely let in daylight, but Peter was pleased with his new home.

Three days later, a new worker appeared at the shipyard owned by Linstr Rogge - Pyotr Mikhailov. Of enormous stature and remarkable strength, this man from distant Russia surprised the slow and indifferent Dutch with his hard work. Every day at sunrise he went to the shipyard in a crowd of artisans and worked with them until the evening. And when the working day ended, he was in no hurry to go home: he inspected the stocks, factories where ship equipment was made, and looked at other shipyards. Often the amazing worker went to sea on a small sailboat (like a sailboat) he bought or visited the families of carpenters he knew. Many of them subsequently came to work in Russia. Less than two weeks had passed before the residents of Saardam learned that the Russian Tsar had settled in the town under the guise of a simple carpenter. This was so unusual that crowds of onlookers began to follow Peter wherever he went. Then Peter moved to Amsterdam, where, together with his volunteers, he entered the shipyard of the East India Company under the command of shipwright Claes Paul. Here he worked until the arrival of the Russian embassy. And again, as in Saardam, he surprised the people of Amsterdam by turning from a carpenter into a king. Now he officially inspected the Admiralty, arsenal, shipyards and ship warehouses. In honor of Peter, the burgomaster of Amsterdam staged a demonstration naval battle in the Zuderzee Bay. In the city there was only talk about the Russian Tsar-Carpenter. Again crowds of curious people gathered to gaze at Peter.

Wanting to hide from curious people, Peter settled on the territory of the Admiralty of the East India Company, in the house of a simple rope maker.

The burgomaster of the city of Amsterdam tried to give the Russian Tsar and his embassy a worthy welcome. A gala dinner was given at the town hall, after which a grandiose fireworks display was planned. But Peter was of little interest in this. He wanted to get official permission to work in the city shipyards. And such permission was given. Peter immediately decided to go to Saardam to get his carpentry tools. It was not easy for the Dutch to persuade the king to stay until the end of the celebration and watch the fireworks prepared in his honor.

As soon as the celebration was over, Peter, despite the burgomaster’s warnings about the dangers of night sailing, set off on his boat to Saardam. At one o'clock in the morning he reached the town, collected his tools, and early in the morning he went to work with Claes Paul.

The Russian Tsar worked diligently for four and a half months with a shipwright. I studied everything I could, learned all the tricks of complex work. This is eloquently evidenced by the certificate issued to the Tsar Carpenter:

“I, the undersigned, Gerrit Claes Pohl, shipmaster at the Amsterdam Chamber of the privileged East India Company, testify and certify in truth that Pyotr Mikhailov (who is in the retinue of the great Moscow embassy among those here in Amsterdam on the East India shipyard from August 30, 1697 to the date indicated below, they lived and worked as carpenters under our leadership) during the time of his noble stay here he was a diligent and intelligent carpenter, he also did tying, nailing, weaving, caulking, planing, drilling, sawing, paving and tarring, as a good and skilled carpenter should, and helped us in the construction of the frigate “Peter and Paul”, from its first laying, 100 feet long (from stem to sternpost), almost to its completion, and not only that, under my supervision, naval architecture and his nobility studied drawing plans thoroughly, but also understood these subjects to the extent that we ourselves understand them. For authenticity, I signed this with my own hand. Given in Amsterdam, at our permanent residence at the East India Dockyard, on the 15th of January in the summer of the Lord, 1698, by Gerrit Claes Pohl, shipmaster of the privileged East India Company in Amsterdam.”

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It would seem that there could be no higher praise for the skill. But this was not why the king worked in the Dutch shipyards. Peter's insightful and clear mind noticed a lot. His gaze was wide. The king quickly realized the shortcomings of the Dutch shipbuilding system. In handwritten notes on the preparation of a ship's drawing in three planes - on the side, half-latitude and hull - which have survived to this day, it is noted that the Dutch were guided by practical considerations when building ships and drew up drawings without any theoretical calculations. It was necessary to improve my knowledge. Having lost confidence in the knowledge of the Dutch masters, Peter subsequently wrote: “If I had not learned from the English, I would have remained a carpenter forever.”

Just at this time, King William, who personally knew Peter, invites the royal traveler to England. Two warships, two yachts and a gukor drop anchor at the mouth of the Meuse. They were ordered to accompany the Russian Tsar.

On January 11, 1698, Peter was already in London. He settled on the very outskirts of the English capital, near the royal shipyard, in the house of shipwright George Evelyn. His task was to expand knowledge on the theory of shipbuilding and maritime practice. Peter devotes all his time to this. Looking at the drawings of various ships, he personally draws out parts of a set of ships on the plaza, often talks with Admiral Lord Carmarthen, and persistently and persistently studies the architecture and theory of ship construction.

It was difficult for the king to find a better teacher than Carmarthen: the admiral was considered a good sailor and a very famous shipbuilder in England. In addition, he had a huge collection of ship models, no doubt of great interest to the inquisitive student.

In England, Peter visited the artillery arsenal in Woolwich, spent three days on a military squadron stationed in Portsmouth, and sailed to the Isle of Wight on the 80-gun ship Hamburg. All this convincingly shows that the Russian Tsar did not waste time.

But in April 1698, Peter, having left the shores of “foggy Albion,” returned to Holland. Once again, the people of Amsterdam could see the tall figure of the carpenter king in various parts of their capital for a whole week.

However, the inquisitive Peter is not yet completely satisfied. He had already set off through Vienna to Venice, famous for its galley fleet, but the unexpected news of a new mutiny of the Streltsy forced him to hasten his return to Moscow. At the end of August 1698, after a year-long absence from his homeland, Peter again appeared in the capital of his state.

The Tsar's hopes for financial assistance from Holland and England for the construction of the Russian navy were not justified. And this is understandable: the mistresses of the seas were not at all interested in the emergence of another competitor.

Peter's embassy received a decisive refusal. But the knowledge acquired by the tsar during his journey was incomparably more fruitful for Russia than any material aid. Peter's in-depth study of all branches of maritime affairs turned out to be the basis on which the glorious future of the Russian navy grew. The student returned to his homeland as a master. Now everything in which the king had previously been forced to rely on the opinion of others, he saw clearly and knew himself. The birth of the Russian fleet was now a done deal.

Holland 17th century

In the second half of the 17th century, Holland, as the Republic of the Seven United Provinces of the Northern Netherlands was sometimes called, reached the zenith of its power and glory. It suffered from overpopulation - two million hardworking Dutch people were crowded into a tiny territory - but it was significantly superior to the rest of Europe in wealth, the number of cities, and the development of international relations. It is not surprising that the prosperity of this small state aroused amazement and envy among its neighbors, and envy often turned into greed. Certain national character traits helped the Dutch defend their independence. They had courage, tenacity, prudence, and when they had to fight (first against the Spaniards, then the British and finally the French), they did it with their inherent practicality and at the same time with selfless and high heroism. To protect their sovereignty and democracy, the people of two million maintained an army of 120,000 soldiers and the second largest navy in the world.

The success of Holland, like her freedom, was based on the tireless work of mind and hand. In most countries of Europe at that time, almost the entire population was tied to the land and was busy trying to feed itself in primitive ways and create at least a small surplus of food for the townspeople. And one Dutch peasant, managing to harvest a higher yield from each acre, get more milk and butter from his cows and meat from his pigs, was able to feed two of his fellow citizens who were not engaged in agriculture. Therefore, a good half of the Dutch population was freed up for other activities and rushed into commerce, industry and shipping.

Trade and navigation were the source of incredible wealth in Holland, whose inhabitants in the 17th century devoted themselves to these activities. The huge twin ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam were built in the Rhine delta - where Europe's largest waterways - rivers and canals - met the world's oceans. Almost all movement of goods to or from Europe, along European shores or further overseas, passed through Holland. English tin, Spanish wool, Swedish iron, French wines, Russian furs, spices and tea from India, timber from Norway, wool from Ireland were delivered to the Netherlands, where they were disassembled, processed, woven, mixed, sorted and shipped further by waterways.

The need to transport all these goods made the Dutch almost a monopoly of world shipping. More than four thousand Dutch merchant ships sailed the seas and oceans - more than all other countries combined. The Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, and the fledgling West India Company had offices in every major port in the world. Dutch sailors, combining the energy of pioneers with the prudence of merchants, conducted a tireless search for new markets and harbors. Ships continually scurried back and forth, mountains of goods grew, and with them profits, and the Dutch trading republic grew richer and richer. To protect and develop trade in Amsterdam, new services were introduced: insurance was invented to reduce the burden of risk; banks and the stock exchange mastered credit operations and learned on an unprecedented scale to direct public loans to finance commercial enterprises; Printing houses printed contracts, freight bills and other standard forms necessary for establishing, concluding and communicating about many thousands of trade transactions. Wealth generated reliability, reliability generated credit, which served as a source of new wealth, which means that the power and glory of Holland continued to grow and strengthen. Holland was a true example of a rich and prosperous mercantilist state, a paradise for a merchant - it was not without reason that young people from all over Protestant Europe, and most of all from England and Scotland, came here to gain experience in trade and financial affairs. It was to this brilliant Mecca of trade, navigation, culture that an impatient young Russian named Pyotr Mikhailov hurried through the German lands at the end of the summer of 1697.

In Pereslavl, Arkhangelsk, and Voronezh, Peter heard more than once from Dutch shipwrights and captains about Saardam. This town in IJ Bay, ten miles north of Amsterdam, was famous as the place where the best ships in Holland were built. About three hundred and fifty ships were built annually in fifty private shipyards in and around Saardam, and it was said that the people of Saardam were such dexterous and skillful craftsmen that from the moment of laying the keel to the launching of the ship it took them no more than five weeks. Over the years, the desire to go to Saardam and learn shipbuilding there became firmly rooted in Peter’s soul. That is why, while still passing through Germany, he told his companions that he intended to spend the entire autumn and winter in Saardam as an apprentice at the shipyard. Having approached the Rhine at Emmerich, near the Dutch border, the king became so impatient that he hired a boat and, leaving behind almost the entire embassy, ​​set off straight down the river and did not even go ashore to rest in Amsterdam.

Early in the morning on August 18, Peter and six comrades were sailing along the canal to Saardam when they suddenly noticed a familiar figure. Gerrit Kist, a Dutch blacksmith who worked with Peter in Moscow, sat in the boat and caught eels. Peter, beside himself with joy at the sight of his acquaintance, let out a cry of welcome. Suddenly awakened from his reverie, Kist raised his eyes and, seeing that the Russian Tsar was sailing past, almost fell overboard. Peter ordered to land, jumped out of the boat, squeezed Kist in his arms and took an oath from him not to tell anyone that the Tsar was in Holland. Then, having learned that Kist lived nearby, Peter decided to stay with him. Kist protested vehemently - his house was too cramped and modest for such a tenant and it would be better to turn to a widow, his neighbor. For seven florins, the widow agreed to move in with her father. Thus, after a few hours, Peter was safely installed in a tiny wooden house with two windows: two rooms, a tiled stove and behind a curtain - a stuffy niche for sleeping, so small that he could not properly stretch his legs. Two of his companions moved in with him, and four more found an apartment nearby.

The shipyards were closed on Sunday, but the excited Peter could not sit still. He went out into the streets, which were full of people enjoying a summer Sunday afternoon stroll. The news had already spread through the crowd that a boat with foreigners in outlandish costumes had arrived from afar, and people began to pay attention to Peter. In irritation, he tried to take refuge in the Otter Tavern, but even there everyone was staring at him. And this was just the beginning.

Work of Peter I at a shipyard in Holland

Early on Monday morning, Peter hurried to the shop on the dam and bought carpentry tools. Then he went to the private shipyard of Linsta Rogte and hired himself as a simple worker under the name Pyotr Mikhailov. He happily set to work - he trimmed logs with a hatchet and kept asking the master what the names of different objects were. After work, he went to visit the wives and parents of the Dutch shipwrights who remained in Russia, and explained that he worked side by side with their husbands and sons, proudly emphasizing: “After all, he is a carpenter himself.” Among others, he visited the widow of a Dutch carpenter who had died in Russia, to whom he had previously sent assistance of five hundred florins. The widow said that she often prayed that she would have the opportunity to express to the king how much this gift meant to her. Touched and very pleased, Peter stayed with her for dinner. On Tuesday, Peter, who dreamed of being on the water as soon as possible, bought a small rowing boat, having previously bargained like a true Dutchman. They agreed on forty florins, after which the seller and buyer went to a pub and drank a jug of beer. No matter how hard Peter tried to ensure that no one knew who he was, the secret quickly leaked out. On Monday morning, Peter ordered his comrades to change their Russian dress to the red jackets and white canvas trousers of the Dutch workers, but still the Russians were unlike the Dutch. The enormous height of Peter himself excluded any anonymity, so that by Tuesday all of Saardam knew that “a very important person” was in the city. And then an unfortunate incident happened: that same day, after lunch, Peter walked down the street, ate plums from a hat and treated them to the boys he came across, but there weren’t enough plums for everyone, and the children followed Peter. To get rid of them, he chased them for show, and they began throwing stones and dirt at him. Peter escaped by force at the Three Swans Hotel and sent for help. The burgomaster himself appeared, and Peter had to explain who he was and why he was here. The burgomaster immediately issued a decree prohibiting the Saardans from disturbing or offending “high-ranking persons who wish to remain unrecognized.” Soon the last doubts regarding the true status of the “high personage” were dispelled. One master from Saardam, who was then working in Russia, wrote home to his father that the Great Embassy was going to Holland and that the Tsar himself would probably be part of it under an assumed name. The Dutchman also reported signs by which it is easy to recognize the king: enormous height, twitching of the head and left hand, and a mole on the right cheek. On Wednesday, before my father had time to read this letter aloud in Pomp's barbershop, a big guy entered, exactly meeting all the signs. Like barbers all over the world, Pomp believed that the transmission of local gossip was part of his professional duties, and from then on he reported to everyone that the tallest of the foreigners was the Tsar of Moscow. To verify the veracity of this information, people flocked in droves to Kist, who was sheltering foreigners, who, as everyone knew, had met the tsar while in Russia. Kist, remaining faithful to his promise to Peter, stubbornly denied everything until his wife said: “Gerrit, I can’t do this anymore. Stop lying."

But despite the fact that Peter's secret had been revealed, he still clung to his incognito - he refused an offer to dine with important merchants of Saardam and refused to taste a very special Saardam-style fish in the company of the burgomaster and his advisers. To both invitations, Peter replied that none of the important persons were available, and the king had not yet arrived. When one important merchant came to Peter’s companions and offered to move to a larger house, with a garden and fruit trees, which would be better suited for them and their owner, he heard in response that they were not noble people, just serfs, so the present They have enough housing.

The news of the king's appearance in Saardam instantly spread throughout Holland. Many people completely refused to believe it, and countless bets were made. Two merchants who met Peter in Arkhangelsk hurried to Saardam. On Thursday morning, finding him at home, they came out pale with excitement and announced: “Of course, this is the king, but how did he end up here? And for what?" Another Arkhangelsk acquaintance, coming face to face with Peter, said that he couldn’t believe his eyes - was the Tsar really in Holland, and even disguised as a simple worker? “As you can see,” Peter said and did not add anything else.

On Thursday he bought a sailboat for four hundred and fifty florins and installed a new mast and bowsprit on it with his own hands. On Friday, at sunrise, he was already plowing the waters of Hey Bay. That same day, after lunch, he was about to set sail again, but almost immediately noticed many boats setting off from Saardam to join him. In search of salvation, he directed the ship to the shore - and, having jumped out, he immediately found himself in the middle of another crowd of curious people, who pushed each other aside and stared at him, as if in a menagerie. The enraged Peter lightly hit one of the spectators on the head, to which the crowd responded with shouts: “Bravo! Marcier, you have been knighted!” By this time, so many people had gathered both in the boats and on the shore that Peter took refuge in the nearest inn and only when it got dark returned to Saardam.

The next day, Saturday, Peter gathered to observe an interesting and complex mechanical operation - with the help of rollers and gates they had to drag a large, newly built ship across the dam; So that the king could watch without the risk of being crushed by the crowd, a small area was surrounded by a fence. But by morning, the news that special preparations were being made attracted even more curious people: people were traveling even from Amsterdam. The crowd swept away all the barriers.

Seeing that the windows and even the roofs of nearby houses were filled with onlookers, the king decided not to go, although the burgomaster himself came to hurry him up. Peter said in Dutch: “Too many people. There are too many people."

Departure of Peter I from Saardam

On Sunday, new crowds poured out of Amsterdam, boat after boat. In desperation, the authorities doubled the guard at the Saardam bridges, but the crowd simply threw them back. All day Peter did not dare to stick his nose out the door. Locked in the house, beside himself with anger and frustration, he turned for help to the confused members of the city council, but they could not do anything about the flow of visitors, which was increasing every minute. Seeing no other way out, Peter decided to leave Saardam. His boat was moved from the usual pier closer to home. Peter, vigorously using his elbows and knees, managed to break through the crowd and climb onto the ship. The fresh wind that had been blowing since the morning now turned into a storm, but the king insisted on sailing: When he set sail, the guy in the rigging burst and the boat almost sank. And yet, despite the warnings of experienced sailors, Peter sailed and reached Amsterdam three hours later. And here he was already guarded by a horde of Dutch people, crowding in the hope of seeing him. Again, some people got it from the angry king, but in the end he managed to get into the hotel rented for the Grand Embassy.

That was the end of the visit to Saardam that Peter had dreamed about for so long. It was pointless to try to work in an open shipyard, or to walk freely around the town, so his stay here was reduced to a single week, although he had previously planned to spend several months in Saardam. Later, he again sent Menshikov and two others there to master the art of building masts, and he himself stopped by briefly a couple of times. But Peter had to study Dutch shipbuilding not in Saardam, but in Amsterdam.

Peter I in Amsterdam

During the time of Peter, Amsterdam was the largest port in Europe and the richest city in the world. Built at the confluence of the two rivers Amstel and Hey into the Gulf of Zuj der Zee, the city grew right on the water. To create a support for it, piles were driven into the swampy soil, and water flowed through the city in concentric circles of canals, of which there were five under Peter. Each canal was divided into two or three parts by smaller canals, so that in essence the entire city was afloat - an archipelago of seventy islands connected by five hundred steeply curved bridges under which ships and barges could sail. The city walls stretched along the inner bank of the outer canal, which also served as a natural moat.

The walls were fortified with powerful round watchtowers, which the practical Dutch, as usual, adapted for another purpose. They built windmills on top of the towers, and their rotating wings powered pumps that continuously pumped water out of tiny patches of drained land. In front of the watchman standing on the city fortifications, a flat damp plain stretched out in all directions, dotted with large and small windmills as far as the eye could see, which tirelessly tried, figuratively speaking, to pump out the sea.

The buildings in this city testified to its wealth. From the port, Amsterdam appeared to be a city of red-brick church towers, symmetrical and purposeful, with the rounded shapes characteristic of Dutch buildings. The city fathers were extremely proud of their town hall and considered this structure, supported by 13,659 piles, to be the eighth wonder of the world. (Nowadays there is a royal residence there.) The city was full of breweries and sugar factories, tobacco warehouses, warehouses for coffee and spices, bakeries, slaughterhouses, iron foundries - everything had its own appearance and its own smell, and together they created a picture unusually rich and varied. But most eloquently about the wealth of Amsterdam were the solid houses built along the canals by successful merchants. These houses, slightly set back from the banks, shaded by elm and linden trees, remain the best decoration of modern Amsterdam. Very narrow (the amount of tax from homeowners depended on the width of the facade), they stretched upward for four or five floors and ended in an elegant, pointed pediment. From the ridge there was usually a beam protruding above the street, which was used to use a system of blocks to lift bulky furniture and other objects from the street into the house directly through the windows of the upper floors, since the stairs were too narrow for this. Looking down onto the street from the tall windows, the owner could see trees, ornate lanterns, and the shadowed, choppy water of the canals.

There was water everywhere, ships everywhere. Around every corner the visitor caught the eye of sails and masts. The port area looked like a forest of masts and yards. Pedestrians making their way along the canals had to step over rope bays, mooring rings, logs, barrels, anchors, even cannons. The whole city resembled a shipyard. And the port itself was crowded with ships of all sizes - small fishing boats with slanting sails, returning at noon from the morning fishing in Zuider Zee; large three-masted ships of the East India Company; seventy to eighty gun battleships. All of them were built in the characteristic Dutch manner: with rounded, raised bows, a wide hull and a flat bottom - like huge Dutch wooden shoes with masts and sails. There were also elegant ceremonial yachts with bulbous Dutch bows and large, elegant cabins at the rear, with leaded windows facing the stern. At the eastern end of the port, in a quarter called Ostenburg, there were huge shipyards and countless slipways on which ships of the Dutch East India Company were built. Here large, round, convex hulls of ships grew in rows - keels, frames, plating, deck after deck. Nearby, veteran ships returning from distant voyages were being repaired: first, their rigging and masts were removed, and then the hulls were dragged into shallow water and turned over on their side. There they lay, like beached whales, while carpenters and other workers scurried about, tearing away the thick carpet of sea plants from the bottom, replacing rotten planking, and filling the seams with fresh resin. It was here, in this special sailor’s corner of paradise, whose name is Amsterdam, that Peter came to spend four months here.

The Saardam crowds forced Peter to leave for Amsterdam, but he would still have to return there to meet his own Grand Embassy, ​​which was about to arrive. The ambassadors were received royally at Kleve, not far from the border, and were provided with four large yachts and numerous crews. The city authorities of Amsterdam, realizing the significance this embassy could have for future trade with Russia, decided to give him extraordinary honors.

The reception included ceremonial visits to the town hall, the Admiralty and the shipyard, special performances in opera and ballet, a huge banquet with fireworks, which were to be launched from a raft on the Amstel. During these celebrations, Peter had the opportunity to talk with the burgomaster of Amsterdam, Nicholas Witsen. He was a wonderful man - wealthy, respected both for his merits and for his character; being an official, he was also a traveler, a patron of the arts, and an amateur scientist. One of his passions was ships, and he invited Peter to inspect his collection of ship models, navigational instruments and tools used in shipbuilding. Witsen had a soft spot for Russia, and for a long time, despite the abundance of other responsibilities and hobbies, he acted as an unofficial representative of Muscovy in Amsterdam. During the months that Peter spent in Amsterdam, the tsar and the burgomaster talked daily, and Peter complained to Witsen about the onlookers who annoyed him in Saardam. Is it possible to calmly work and study shipbuilding when a crowd of strangers is constantly staring at you? Witsen immediately came up with a solution: if Peter remained in Amsterdam, he could work on the docks and shipyards of the East India Company, which were surrounded by walls and inaccessible to the curious. Peter liked the proposal, and Witsen, as one of the directors of the company, undertook to settle everything. The next day, the board of directors of the East India Company decided to invite “a high-ranking person who is here incognito” to work in its shipyards, and for his convenience, give him the house of a rope maker, so that he could both live and work directly at the shipyard, without any interference In addition, in an effort to make it easier for him to master shipbuilding, the board of directors ordered the keel of a new frigate to be laid one hundred or one hundred and thirty feet long - as the king pleased - and invited him and his entourage to participate in the construction from beginning to end and, along the way, become familiar with the techniques of the Dutch masters .

Work of Peter I at the shipyard in Amsterdam

That same evening, at the grand official reception that the city of Amsterdam gave in honor of the embassy, ​​Witsen told Peter what decision the directors had made, Peter was delighted, and, no matter how much he loved fireworks, he barely sat through the end of the feast. When the last rocket exploded in the sky, the king jumped up and announced that he was immediately, right in the middle of the night, going to Saardam to get his tools in order to get to work in the morning. Neither the Russians nor the Dutch managed to dissuade him, and at eleven o'clock in the evening he boarded his yacht and sailed away. The next morning he returned and went straight to Ostenburg to the East India Company shipyard. He was accompanied by ten Russian volunteers, including Menshikov, and Peter sent the rest of the volunteers throughout the port to learn sailing and rope craft, mast making, rigging and ship navigation. Tsarevich Alexander Imeretinsky was sent to The Hague to master the art of artillery. Peter himself signed up as a carpenter for the shipwright Gerrit Klaas Pool.

The first three weeks were spent collecting and preparing the necessary timber and other materials. The Dutch, wanting to clearly show the king what was to be done, collected and laid out all parts of the ship for viewing before starting to lay the keel. Then, as these parts fell into place one by one, the ship quickly grew, like a huge model from a modern children's construction set. The hundred-foot frigate was named the Apostles Peter and Paul, and Peter worked with enthusiasm at every stage of its assembly.

Every day he came to the shipyard at dawn, carrying an ax and tools on his shoulders, like all the other workers. He did not allow any differences between them and himself and strictly forbade anyone calling him any title to his face or behind his back. During the afternoon rest, he liked to sit on a log and talk with sailors or shipbuilders - with anyone who called him “carpenter Peter” or “baas (master) Peter.”

He simply did not notice those who addressed him with the words “your majesty” or “sire” or even turned away and looked in the other direction. When two English nobles came to look with their own eyes at the Russian Tsar, who works as a simple carpenter, the master, in order to show them who the Tsar is, shouted: “Carpenter Peter, why don’t you help your comrades?” - and Peter, without saying a word, came up, put his shoulder under the log that several workers could not lift, and helped hoist it into place. Peter was very happy about the house that was provided to him. Several of his comrades lived with him - a kind of artel of artisans. At first, food for the king was prepared in the hotel where the embassy stood, but he did not like this order. He wanted to live a completely independent life. He did not have specific times for meals: he preferred to eat when he was hungry. Therefore, it was decided that they would supply him with firewood and food, and then let him do as he wanted. From then on, Peter himself lit the fire and cooked something for himself, like an ordinary carpenter.

But although he lived abroad, dressed and worked like an artisan, neither Peter himself nor his compatriots ever forgot who he really was and what enormous power he possessed. The tsar's governors in Moscow did not want to act without the knowledge and consent of the sovereign, so each post office delivered thick bundles of letters with requests for orders or favors, simply with news. At this shipyard, thousands of miles from his capital, Peter became much more interested in the affairs of the Russian administration than before. He demanded that he be informed of the smallest details of those very state affairs that he had once so blithely neglected. He wanted to know about everything that was happening in Russia. How do archers behave? How is the construction of two fortresses near Azov progressing? How are things going with the port and fortifications in Taganrog? What's going on in Poland? When Shein wrote about the victory over the Turks at Azov, Peter celebrated this event with a magnificent banquet for important Amsterdam merchants, followed by a concert and fireworks. Having learned about the decisive victory of Prince Eugene of Savoy over the Turks at Zenta, he reported this to Moscow and at the same time wrote that he had arranged another feast in honor of this success. Every Friday he tried to answer letters from Moscow, although, as he wrote to Vinius, “some are due to lack of time, and some are due to absence, and others are not corrected by Khmelnitsky (drinking).

However, one day Peter had to somewhat moderate his omnipotence: having learned that two embassy noblemen spoke disapprovingly of his behavior - they say, the tsar should have exposed himself less to ridicule, and behaved more in accordance with his rank - Peter literally went mad. Believing that in Holland, as in Russia, he alone had power over the life and death of his subjects, he ordered them to be beaten into irons in anticipation of execution. Witsen intervened: he asked Peter to remember that he was in Holland, where no one could be executed without a verdict from a Dutch court. Then he gently offered to release the offenders, but Peter was adamant. Finally, he reluctantly agreed to a compromise, which resulted in the poor fellows finding themselves in exile in the most distant Dutch colonies: one in Batavia and the other in Suriname.

Outside the shipyard, everything aroused Peter's insatiable curiosity. He wanted to see everything with his own eyes. He visited factories, sawmills, spinning and paper mills, workshops, museums, botanical gardens and laboratories. Everywhere he asked: “What is this for? How does this work?” And, after listening to the explanations, he nodded: “Okay. Very good". He met with architects, sculptors, and the inventor of the fire pump, van der Heyden, whom he tried to lure to Russia. He visited the architect Simon Schnwut, the Jacob de Wilde Museum, and learned to sketch and paint under the guidance of Schonebeck. He engraved a plate that depicted a tall young man very similar to him with a cross raised high, trampling the crescent and banners of Islam with his feet. In Delft, he visited the engineer Baron von Kuhorn, the “Dutch Vauban,” who gave Peter lessons in fortification. He often visited the houses of the Dutch, especially those who traded with Russia. Having met the Tessing family, he became interested in printing and granted one of the brothers the right to print books in Russian and distribute them in Russia.

Several times Peter left the shipyard to go to the classroom or dissecting room to see Professor Fredrik Ruysch (Royce), the famous anatomist. Ruysch was famous throughout Europe for his ability to preserve human members and even the entire body through injections of chemicals. His magnificent laboratory was considered one of the wonders of Holland. One day, Peter was shown the corpse of a child, preserved so incomparably that it seemed as if he was smiling as if alive. Peter looked at him in admiration for a long time, and then could not resist, leaned over and kissed his cold forehead. Peter became so interested in surgery that he could not leave the laboratory, but wanted to stay and watch again and again. He dined with Ruysch and asked his advice which surgeon would be best to take to Russia to serve in the army and navy. Anatomy terribly fascinated the king, and from then on he considered himself a surgeon. After all, he might reasonably ask, how many Russians studied with the famous Ruysch? In subsequent years, Peter always carried two cases with him: a preparation box to check and refine the construction drawings that were presented to him, and a set of surgical instruments. He ordered that he be notified whenever some interesting operation was expected at the nearest hospital, and, as a rule, he appeared - often assisting the doctor himself and gradually learned to cut tissue, draw blood, pull out teeth and perform minor operations. Having become ill, the royal servants and entourage tried to hide this from the master, because otherwise he would appear with his box at the sick bed to offer - and very persistently! - your medical services.

In Leiden, Peter paid a visit to the famous Dr. Boerhaave, who was, among other things, the curator of the famous botanical garden. Boerhaave, who taught anatomy, asked Peter what time he wanted to come to his lecture. The king replied that he would come at six o'clock the next morning. He also visited the Boerhaave anatomical theater, where a body with exposed muscles lay on a table. Peter looked at him with enthusiasm when he heard that some of his squeamish fellow countrymen were whispering disgust at the dead body. To the horror of the Dutch, the enraged king ordered the offenders to approach the corpse, bend over and tear the muscles with their teeth.

In Delft he visited the famous naturalist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, inventor of the microscope. Peter spent more than two hours talking with him and looked into the wonderful instrument with which Leeuwenhoek discovered the existence of sperm and studied the blood circulation in fish.

On his free days in Amsterdam, Peter wandered around the city on foot, watching townspeople rush past him, carriages roaring across bridges, thousands of boats sailing along the canals. On market days, the king went to a huge open-air market, Botermarket, where piles of all kinds of goods lay right in the middle of the square or in the arcades. Stopping next to a woman buying cheeses, or a merchant choosing a painting, Peter observed everything and remembered everything. He especially loved watching street performers performing in front of crowds. Having once seen a famous clown who was juggling while standing on a barrel, Peter came out of the crowd and began to persuade him to go with him to Russia. The juggler refused for the reason that he had too much success in Amsterdam. At the market, the king witnessed how a wandering tooth grinder removed teeth using such unconventional tools as a spoon and the tip of a sword. Peter wished to master this instrument and learned enough to practice it on his servants. He also learned how to mend clothes and learned from a shoemaker how to make himself a pair of shoes. In winter, the sky turned completely gray, the Amstel and the canals froze, and Peter saw women in fur and knitted clothes, men and boys in long cloaks and scarves rushing past on skates with their noses turned up. And the most pleasant thing, as he discovered, was to sit in the warmth - in a pub or tavern - to rest his soul in the circle of Dutch and Russian friends. Looking at the prosperity of Holland, Peter could not help but ask himself why his own people, with endless steppes and forests, were only able to somehow feed themselves, while here, in Amsterdam, with its shipyards, warehouses and a forest of masts, they had accumulated more convertible wealth than in all Russian expanses.. Peter knew that one of the reasons for prosperity was trade, mercantilism, and the presence of a merchant fleet, and he decided to spare no effort in ensuring that all this appeared in Russia. Another reason was the religious tolerance of the Dutch. International trade could not be favored by an atmosphere of narrow dogmas and prejudices, therefore Protestant Holland was distinguished by the widest religious tolerance of all the countries of the then Europe. It was to Holland that dissenters fled from the Calvinist England of James I, so that ten years later from there they would head for Plymouth Bay off the coast of the New World. Thousands of French Huguenots flocked there, to Holland, after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. Throughout the 17th century, Holland served not only as the commercial center of Europe, but also as its scientific and creative laboratory. And as the Dutch fiercely resisted the claims of Louis XIV's Catholic France, they fought in equal measure for their commercial supremacy and their religious freedoms. Peter was very attracted to this atmosphere of religious tolerance. He visited many Protestant churches in Holland and spent a long time questioning the pastors.

Only one brilliant facet of Dutch culture of the 17th century did not interest him too much. This was a new wonderful painting by the great masters of the Dutch school - Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals and their contemporaries and followers. Peter bought paintings and brought them to Russia, but these were not works by Rembrandt or other masterpieces comparable to those that Catherine the Great later acquired. He chose paintings with ships and the sea.