Before Peter the Great, Russia was a landlocked giant with only a dream of the sea. This episode follows the unlikely path from Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich's ambitious but ill-fated first warship, the Oryol, to the creation of a real navy under his son. We trace the construction of the Oryol at a village on the Oka River, its sad end at the hands of Stepan Razin's rebels, and the forgotten Dutch and Scottish craftsmen who tried to teach Muscovy the ropes. Then we follow Peter's obsessive work in the Dutch shipyards, his secret identity as 'Peter Mikhailov', and the brutal, bureaucratic birth of the Azov and Baltic fleets. Along the way we meet Admiral Franz Lefort, the notorious Andrei Vinius, and the officer who would become Peter's nemesis, Charles XII of Sweden. It's a story of timber, tar, and tsarist ambition — and how a land power learned, at a staggering cost, to float. For anyone who's ever wondered how Russia became a naval empire, this is the improbable, bloody origin story.
#RussianNavy #TsarAlexei #Oryol #StepanRazin #PeterTheGreat #AzovFleet #BalticFleet #FranzLefort #CharlesXII #GreatNorthernWar #Shipbuilding #RussianEmpire #Romanov #NavalHistory #17thCentury #18thCentury #History #FexingoHistory
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