Perceiving various distorted "historical facts", like those that Peter the Great created the Russian fleet, it would be good to recall the French proverb sometimes: "When arguing about the obvious, remember that an uncle may be younger than his nephew." German "historians" who make up the chronology of the history of Russia tried to distort and belittle everything that the Slavs could know and be proud of. They did not bypass the history of domestic shipbuilding and naval navigation.
They are trying to assure us that "the process started" only with the Peter's phrase: "There will be a Russian fleet!", Uttered in the Boyar Duma on October 30, 1696. The magic of these words turned out to be so strong that it was able to confuse heads for almost three hundred years. However, this is how the more than independent expert, the English admiral and naval historian Fred Thomas Jane, asserted: “The Russian fleet, which is considered a relatively late institution founded by Peter the Great, actually has more rights to antiquity than the British fleet.
A century before Alfred the Great, who reigned from 870 to 901, built British ships, Russian ships fought in sea battles. The first sailors of their time were they - the Russians."
Crimean thunderstorm
But there is probably no reason to climb into a very remote antiquity. It is much more interesting to evaluate the Russian fleet according to the Hamburg score - it turns out that in those romantic times, when Francis Drake robbed and burned Spanish galleons, and piracy flourished in the Caribbean, Russian naval commanders looked decent.
For the first time, the Muscovite fleet was seriously discussed in 1559. The successes of the young Tsar John, who had not yet been called the Terrible, was then impressive. Kazan fell, Astrakhan surrendered, the turn of the Crimea came. The claim is daring - Crimea was under the protection of the Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and all of Europe trembled before his army and navy. Nevertheless, ours threw down a daring challenge to his power.
Tsarist steward Danila Adashev, under whose command there was an eight-thousandth expeditionary force, built ships at the mouth of the Dnieper and went out into the Black Sea. By the way, these ships were not at all primitive boats. Here is how the Genoese prefect of Kafa (now Feodosia) Emiddio Dortelli D 'Ascoli speaks of them: “They are oblong, similar to our frigates, they can accommodate 50 people, they go on oars and sail. The Black Sea has always been angry, now it is even blacker and more terrible in connection with the Muscovites …”The Genoese did not lie.
Promotional video:
Russian combat boat.
The Russians, bursting out into the open sea, showed themselves in all their glory. Adashev's flotilla imposed a battle on Turkish ships, burned about a dozen, captured two, and then landed in the Western Crimea.
The khanate froze in horror - the Russians plundered and devastated the coast for three weeks, effortlessly withstanding clashes with the Turkish Navy. Who knows how history could have turned if John Vasilyevich had not taken a look at the Baltic - with the outbreak of the Livonian War, hostilities in the Crimea were interrupted, and the first Russian naval commander Danila Adashev was recalled to Moscow. To Stockholm!
Baltic, read the article "Russian Northern Sailors".
In the Baltic, our fleet also managed to prove itself quite well. Almost a hundred years after the Crimean projects of John, another tsar, already from the new Romanov dynasty, Aleksey Tishaishy, decided that it was time to restore order on the northern borders. And in 1656 he set out to liberate the entire Baltic coast from the Swede - from the mouth of the Neva to Riga. They did not doubt the success. The Swedes, accustomed to feeling themselves masters in the Baltic, were at a loss - simultaneously with the land campaign, the Russians also risked leading a sea campaign, but how! Patriarch Nikon specifically admonished the "naval commander, voivode Peter Potemkin" with curious speeches: "To go beyond the Sveisky (Swedish) line, to the Varangian Sea, to Stekolna (Stockholm) and beyond." That is, it was supposed so, with the summer, to seize neither more nor less, but the capital of a hostile state. Well, the plan was ambitious. And what's interesting isalmost feasible.
The Potemkin corps numbered, however, only 1,000 people, but 570 more Don Cossack sailors were added to them. And they did not disappoint. The ships were built, and on July 22, 1656, Potemkin undertook a military expedition. Leaving the Gulf of Finland, he headed for the island of Kotlin, where Peter later laid down Kronstadt. I found Swedes there. A fight ensued. The result was Potemkin's report to the tsar: "They took the semi-robot (galley) and beat the people of Svei, and captain Irek Dalsfir, and the outfit (cannons), and took the banners, and on Kotlin Island, Latvian villages were carved and burned."
Unfortunately, the policy has taken its toll again - the war was hastily curtailed, and our presence in the Baltic was delayed for another 50 years. In Taganrog there is a monument to Peter I with the inscription: "To the founder of the fleet in the south of Russia." But is such a great honor deserved? Indeed, 25 years before the Peter's ships, during the Russian-Turkish war of 1672-1681, a squadron under the command of Grigory Kosagov broke through into the Sea of Azov. The ships of the famous voivode were built not by some overseas craftsmen, but by the Russian design (engineer) Yakov Poluektov. The ships came out pretty good. In any case, they fulfilled the task "to hunt over the Crimean and Turkish coasts" perfectly. It is not for nothing that the French envoy at the court of Sultan Magomed IV wrote to his homeland: "Several Muscovite ships that have appeared near Istanbul (!) Produce more fear than a plague epidemic on his Majesty."
The actions of the squadron were remembered by the Turks for a long time. When, 13 years later, Vasily Golitsyn set out on his first Crimean campaign, there was a panic in Istanbul. The Muscovites had not yet reached Perekop, and the Janissaries in the Turkish capital had already raised a riot - no one wanted to die ingloriously on the "Russian front". It even got to the point that when some Muslim fanatics dreamed of terrible northern ships on the horizon, they climbed the minarets and shouted in panic "The Russians are coming!" they threw themselves down so as not to fall into the hands of the "giaurs".