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Tsar Carpenter monument in Saint Petersburg, Russia

Peter the Great was a monarch of the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May [O.S. 27 April] 1682 until his death in 1725, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Under his reign, Russia was modernised and grew into a European power.Through a number of successful wars, he captured ports at Azov and the Baltic Sea, laying the groundwork for the Imperial Russian Navy, ending uncontested Swedish supremacy in the Baltic and beginning the Tsardom's expansion into a much larger empire that became a major European power. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernised and based on the Enlightenment.[1] Peter's reforms had a lasting impact on Russia, and many institutions of the Russian government trace their origins to his reign. He adopted the title of Emperor in place of the old title of Tsar in 1721, and founded and developed the city of Saint Petersburg, which remained the capital of Russia until 1918.

The impressive monument to Peter the Great “Tsar Carpenter” which now stands on the Admiralty embankment has a particularly fascinating history. The highly detailed monument portrays a young and determined Peter the Great undergoing the laborious task of building a ship with rolled up sleeves and an axe in one clenched hand. Three hundred years ago a young Peter the Great set off to the city of Zaandam in Holland to learn the craft of ship building which he would bring back with him to Russia to help build the Russian Navy.