Le Chasse-Marée. Le Shtandart : The Russian Frigate That Travels Back in Time

04/2001

By Sandrine Pierrefeu

The frigate Shtandart will soon dock at the docks of Brest and Douarnenez. Ambassador ship of the city of Peter the Great, it will have made the journey from Saint Petersburg to honor for a second time the invitation launched by the Bretons. Older than its oak keel, laid just ten years ago, its history begins with the visionary dreams of an emperor who loved ships and the West.

May 2003. The world’s eyes are on the Venice of the North. Pastel palaces, golden domes and canals with a thousand bridges, Saint Petersburg is celebrating its three hundred years in the rediscovered splendor of its foundation. In 1991, after the years of the Soviet Union where any reference to the past, especially the tsarist one, was prohibited, Leningrad took back its original name. Then the city and its inhabitants were allowed to reconnect with their history, that of a “European” capital invented by Peter the Great and created from scratch in the far west of the country. At the heart of the tercentenary celebrations, the parade which descends the Neva illustrates the second great work of the Tsar: the creation of an imperial fleet. At the end of the 17th century, the young monarch decided to provide Russia with a powerful navy in order to drive out its Turkish enemies in the South, Swedes in the Baltic and to guarantee his people access to the four seas surrounding his domain.

Read the full article in Le Chasse Maree (in french)