Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / Peter the Great and the First Russian Navy: Taganrog and Azov
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Peter the Great's Grand Embassy a few episodes ago — how he went west disguised as a carpenter, learning shipbuilding in the Dutch Republic and England. But what often gets glossed over is what happened immediately after he got back. He didn't just start building St. Petersburg or reforming the alphabet. His first obsession was the sea — specifically, getting Russia a warm-water port. Luna: Right, because Russia was basically landlocked at that point, except for the White Sea up north. Lucas: Exactly. Archangel froze solid for half the year. So Peter set his sights on the Sea of Azov, which connects to the Black Sea. But to get there, you had to take the Ottoman fortress of Azov, sitting at the mouth of the Don River. In 1695, he launched his first campaign against it. Lucas: It was a disaster. He had no fleet, so the Ottomans could resupply by sea. His army, though large, couldn't blockade the fortress. After a couple of bloody assaults, he had to retreat. But Peter being Peter, he didn't sulk — he learned. He spent the winter of 1695–96 building a fleet on the Voronezh River, a tributary of the Don. Luna: A whole fleet in one winter? Lucas: More or less. He conscripted thousands of peasants, craftsmen, and even soldiers. They worked in brutal conditions, felling trees, sawing planks, forging nails. By spring, they had about two dozen galleys and a number of fireships. It wasn't a deep-water navy — these were river and coastal vessels — but it was enough. Lucas: The second Azov campaign in 1696 succeeded. The Russian fleet blockaded the fortress from the river, while the army besieged it from land. The Ottomans surrendered in July. Peter was ecstatic. He immediately started planning a proper naval base — and that's where Taganrog comes in. Luna: Taganrog — that's on the Sea of Azov, right? Lucas: Yes, on a promontory called Cape Taganrog. Peter ordered the construction of a harbor, fortifications, and a shipyard there. It was going to be Russia's first real naval base on a southern sea. He even sent a contingent of galleys to winter there in 1697, which was a huge logistical challenge. But the project was hugely expensive, and the location had problems — the sea was shallow, and the harbor silted up. Luna: So it wasn't exactly the ideal deep-water port he'd dreamed of. Lucas: No, but it was a start. And for Peter, starting was everything. He also set up a shipbuilding program on the Don, and he brought in foreign experts — Dutch and Venetian shipwrights, English naval officers. One key figure was Franz Lefort, his Swiss friend and admiral, who helped organize the first Azov fleet. Another was Patrick Gordon, a Scottish general who advised on the siege. Lucas: But then, in 1700, the Great Northern War broke out, and Peter's attention shifted to the Baltic. The Azov fleet was neglected. Ships rotted in harbor. And worse, in 1711, Peter got into a war with the Ottomans again — the Pruth River Campaign — and it went badly. He was surrounded and had to sue for peace. Luna: The Treaty of the Pruth — that forced him to give back Azov and destroy the fleet. Lucas: Exactly. He had to scrap the ships, demolish the fortifications at Taganrog, and abandon the whole southern naval project. It must have been heartbreaking. But Peter, as always, pivoted. He poured everything into the Baltic fleet, and within a decade, Russia had a navy that could beat Sweden at Gangut. Luna: So Taganrog was like a prototype — a costly lesson that shaped his later approach? Lucas: Absolutely. It taught him that building a navy isn't just about ships — it's about infrastructure, training, and long-term commitment. The Taganrog experience also gave him a cadre of officers and shipwrights who later built the Baltic fleet. And it showed the rest of Europe that Russia was a naval power to be reckoned with, even if only briefly. Lucas: There's another layer to this — the social dimension. Forcing Russian nobles to serve in the fleet was a huge cultural shock. Many of them had never even seen the sea. Peter sent hundreds of young nobles to study shipbuilding in Venice, Holland, and England. And he himself worked as a shipwright in Amsterdam and Deptford. That hands-on approach was unprecedented for a tsar. Luna: I remember reading that he even made his courtiers learn to sail on Lake Pereyaslavl as a training exercise. Lucas: Exactly. He built a 'toy fleet' on Lake Pleshcheyevo, near Pereslavl-Zalessky, as a training ground. That was in the 1680s, before Azov. So the naval obsession started early. The Azov campaigns were the first real test, and even though they ended in abandonment, they proved that Russia could project power onto the sea if it chose to. Lucas: You know, talking about the sheer effort Peter put into this — the winters of forced labor, the foreign experts, the personal example — it really makes you appreciate how much went into building something from nothing. And that's a good reminder of something. Luna: What's that? Lucas: If you found today's episode useful — if it gave you a new angle on Peter the Great or early Russian history — the reason we can keep doing these deep dives without ads is listener support. People like you who buy the occasional coffee. So if you want to keep these conversations going, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small gesture that makes a big difference for us. Luna: Yeah, and it's totally optional — we just appreciate that you're here, really. Lucas: Exactly. So, back to the ships. One of the most interesting vessels in the Azov fleet was the 'Goto Predestinatsia' — 'God's Predestination' — a 58-gun ship of the line built at Voronezh under Peter's supervision. It was one of the first Russian-built battleships, and Peter actually helped design it. Luna: Wait, he designed a ship himself? Lucas: He was involved in the drafting, yes. The ship was launched in 1700, right before the Northern War. It was a three-masted, two-decker, and it became the flagship of the Azov fleet. But after the Treaty of the Pruth, it was scuttled or broken up. Still, it showed that Russia could build capital ships, not just galleys. Lucas: The other thing is the human cost. Building the fleet in a single winter meant thousands of workers died from disease, exposure, and accidents. The Don region was swampy and malarial. Peter didn't care about casualties — he cared about results. It's a brutal side of his character that we sometimes gloss over when we talk about his modernization. Luna: Was there any opposition to the naval program from the nobility or the church? Lucas: Plenty. The old boyar aristocracy resented being forced into shipbuilding service. The church, led by Patriarch Adrian, saw the 'Dutch heretics' teaching shipbuilding as a corrupting influence. But Peter crushed dissent. He abolished the patriarchate in 1700 and replaced it with the Holy Synod, a government department. Any opposition was met with exile or execution. Lucas: In the end, Peter's southern naval adventure was a failure, but it was a necessary failure. It taught him that Russia needed a different strategy — and that's why he later built St. Petersburg and the Baltic fleet. Without Azov and Taganrog, there might have been no Gangut or Kronstadt. So it's a story of ambition, cost, and resilience. Luna: It really puts the 'great' in Peter the Great — but also the 'brutal'. Lucas: Exactly. And that tension — between visionary reform and human suffering — runs through the entire Romanov story. Next time, we might look at how Peter's naval obsession shaped his son Alexei's fate, but that's for another episode.