Founder of Russian maritime power, born on the 14th of June 1657. He was a rear-admiral in the Dutch service, when Peter the Great, noticing his abilities, persuaded him to go to Moscow. There, in 1698, he was received with great splendor, and soon appointed vice-admiral. His services to Russia were of various kinds; to him it owed its first dockyards, canals and charts, the organization of its navy, and its victories over Sweden and Turkey in 1708–10. He died in 1727, possessor of an imperial domain in Kexholm, and owner of the island Birken, in Finland. It is in memory of him that the white flag with the blue cross still floats from the Russian men-of-war.
