A significant step in the creation of a sometimes formal, but more often informal naval alliance between Russia and Great Britain, was Tsar Peter I’s desire to construct a significant naval force. To achieve this, he sought out and gained the help of King William III (r.1689–1702), who permitted him to recruit from within the British Isles engineers who could build naval facilities, artisans skilled in shipbuilding trades, together with professional seagoing officers. William and his advisors looked to gain from Russia a favoured trading relationship, one that, in particular, would provide the raw materials needed by Britain’s government and privately owned dockyards for the construction of merchant and naval ships. In pursuing their joint aims, neither Peter nor William was pushing in directions new. Tsar Ivan IV (r.1547–84), the first Tsar of Russia, in showing an interest in developing a navy had welcomed English traders and, for a short period, following a successful military campaign and the acquisition of Dorpat and Narva, gained an entry point into the Baltic. Furthermore, it had been Ivan IV who had brought Russia to the shores of one further sea, the Caspian, this following a successful campaign against the Kharnate Khazan that gave Russia control of the Volga from its source to the delta. Peter’s father, Alexis I (r.1645–76), who brought Dutch shipwrights into the country to build ships for both trade and war, had also made an attempt to secure entry into the Baltic. The ambitions of both Ivan IV and Alexis I may have been later paralleled by Peter, but Peter, considerably aided by the arrangements forged with William III, was able to go much further. Not only did Peter gain a permanent entry point into the Baltic, but he also created a navy of considerable size and longevity, something which neither Ivan nor Alexis was able to bring about.

Archangel – Russia’s Only Oceanic Sea Port

Peter’s first experience of waterborne craft had been the cumbersome boats used in Russia to transport goods along rivers, together with small craft used only for pleasure boating.