A Shipbuilder’s Diary Entry
August 2d, 1701It was boiling hot, yet a cool breeze from the Velikaya River made it a bit comfortable to work. We had loads of work: the Tsar had ordered us twice as many and twice as fast ships as possible. The reason was the Swedish fleet threatening our land during the Northern War. We worked tirelessly. Once my fellow workers were busy building a frigate. I was making a keel from one massive bar when a young man in his late twenties came up to me. He needed the keel of two bars fastened together with wooden nails. We got into a slight argument discussing it. The man was dressed in a Dutch sailor's jacket and wide trousers and looked like a plain Hansa merchant. Soon the wharf manager turned up and addressed him in awe, "My Lord! When did you arrive? Why did you order ships in our small town? There is no sea here." I was standing spellbound as I had mistaken the Tsar for a Dutchman. His answer was unequivocal, "If only there were ships! Seas will be found!" He patted me on the shoulder and added, "Well, it’s high time we got to work." Tsar Peter set to work, I followed. Later I apologized to the Tsar. He turned out to be an easy-going and amiable person. Aftewards, while strolling along the Velikaya Embankment and talking, I couldn’t help boasting about the unique skills of Pskov’s blacksmiths. In response, Peter Alekseevich declared that with his strong hands he could bend any horseshoe of the first blacksmith’s forge that came along our way. We bet. To my relief, I won. Incredible strength though Peter I possessed, he could not unbend the bracket (so-called "skoba") forged by Pskov’s blacksmiths. "Ah, you skobars!" he exclaimed and ... entrusted us with making skobas for the young Russian fleet. 