This 4k. stamp shows the Oryol. the first warship to be built in Russia, although she has also been described as a yacht. Peter the Great's nautical procedure was not entirely without precedent to guide him, for as far back as Tsar Michael's time, Dutch and English shipwrights had migrated first to Archangel, and then to Voronezh, where the building of flat-bottomed boats became a thriving business.
Tsar Alexis, Peter's father, employed some of them to build for him the craft shown on the stamp. She was built in 1668, but was destroyed by the insurgent Cossacks in 1671, during the revolt of Stenka Razin. One of his shipwrights engaged in her construction was Karsten Brant, whose name is so closely associated with Peter's first essays in shipbuilding. The vessel seems to have been armed with 22 guns. SG4017