The Shtandart was Peter I's personal frigate, launched in 1703 on Lake Ladoga — his first significant naval commission and a vessel he reportedly helped build with his own hands at the Olonetsk shipyard. The original was decommissioned and broken up by the 1730s, but a full working replica was constructed between 1994 and 1999 by volunteers in St. Petersburg, and that replica is what this coin commemorates, not the historical vessel per se.
The reconstruction project operated largely on private funding and enthusiast labor, an unusual origin for a subject dignified by official state coinage.
The Shtandart was Peter I's personal frigate, launched in 1703 on Lake Ladoga — his first significant naval commission and a vessel he reportedly helped build with his own hands at the Olonetsk shipyard. The original was decommissioned and broken up by the 1730s, but a full working replica was constructed between 1994 and 1999 by volunteers in St. Petersburg, and that replica is what this coin commemorates, not the historical vessel per se.
The reconstruction project operated largely on private funding and enthusiast labor, an unusual origin for a subject dignified by official state coinage.