In June 1910, a monument to Peter the Great by the famous sculptor of the time, Leopold Adolfovich Bernshtam, was unveiled on the Admiralty Embankment in St. Petersburg.

In his youth, Peter the Great studied shipbuilding in the Dutch city of Zaandam. It was this moment in the life of the Tsar that the author of the sculpture captured. It is interesting that the composition created by the sculptors was installed in St. Petersburg, and its copy was donated to Holland, where in 1911 it took its place on the central square of Zaandam.

However, the monument did not stand in the Northern capital for long: already in January 1919, the young Soviet government considered it “anti-artistic” and “ugly” and sent it to be melted down. But at the same time, the supporters of the October Revolution forgot about another copy of the sculpture, which was in the Summer Garden. True, its turn soon came: constant attacks from representatives of the "free press" and unflattering reviews from city guides (in one of them the monument was described as a vivid example of "false idealism", "philistinism" and even "lisp patriotism") could not pass without a trace - in 1934 this monument also suffered the same sad fate as its predecessor.

It is rather difficult to understand why the Tsar-Carpenter was so displeasing to the Bolshevik regime, but thanks to the Dutch, who did not succumb to the attacks of the Soviet authorities and preserved the sculpture, the current generation has not lost the opportunity to contemplate the man-made image of Peter the Great by the sculptor L. Bernshtam.

Another copy was made from the copy that had been safely standing in the city of Zaandam all these years, and it was only in the 90s of the last century that it was delivered to its homeland, where, on the three-hundredth anniversary of the Russian fleet, on September 7, 1996, after a long break, the monument was finally erected in its rightful place on the Admiralty Embankment.

The installation of the monument to Peter the Great was attended by high-ranking guests, among whom was the heir to the throne of the Netherlands, the Prince of Orange.