Sail Amsterdam

There goes the Shtandart, a wooden frigate recently built to design dating from 1703.Peter the Great presided over the drawing board and appointed himself as the first captain of this Russian navy flagship. Its captain today has just fired a cannon in salute to the Sedov, a barque that has also sailed here from Russia and is moored patiently at the quay to delight the day trippers. The Sedov is the genuine article, built of steel and dating back to 1921. It was built at the Friedrich Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel, in a country that at the time was seeking a better place in the sun of contemporary power politics. Since 1945 the vessel has sailed under the Russian flag as a training ship for the cadets in their big white caps. The caps aren’t only intended a protection against the sun, but also to reinforce the powerful aura of mother Russia. It’s an effect not lost on the girls on the quay.