Peter Mikhailov's Love

Little Peter hated water: every time he passed over a bridge he trembled with fear. But when little Peter grew up to be Peter the Great he fell madly in love with water. Last week that love bore ironic fruit.

A few years after he became Tsar, Peter began to woo the sea. He learned on a Russian lake how to trim a sheet and ease a tiller. Later he went to Holland disguised as Peter Mikhailov, able-bodied seaman, there took a job in shipyards and learned how to warp gnarled oak into clean ship shape with his own hands. He learned navigation, piloting, naval tactics.

He went back to Russia and pushed his country's borders to the Baltic Sea. Then, by the Baltic Peter built the beginnings of his favorite city, St. Petersburg. The town grew, and Peter gave it a fortress touching the water--great Kronstadt. Peter called the place his "paradise,"eventually moved his capital there, by the water.

Last week, the third of Leningrad's siege, Kronstadt's huge guns were silenced by Nazi artillery and dive-bombers. The sea approaches to Leningrad were threatened as German naval and Luftwaffe parties battered their way onto the stubbornly defended Estonian Islands, Oesel, Vormsi and Moon. The Finns put new pressure on the sea fort of Hanko. German warships were reported steaming into the Baltic to smoke the Red Fleet and its stinging artillery out of the Gulf of Finland.

The city Peter had built to be near the sea was now threatened from the sea.

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