A very interesting historic fact is that the Dutch were crucial in shaping modern Russian navy, as Russians basically learned the know-how from the Dutch in late 17th century. Peter the Great personally went to Netherlands to work with Dutch shipbuilders. Russia had almost no professional navy or shipbuilding tradition beforehand. Because of this the famous Tsar Peter the Great recruited large numbers of Dutch shipwrights, carpenters, sailors, and officers, ordered ships from Dutch yards. The Russians also imported Dutch practical methods and terminology, to the point where many Dutch nautical terms are still in use in Russian today. But regarding the photo posted by Liz, it's funny that Peter the Great actually hated ceremonies like this and preferred to work with Dutch shipbuilders as one of the regular carpenters, so that he would learn from them, even traveling incognito and introducing himself simply as Peter Mikhailov. Peter the Great was exceptionally tall (over 2 meters or roughly 6'7"-6'8"), so him pretending he was someone else was more to have an excuse to skip ceremonies rather than to actually try to fool people.