The story
As you stand here along the sun-drenched edge of the Bay of Kotor, take a moment to breathe in the salt air and look out across the shimmering blue water. You are walking along the Obala Kapetana Marka Martinovića, a waterfront named in honor of one of the most prestigious mariners this town ever produced. If you look straight ahead, you will see the two iconic jewels of the bay: the dark, cypress-shadowed island of St.
George and the elegant, blue-domed church of Our Lady of the Rocks. This view is more than just a beautiful vista; three centuries ago, this very horizon served as the classroom for an empire. The year was 1698.
Perast was then a naval powerhouse under the flag of the Venetian Republic, famous for its fearless sailors and sophisticated maritime knowledge. Word of the town’s genius reached as far as Russia, where the young Tsar, Peter the Great, was obsessed with a singular, radical dream: transforming his vast, landlocked nation into a global naval power. Peter knew that to build a great navy, he needed more than just timber and iron; he needed leaders who understood the unpredictable temper of the sea.
To achieve this, the Tsar sent seventeen of his highest-ranking nobles, the boyars, across the continent to this exact spot. Imagine the scene three centuries ago on these very stone docks. These Russian aristocrats, accustomed to the frozen forests and golden courts of the north, arrived here to be met by Captain Marko Martinović.
Martinović was a man of the salt and the wind, a scholar-captain who spoke the language of the currents. Right here, in the shadow of the stone palaces and the soaring bell tower of St. Nicholas, Martinović established one of the first nautical schools in the world.
He didn't just teach from maps in a quiet room. He took these nobles out onto the water you see before you, showing them how to read the winds that funnel through the mountain passes and how to navigate the narrow, treacherous channels of the Boka. Under his stern guidance, they learned the art of the sail, the science of the stars, and the discipline of the deck.
When those students finally returned to the Baltic, they carried the secrets of Perast with them, forming the backbone of the first Russian Imperial Navy. As you continue your stroll along the waterfront, look at the grand stone facades of the palaces. They were built with the wealth earned from the sea—a reminder that for centuries, the world came to this small town to learn how to conquer the waves.
Every step you take follows the path of those unlikely students and the master captain who turned this quiet shore into a pivot point of world history.