He was a member of Peter's close-knit group of friends who organized themselves into the Jolly Company and The All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters.

Their son Andrew was raised to speak, besides Dutch, also Russian and German;[9] he knew French, Polish and Latin too, which he later taught to Peter the Great.

[2][10] Vinius was also the one who, after the Azov campaigns, arranged the parade into Moscow under a pagan arch that bewildered many Muscovites.

[10] By melting a quarter of the church bells in Russia, eight months after the end of the Battle of Narva, Vinius managed to produce hundreds of cannons to send to the Russian army.

[10] Despite his old age, on Peter's command, he also went into Siberia to look for potential new mines, and ended up establishing several ironworks beyond the Ural Mountains.