Strug (boat)

A Strug is a type of flat-bottomed boat which was in use primarily in Russia from the 11th - 18th centuries, for the transport of people and cargo as well as military uses.

The first recorded mention of a strug occurs in the early Russian legal code Russkaya Pravda (Русская правда) of 1054.

It is documented that in 1240 the army of the great Novgorod prince Alexander Nevsky reached the location of the Swedes on fast vessels of this type.

In preparation for the second Azov campaign of the Russo-Turkish War in the winter of 1696, large-scale construction of ships for a new Russian Navy was begun in Voronezh and Preobrazhensky, including 522 strugas.

In 1722, he made a round trip from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod and Astrakhan on the Muscovets, a strug equipped with 18 rows of oars.