The Italian engineer captain Matvey Simont (Matteo Milankovich) came to Russia in 1698. Upon entering the service, he undertook to teach the “naval military art” to ten Russians. By personal order of Peter the Great, he was sent to oversee the construction of ports, first in Voronezh and then in the area of Cape Tagan Rog.

When Peter the Great inspected the Taganrog harbor and fortress in April 1709, he was pleased with the results and ordered to award all participants in the construction. A gold medal lavishly decorated with diamonds was made specifically for Matvey Simont.

The emperor wrote to his associate, Count Fyodor Matveyevich Apraksin,

On November 7, 1709, the gold medal was officially bestowed upon engineer captain Matvey Simont in Taganrog. In celebration of this court favor, cannon salutes were fired at the fortress, and all servicemen were offered glasses of wine. Other builders, officers, sailors, and soldiers, as well as carpenters and blacksmiths, received similar medals made of silver without diamonds.

The emperor decided to send some of these medals to foreign courts. On the one hand, the medal was presented as an award, and on the other, it served as a reminder of the emperor’s accomplishments. The 1709 medal was designed by the French medalist Solomon Gouin and the Saxon medalist Gottfried Haupt. They worked together: one of them designed the portrait side, and the other created the image on the reverse side.

The museum collection features a copy of this medal produced in the second half of the 18th century. Russian medals designed during the reign of Peter the Great were extremely popular among history enthusiasts, and because of this were often replicated. Instead of old and worn-out medals, copies were made. In the mid-18th century, Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov initiated the production of retrospective medals that depicted events from the era of Peter the Great.