Vasily Berkov

Vasily Ivanovich Berkov (Russian: Василий Иванович Берков) (Dutch: Wicher Berkhoff) (21 August 1794 in Vriezenveen, Netherlands – 5 April 1870 in Saint Petersburg, Russia) was a Russian shipbuilder and from 1829 to 1870 Director of the Admiralty Shipyard of Saint Petersburg, possibly in the rank of Counter-Admiral. Berkov deserves special credit for his translations of West-European literature on shipbuilding into Russian. He was one of the so-called Rusluie, a Dutch community in 18th and 19th century Saint Petersburg, most of whose members originated from Vriezenveen, Berkov's native town.

Education Berkov was the son of carpenter Albert Berends Berkhoff and Berendina van den Bosch, and left his native town at an early age for Saint Petersburg, where his grandparents Frederik van den Bosch and Clasina de Vries took him into their care. Unlike many of his peers who went into trade, Berkov decided on a career in the shipbuilding industry. In either 1815 or 1816 he successfully completed his six-year civilian apprenticeship program at the College for Shipbuilding Architecture in Saint Petersburg as a shipwright.

Career From 1815–16 to 1825 Berkov worked as Deputy Master-Shipbuilder at the Lodejnopolskaja Shipyard, in the Grebnoj Docks in Saint Petersburg, at the shipyards in the Don basins and in the Novgorod district. Here he built ships destined for inland shipping, as well as private luxury yachts for two senior civil servants: Viktor Kochubey and Aleksey Arakcheyev. He was also involved in the building of the Enterprise, the ship of explorer Otto Von Kotzebue. After a brief career in 1825 as Master-Shipbuilder at Saint Petersburg's City Wharfs, in 1826 he accepted the position of Deputy Navy-Inspector for Innovative and Technological Requirements, at his former training college. In 1829 Berkov returned to the City Wharfs as Director. of which he became Director. He continued this position until his death in 1870. In the hierarchy of the Russian social class system, Berkov rose to the civilian rank of Acting State Councilor (4th class), which equals the rank of Counter-Admiral in the Navy. Whether Berkov had actually held a Navy Admiral rank is subject of debate among Dutch historians. /Table Setter Ivan Prokovievich Volkov and Nadezhda Volkova. The Russian Orthodox marriage took place in the St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. They are known to have had six children from this marriage: Elena (b.ca.1828), Nadezhda (b.1834), Viktor (b.1837), Aleksandra (b.1840), Maria (b.1842) and Alexander (b.1844). In 1846 Berkov acquired Russian nationality, and in 1847 he ascended into the Russian hereditary peerage. In later life he returned once more to his birthplace Vriezenveen, where even his own sister did not recognize him. After his death in 1870 he was buried in the Evangelical-Lutheran Volkovo Cemetery in Saint Petersburg. In 2007 the Municipality of Vriezenveen named a street in his honour.

Honours link=Order of St. Vladimir Order of Saint Vladimir, 4th class (1834) link=Order of St. Stanislav Order of Saint Stanislaus, 2nd class (1836) link=Order of St. Anna Order of Saint Anne, 2nd class with crown (1840) Crimean War Medal (1853–56)