Cornelius Cruys

Cornelius Cruys (Russian: Крюйс, Корнелий Иванович) (1655 – 1727) was a Dutch Vice Admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy and the first commander of the Russian Baltic Fleet. He was born in Norway.

He was born as Niels Olsen (Olufsen) in the city of Stavanger in Norway in 1655 and was half Norwegian and half Dutch. It is uncertain when the Norwegian Niels Olsen (in Dutch `Cornelis Roelofsz') emigrated to the Dutch Republic and changed his name to Cornelis Cruys (Kornelius Krøys or Cornelis Cruijs). However, according to several municipal sources, Cruys lived in Amsterdam for at least eighteen years before he joined the Russian Navy.

The first known record about Cruys was produced by the local administration of Amsterdam in 1681. That year he married the nineteen-year-old Catharina Voogt. She was born in Amsterdam and was the daughter of Claas Pieterszoon Voogt, a Dutch captain of a merchantman, and Jannetje Jans. In the civil registration of his marriage, Cruys was called a sailor from Amsterdam, 24 years old, an orphan. In December of that year, about seven months after his marriage, Cruys was officially registered as a citizen or poorter of Amsterdam.

In 1680 Cruys became the captain of a Dutch merchantman. Until 1696 he sailed to Portugal, Spain and the Caribbean. In July 1696 he joined the Dutch Navy. He was appointed onder-equipagemeester at the naval dockyard of the Amsterdam Admiralty. In less than two years he would leave Holland for the Russian Navy.

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