This 18th-century invention was intended to be the wonder weapon of the Russian Empire and bring the Baltic Sea under sway.The idea to build a stealth vessel capable of sailing underwater and “knocking a warship out from below” belonged to Yefim Nikonov, a simple carpenter who worked in a shipyard in the 18th century. He had no engineering background and was illiterate. But that did not stop him from being a master shipbuilder.

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