Pyotr Veliky
by Paul Helfrich

1/700 Pyotr Veliky (Trumpeter)

I had heard good things about Trumpeter's recent 1/700 scale releases, and after building this kit, I'm a believer. It is simply the best plastic kit I've ever built. I've built quite a few 1/700 scale ships, and this was the best experience ever. The detail and fit are just excellent. So is the organization of the parts - the individually bagged sprues are very helpful. I've recently built a much older kit where the parts were kind of arranged willy-nilly on the sprues, and spent half my time building hunting for the next part. That gave me an even greater appreciation of Trumpeter's thoughtful organization of the kit.

My only complaint would be the decals - they're nice to look at, but very delicate and disintegration-prone. Dragon and Revell-Germany do a better job with decals, but as far as the kit itself goes, Trumpeter has set a new standard. I have also recently finished a Trumpeter "Iowa" class - the 1991 Missouri - and if anything, I was even more impressed.

I built the kit as the "Peter the Great" in current Russian Navy service. The Soviet emblems don't match that, of course, but I thought they were attractive enough to be permitted a small liberty. The ship was built, after all, under the Soviet regime.

The final photo in the sequence shows her in the workshop, next to (for size comparison) the Trumpeter Missouri and an Academy Ticonderoga class cruiser, both under construction.