Neva Yacht Club

The Neva Yacht Club, also called Yacht-club Neva or simply Club Neva, is a sailing club in Saint Petersburg, Russia, close to the Neva River. It traces its origin to 1718, when Tsar Peter the Great founded the Nevsky Flot, the Fleet of the Neva, as the first yacht club in Russia and gave its members 141 small ships; the club was revived in 1892 by senior officers of the Russian Imperial Navy and re-established in its present form in 1958. It claims to be the first and oldest yacht club in Russia and even in the world, a claim challenged by the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Ireland, founded in 1720, because an imperial decree is not a voluntary association of members. The Imperial Neva Yacht Club was disbanded after the Russian Revolution. Today the club serves only members of a public association of aquatic recreation amateurs and accepts only ship owners as members; it stands at 94 Martynova Quay.