Czar Peterroute

The Czaar Peterroute is a city walk through the center of Zaandam. With this walking route you follow in the footsteps of the famous Russian monarch. You pass buildings from earlier times, lockkeepers' houses, an old tea house and also contemporary places in Zaandam. Dam, Damkade, Dampad and Damstraat all give their name to the medieval Hogedam in the river Zaan, after which Zaandam was named. The dam was probably built at the end of the 13th century and was of great importance for keeping the polder dry to the east and west of the Zaan. The Hogedam was the final piece of an extensive system of dikes that protected the peat polders against the intrusion of Zuiderzee water. The Zaanstreek is the oldest industrial area in our country. It was called the'land of a thousand windmills\\\' here in the Golden Age. The goods of the trading metropolis of Amsterdam underwent their industrial processing there. Here there was more space than in the city and people were not limited in their entrepreneurial spirit by guild regulations. Leaner times followed after the 17th century. A second heyday started in the second half of the 19th century after the completion of the North Sea Canal and railway line. The Zaan region came up to steam, factories started to determine the image. In recent times, a lot of industry has left the Zaan. The narrow strips of land outside the dykes between water and residential areas often offer too little space for expansion and scaling up.