There are certain milestones in world history that are decisive for the further development of the country. Such is the era of the reign of Peter I. But Peter's reforms would not have been possible without those people, associates of Peter, who are usually called "chicks of Petrov's nest." One of the most prominent "chicks" was Jacob Vilimovich Bruce - an unsurpassed engineer, artilleryman, fortifier, diplomat and scientist. However, public opinion turned him in the eyes of his descendants into a sorcerer and warlock, a magician and alchemist, a sorcerer and a wizard. These legends did their dirty work: they obscured Bruce's real-life figure, replacing it with a mythological one. Therefore, the life and work of this person was forgotten for many decades. And only in our time at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries it became possible to open the name of Bruce to a wide circle of readers, to tell his biography.