Peter the Great

Peter relaxed best when he was working with his hands: wielding a hatchet at the" Admiralty shipyard, bent over his lathe turning objects in wood or ivory, or hammering out iron bars next to a forge. The Emperor enjoyed visiting iron foundries—he liked the pumping of the bellows, the glowing of the metal in the fires, the clang of hammers on the anvils—and he had learned the basic skills of the blacksmith's trade. Once he spent a month working in the forges of a master blacksmith named Werner Muller. Peter worked hard, forging 720 pounds of iron bars in a single day, and when he asked for his pay, Muller lavishly overpaid him. Peter refused the excess, accepting only the wage of an average smith, then taking the sum to a shop where he bought a pair of shoes. Afterward, he showed his new shoes proudly to everyone saying, "I have earned them by the sweat of my brow with a hammer and an anvil."

As always, Peter's greatest pleasure was to be on the water. Even when he was ashore, he had a standing arrangement that upon the firing of three cannon shots from the Peter and Paul Fortress, all ships in the river between the fortress and the Winter Palace were obliged to exercise their crews by running up sails, hoisting anchors and tacking to and fro. The Tsar, standing at a window of the Winter Palace, observed all this activity with a keen eye and much pleasure. In summer, he spent as much time as possible on board a boat or ship. He relished general boating excursions on the Neva, which he announced by having special flags hung at street intersections throughout the city. On the appointed day, all citizens who owned boats assembled on the river in front of the fortress. On Peter's signal, the flotilla set off downstream with the Tsar in the van, standing at the tiller of his own boat. Many of the noblemen brought musicians, and the peals of trumpets and oboes sounded across the water. Near the mouth of the river, boats usually turned into a small canal which led to Catherine's little country palace, Ekaterinhof. Here, the guests moved to tables placed under the orchard trees and quenched their thirst drinking glasses of Tokay wine.

Peter's joy was to sail on the Gulf of Finland between St. Petersburg and Kronstadt. In fine weather, out on the water, with the deep blue of the sky above him, the bright sun beating down, the gentle murmur of the waves slapping against the side of the boat and his own hand on the tiller, the Tsar was at peace. Sailing alone, he had a fine view of the coastline, of wooded hills climbing back from the water and, on the crest, the summer palaces beginning to rise. Returning across the gulf to Petersburg, he saw first the river mouth and surrounding forests; then, rising above the treetops, the spires and steeples of the churches, covered with tin and brass and, occasionally, with gilt, then the palaces and buildings along the embankments. After such a day, Peter always stepped ashore and returned to everyday life with a reluctant sigh.

As much as Peter loved simplicity, Catherine loved luxury. During the later years, Peter established for his wife a brilliant court that offered a striking contrast to his own style of living. The Tsaritsa was fond of dresses and jewels, perhaps to drown in glitter the memories of her humble origins. Catherine's household included pages in green uniforms faced with red and trimmed with gold lace and a private orchestra in green uniforms. The Empress' favorite companion, surprisingly, was Matrena Balk, a sister of Anna Mons, Peter's German mistress in the years before he met Catherine. Her court also included a daughter of the Pastor Gluck, who had sheltered Catherine as an orphan; Barbara Arseneeva, sister of Darya Arseneeva, who was Menshikov's wife and Catherine's early friend; Anisya Tolstoya, who had known Catherine since she first met Peter; Princess Cantemir of Moldavia; Countess Osterman, wife of the Vice Chancellor; Countess Anna Golovkina, daughter of the Chancellor, who became the second wife of Yaguzhinsky; the daughter of Anthony Devier, the Police Commissioner of St. Petersburg; and Marie Hamilton, a relation of the Scottish wife of Andrei Matveev.

The most outspoken of these ladies was Catherine's inseparable friend, the old Princess Anastasia Golitsyna, who accompanied the Tsaritsa to Copenhagen and Amsterdam, was implicated in the affair of the Tsarevich Alexis and publicly whipped, and soon after regained her position at court. One of her letters to the Tsar from Reval in 1714 gives a glimpse of Catherine's court:

Sire: I desire your presence here quickly. If Your Majesty delays, really, Sire, my life will be hard. The Tsaritsa is never willing to go to sleep before three o'clock in the morning and I have to sit constantly by her while Kyrilovna dozes as she stands by the bed. The lady Tsaritsa deigns to say, "Aunt, are you dozing?" and she replies, "No, I am not dozing. I am looking at my slippers," while Marie Hamilton walks about the room with a mattress which she spreads in the middle of the floor, arid Matrena Balk walks through the rooms and scolds everybody. With your presence,.I shall get freedom from bedroom service.

In April 1719, fate dealt Peter and Catherine a devastating blow. The death of the Tsarevich Alexis had clarified, albeit grimly, the problem of the succession. There remained two young males in Peter's line: Peter Petrovich, his son by Catherine; and Peter Alexeevich, his grandson, the son of Alexis and Princess Charlotte. But the uncle, Peter Petrovich, was never as healthy as his nephew, who was four weeks older. The child was the apple of his parents' eyes, and careful efforts were made with his health and education. He appeared from time to time at court celebrations riding a tiny pony, but he was backward and often ill. In every aspect of childhood development, he fell further and further behind his active, aggressive nephew, the little Grand Duke Peter Alexeevich.

In February 1718, when Peter Petrovich was two, Alexis was stripped of the succession, and the nobility and clergy of Russia swore allegiance to Peter's and Catherine's little son as heir to the throne. Fourteen months later, this little boy, only three and a half, followed his half-brother Alexis to the grave.

The death of this favorite child, in whom Peter had placed his hopes for the future of the dynasty, overwhelmed him. He rammed his head against a wall so hard that he went into a convulsion; then for three days and nights, he shut himself up in his room and refused to come out or even to speak to anyone through the door. During all this time, he remained stretched on his couch without eating. The business of government came to a halt, the war with Sweden was ignored, messages and letters went unanswered. Catherine, overcoming her own grief, became alarmed at her husband's obsessive despondency and knocked at his door and called to him, but no answer came, and she retired, weeping, to beg for help from Prince Jacob Dolgoruky. The aged First Senator calmed the frightened Tsaritsa and summoned the entire Senate to meet outside Peter's door. Dolgoruky knocked. There was no answer. Knocking again, Dolgoruky called out to the Tsar that he was there with the entire Senate, that the country needed its Tsar, and that if Peter did not open the door immediately, he would be obliged to break it down and carry the sovereign away by force as the only means of saving the crown.

The door opened and a pale and haggard Peter stood before them. "What is the matter?" he asked. "Why do you come to disturb my repose?"

"Because your retirement and your excessive and useless sorrow are the cause of the disorder that prevails in the country," replied Dolgoruky.

Peter bowed his head. "You are right," he said, and went with them to Catherine. He embraced her gently and said, "We have afflicted ourselves too long. Let us no longer murmur against the will of God."

The death of little Peter Petrovich left Peter and Catherine with

three children living, all daughters. In 1721, Anne and Elizabeth were thirteen and twelve respectively, and Natalya was three. The two older girls already were attracting favorable notice from foreign diplomats, always on the lookout for a useful match. "Princess Anne," said Bergholz, whose master, the Duke of Holstein, was eventually to marry this daughter, "is a brunette and as pretty as an angel with a charming complexion, arms and a figure very much like her father and rather tall for a girl, even a little inclined to be thin and not as lively as her younger sister Elizabeth, who was dressed like her. The dresses of the two princesses were without gold or silver, of pretty, two-colored material, their heads ornamented with pearls and precious stones in the latest French fashion, in a way which would have done honor to the best French hairdresser."

Three years later, when Anne was sixteen, her charms were praised by Baron Mardefelt, the Prussian minister and a skillful painter of miniatures who had done portraits on ivory of all members of the Russian imperial family. Of Anne, he wrote: "I do not believe that there is today in Europe a Princess who can dispute the palm with her majestic beauty. She is taller in figure than any lady in her court, but her waist is so slender, so graceful, her features so perfect, that the antique sculptors would have had nothing left to desire. Her bearing is without affectation, equable, serene. Above all amusements, she prefers the reading of historical and philosophical works."

As for Elizabeth at fifteen, "She is a beauty the like of which I have never seen," said the Spanish ambassador, the Duke of Liria. "An amazing complexion, glowing eyes, a perfect mouth, a throat and bosom of rare whiteness. She is tall in stature and her temperament is very lively. One senses in her a great deal of intelligence and affability, but also a certain ambition."

Both Anne and Elizabeth were receiving the education of European princesses, which consisted mainly of languages, manners and dancing. They already spoke High Dutch and were becoming fluent in French. When Peter asked their tutors why French was necessary, whether the German language was not broad enough to enable one to express oneself fully, the tutors replied that it was, but that all civilized men, including Germans, wished to learn French. Anne, the more apt pupil, apparently learned a little Italian and Swedish also. To display her progress, she wrote to her father and mother in German while they were abroad. To one of these letters, Catherine replied in 1721:

As I know from the letters of your tutor, as well as of M. Devier, you, my heart, are learning with diligence. I am very glad and send you as a present, to stimulate you to do better, a diamond ring.

Choose one of them for yourself, whichever pleases you, and give the other to your dear sister, Elizabeth, and kiss her for me. I send you also a box of fresh oranges and lemons which have just come from the ships. Pick out some dozens and send them as from yourself to the Serene Prince [Menshikov] and to the Admiral [Apraxin].

Many years later, the Empress Elizabeth recalled the keen interest her father had taken in the education of his daughters. He came frequently to their rooms, she said, to see how they were passing their time, and "he often required an account of what I had learned in the course of the day. When he was satisfied, he gave me commendations accompanied by a kiss and sometimes by a present." Elizabeth also remembered how greatly Peter regretted the neglect of his own formal education. "My father often repeated on this subject," she said, "that he would have given one of his fingers that his education had not been neglected. Not a day passed in which he did not feel his deficiency."

The third daughter, little Princess Natalya Petrovna, bom in 1718, did not live to begin serious schooling. In appearance, she was a blend of her two parents, with a wide face, black hair curled on her forehead in imitation of her mother, black eyes and a little red rosebud mouth. But she died in 1725. Of the twelve children of Catherine and Peter, six boys and six girls, only Anne and Elizabeth lived beyond the age of seven.

One of the great characters of Russian society at this time was the gouty old Tsaritsa Praskovaya, the widow, of Peter's half-brother and co-tsar, Ivan V. A widow since 1696, Praskovaya was always fiercely loyal to Peter and had given him two of her three daughters, Anne and Catherine, to marry off to European princelings in furtherance of the Tsar's foreign policy. Although she much preferred her own country villa, the Ismailovsky Palace in the rolling meadowland outside Moscow, she dutifully moved to Petersburg. Carried to banquets and balls in her chair, she was always seated at the side of the Tsaritsa Catherine, from which vantage she observed and commented acidly on whatever was happening. Her desire to please the Tsar extended even to traveling with him to Olonets to take the iron waters, although most of those around her felt that she left these cures in poorer health than when she arrived. As Praskovaya grew older, she became irascible and quarrelled often with her older daughters, both of whom returned to Russia; Catherine, the gay and lively Duchess of Mecklenburg, returned for good in 1722, and Anne, Duchess of Courland, traveled home frequently for visits until her permanent return in 1730, when she was crowned as Empress Anne. After one ferocious argument, Praskovaya placed her formal curse on Anne and withdrew it only in the final moments before she died.

During the summer and autumn of 1722, while Peter and Catherine were away on the Caspian Sea, the court transferred itself to Moscow. Catherine of Mecklenburg was living with her mother at the Ismailovsky Palace, and she often invited people out from Moscow for entertainment. They came over the muddy country roads to be served with cups of vodka by the Duchess' own hand, be fed a badly cooked dinner and dance until midnight. When the heat of bodies and candles in the small drawing room became too great, the dancers moved into the bedroom where the crippled Tsaritsa Praskovaya was lying, or into the bedroom of the Duchess. The house was poorly designed, with bedrooms scattered between drawing room and dining room, and, in any case, Praskovaya cared little about appearances. When Peter returned from the Caspian, Bergholz hurried out in the middle of the night to be the first to bring the news to the Tsaritsa. He found everyone in bed, but Catherine of Mecklenburg was delighted and took Bergholz to announce the news to her mother, her sister and their maids of honor, who were all undressed. The Holsteiner was surprised by the small size and poor condition of the Tsaritsa's house. "In general, this nocturnal visit did not make a favorable impression on me," he noted in his diary, "although I had the luck to see many bare necks and bosoms."

In 1718, Peter instituted his new assemblies, or evening parties, which were held two or three times a week during the long winter. They were the most important part of the Tsar's effort to bring the two sexes together and give Petersburg a taste of the genteel social intercourse which he had witnessed in the salons of Paris. Because this idea was a novelty in Russia, Peter issued regulations* spelling out to his subjects exactly what the new assemblies were meant to be and how they were to be performed. His explanation, typically, has the sound of a teacher lecturing pupils:

Regulation for Keeping Assemblies at Petersburg

Assembly is a French term which cannot be rendered in a single Russian word: It signifies a number of persons meeting together, either for diversion or to talk about their own affairs. Friends may see each other on that occasion, to confer together on business or other subjects, to inquire after domestic and foreign news, and so to pass their time. After what manner we will have those assemblies kept may be learned from what follows:

1. The person at whose house the assembly is to be in the evening is to hand out a bill or other sign to give notice to all persons of either sex.

The assembly shall not begin sooner than four or five in the afternoon, nor continue later than ten at night.

The master of the house is not obliged to go and meet his guests, to conduct them out, or to entertain them; but though he himself is exempt from waiting on them, he ought to find chairs, candles, drink and all the other necessaries asked for, as also to provide for all sorts of gaming and what belongs thereto.

No certain hour is fixed for anybody's coming or going; it is sufficient if one makes his appearance at the assembly.

It is left to everyone's liberty to sit, walk or play, just as he likes, nor shall anybody hinder him or take exception at what he does, on pain of emptying the Great Eagle [a bowl filled with wine or brandy] to be swallowed as punishment. As for the rest, it is enough to salute at coming and going.

Persons of rank, as for instance noblemen, and superior officers, likewise merchants of note, and headmasters (by which are chiefly understood shipbuilders), persons employed in the Chancery, and their wives and children shall have the liberty of frequenting the assemblies.

A particular place shall be assigned to the footmen (those of the house excepted) that there may be sufficient room in the apartments designed for the assembly [that is, so that the rooms would not be clogged with footmen hanging about and mingling with guests].

Although the host was not asked to prepare anything more than tea or cold water for his guests, nothing prevented him from furnishing a large supper and plenty to drink. Yet no one was forced to drink, and, in contrast to Peter's famous all-made banquets, heavy drinking and drunkenness at the assemblies were severely frowned upon. Peter himself kept the list of hosts and designated the host whose turn it was; and although he still refused to give formal parties at his own palace, he readily agreed to act as host for an assembly when his name came up on the list.

Before long, St. Petersburg society flocked to these receptions. In one room there would be dancing, in another people playing cards, in a third a group of men solemnly smoking their long clay pipes and drinking from earthenware mugs, and in a fourth men and women laughing, gossiping and enjoying one another in a way hitherto unknown in Russia. Peter was always there, merry and talkative, moving from room to room or sitting at a table, smoking a long Dutch pipe, sipping Hungarian wine and studying his next move in a game of draughts or chess. The course of these assemblies did not always run smoothly. Prince Gregory Dolgoruky and the younger Prince Romodanovsky, old enemies from a divorce suit, got into a fist fight at the supper table; on another occasion, a guest climbed onto the table and, walking along it, stumbled into a pie. But in general, the level of behavior was pleasing to the watchful eye of the imperial mentor who had performed this miracle of blending the society of Old Russia with the society of Europe.

Most ladies in St. Petersburg society, once exposed to Peter's mixed assemblies, rushed to embrace the change. Instead of remaining in the reclusive world of their own households, they now stepped forward into a new, more exciting life. Young, unmarried girls now had a place to meet a wide range of young, unmarried men. It was delicious to be able to dress, to dance, to display their charms in public. Extravagant new dresses, glorious in color and style, appeared, and, reported Bergholz, "all the ladies here use rouge as much as the French." However, they were still unwilling to spend hours preparing the lavish coiffures of the ladies of Western courts. "It is still too hard for them to make a sacrifice of their accustomed love of ease," said Bergholz. "Russians think too much of their ease and coif themselves very unwillingly."

With Western manners in vogue, Russian mothers hurried to bring their daughters up in the style of Germany or France. "One must do the parents here justice," said Bergholz, "to say that they spare nothing to have their children well educated, so that it is with astonishment that one sees the great changes which have been made in this nation in such a short time. There is no more trace of the rude and displeasing behavior they had not long ago." Some of these young women had a special advantage gained in a somewhat ironic way. General Trubetskoy, who had been held prisoner in Stockholm with his wife and daughters, was exchanged in 1718 for Field Marshal Rehnskjold. When the family returned from Sweden, his three daughters, who had been in Stockholm "with their father from their tender years, had so much improved by a good education that upon their return to Russia they distinguished themselves far above any other ladies of their own country."

The gentlemen as well as the ladies of St. Petersburg rushed to adorn themselves. Instead of the traditional single fine robe worn on state occasions and passed down from father to son, Russian gentlemen now ordered numerous rich new coats, embroidered with gold. One foreigner, watching a group of Russians covered with furs coming into a house on a cold winter night, declared, "On entering any house, some of the servants immediately untie your fur shoes and divest you of your pelisse; nor is it unamusing to see fine gentlemen, adorned with silver and gold and purple, and precious stones, starting forth from their rough external guise like so many gaudy butterflies, bursting suddenly free from their winter encrustations."

The extravagance in clothes was accompanied by extravagance in other aspects of living. Russians kept regiments of servants and clothed them in splendid liveries. They ordered exquisite furniture, elegant carriages and rare foreign wines. Banquets, balls and other entertainments displayed their wealth, although all too often the wealth disappeared as expenses ate up the fortune. Debts and ruin were frequent, and impoverished officers and officials begging for a new position with a handsome salary were often to be seen in the offices of government.

Another result of the sudden emancipation of Russian women after centuries of sequestration was a general easing of morality, or what Prince Mikhail Shcherbatov later described as "a depravation of morals." Peter's personal behavior in this area remains obscure. Anna Mons and Catherine were his mistresses at different times. Catherine's maids of honor Marie Hamilton and Marie Cantemir were rumored to have received his favors, and several eighteenth-century writers wrote rollicking accounts of Catherine traveling through Europe accompanied by a suite of ladies, each one carrying her baby by Peter in her arms. One presumes that Peter was not chaste and that the stories of a liaison with an actress in London or a lady in Paris may be true. It is clear, however, that these affairs, if they took place, were episodes to which Peter gave little thought and attached no importance. Catherine understood this and frequently teased him in her letters. Peter's assurances that no other woman would be interested in "an old fellow like me" were good-humored but sometimes a little red-faced.

Catherine could tease him, but others could not. In Copenhagen in 1716, King Frederick IV turned to him smiling and with an eyebrow raised. "Ah, my brother," he said, "I hear you also have a mistress." Peter's face instantly darkened. "My brother," he snapped, "my harlots do not cost me much, but yours cost you thousands of pounds which could be better spent."

Essentially, Peter's attitude toward morality in relations between men and women was based on a utilitarian social ethic. He was indulgent toward behavior and indiscretions which did no harm to society. Prostitutes enjoyed "perfect liberty in Russia," reported Weber, except in the case of one who had "peppered some hundreds of the Preobrazhensky Guards who, being unable to march on their duty with the rest, were obliged to remain behind at Petersburg in order to be cured"; this woman was knouted for having harmed state interests. In general, the Tsar refused to defend chastity or punish adultery. Told that the Emperor Charles

V had forbidden adultery under pain of death, he asked, "Is it possible? I should have thought that so great a prince had more judgment. Without a doubt he fancied that his people were too numerous. It is necessary to punish disorders and crimes, but we ought to spare the lives of our people as much as possible." Unmarried women, when pregnant, were encouraged to bear their infants. Once, when Peter found a pretty girl barred from the company of other maidens because she had an illegitimate son, he said, "I forbid her to be exluded from the company of other women and girls." The girl's son was placed under the Tsar's protection.

Peter's court was filled with examples of men and women who had profited from or been saved by the Tsar's leniency in these matters. He encouraged Yaguzhinsky to divorce his first wife, who was making his life miserable, and to marry Countess Golovkin, "one of the most agreeable and well-educated ladies in Russia," according to Bergholz. Although her face was scarred by smallpox, she had a splendid figure, spoke French and German fluently, danced exquisitely and was always cheerful. He denied Prince Repnin permission to take his Finnish mistress as his fourth wife (the Orthodox church permitted only three in sequence), but legitimized their children under the name Repninsky. When his favored dentchik Vasily Pospelov married a lady flute player, Peter not only attended their wedding but was present at the baptism of their baby the following morning. He supported General Anthony Devier in his suit for the hand of Menshikov's sister. Having been refused by the Prince, who hoped for a better match, Devier and the lady nevertheless conceived a child. Devier appealed again to Menshikov on the grounds that the child should be born legitimate, to which Menshikov responded by kicking Devier down the stairs. Peter intervened on Devier's appeal and the marriage was celebrated, although after the Emperor's death Menshikov exiled his brother-in-law to Siberia.

But if Peter was tolerant of indiscretion, he was implacable in criminal matters. Prenatal abortion or the murder of an unwanted infant after birth was punishable by death. The most dramatic example of the Tsar's unwavering stand on this issue came with the case of Marie Hamilton. This young woman, one of the Tsaritsa Catherine's favorite maids of honor, was, in the language of the day, "much addicted to gallantry." In consequence, she bore three illegitimate children. The first two were murdered in such secrecy that no one at court suspected, but the third dead infant was discovered and the mother arrested. In prison, she confessed that this was the third time this mournful event had occurred. To her surprise, for she believed that the friendship and favor of the Tsar and the Tsaritsa would win her a pardon, she was sentenced to death. On the day of the execution, the prisoner appeared on the scaffold in a white silk gown trimmed with black ribbons. Peter climbed the structure to stand beside her and spoke quietly into her ear. The condemned woman and most of the spectators assumed that this would be her last-minute reprieve. Instead, the Tsar gave her a kiss and said sadly, "I cannot violate the laws to save your life. Support your punishment with courage, and, in the hope that God may forgive you your sins, address your prayers to him with a heart full of faith and contrition." Miss Hamilton knelt and prayed, the Tsar turned away and the headsman struck.

During the final years of his reign, Peter turned his attention to bringing to St. Petersburg some of the institutional refinements of civilized society: museums, an art gallery, a library and even a zoo. Like almost everything new in Russia created by the Tsar's effort, these institutions strongly reflected his own taste. He had little inclination for theater (his preference ran to the crude masquery of his Mock-Synod) and none whatsoever for instrumental music. The only theatrical performances to which Russian society had access were those arranged by Peter's sister Princess Natalya, who established a small theater of her own, taking a large empty house and fitting it out with a stage, pit and boxes. Weber, who attended a performance, was not enthusiastic. "The actors and actresses, ten in number, were all native Russians who had never been abroad, so that it is easy to imagine their ability," he wrote. The play he saw, a tragedy written by the Princess herself and performed in Russian, was a moralistic tale of rebellion in Russia and the horrors proceeding from that unhappy event. And if Weber found the actors bad, he found the orchestra worse. "The orchestra was composed of sixteen musicians, all Russians," he wrote. "They are taught music as well as other sciences with the help of batogs. If a general pitches upon some spare fellow in a regiment who he decides should learn music, notwithstanding the soldier has not the least notion of it nor any talent that way, he is sent out to a master who gives him a certain time for learning his task; first, learning the handling of the instrument, then to play some Lutheran hymns or some minuet and so on. If the scholar has not learned his lesson during the term prefixed, the batogs are applied and repeated till such time as he is master of the tune."

Even this small theater disappeared in 1716 when Princess Natalya died. Later, in Moscow, the Duchess of Mecklenburg established a small theater at Ismailovo with herself as director, ladies of her court as actresses and the male roles being taken mostly by servants. Despite the distance from Moscow, many people came to see these performances, although some in the audience may have attended for mixed motives. Bergholz grumbled that on his first visit he was robbed of his snuffbox and that on another occasion the pockets of many Holstein gentlemen were picked of their silk handkerchiefs. In time, Peter made arrangements for a professional theatrical company to come from Hamburg, but it never arrived. For two or three years, a small, wretched theater existed in St. Petersburg on the banks of the Moika Canal, doing bad imitations of French plays and poor translations of German farces. But with the Tsar uninterested, his subjects also showed little interest. Like Peter himself, they preferred more popular spectacles, such as juggling and rope dancing. A special favorite of the Tsar's was the celebrated German strongman Samson, who arrived in Russia in 1719. Irritated by those, especially among the clergy, who said that Samson performed his feats by magic, witchcraft or trickery rather than by strength, the Tsar stood beside Samson and called some of the principal clergymen upon the stage to witness the performance at close range. Samson lay down across two chairs supported only under his head and feet; Peter placed an anvil on his chest, and then broke several large pieces of iron upon the anvil with a sledgehammer. Samson next placed a stick between his teeth, which the Tsar tried with both hands to pull out; he failed not only to move the stick but even to move Samson from his place. The strongman's power, Peter triumphantly announced to everyone present, lay solely in his sheer physical strength.

On his second visit to the West in 1716-1717, Peter went earnestly and regularly to see scientific collections and public and private collections of paintings, and brought many paintings home with him. Hoping that one day not all the paintings in Russia would be the work of foreigners, Peter sent a number of young Russian artists to Holland and Italy to study. The Tsar was even prouder of his new scientific collections. In 1717, he had purchased the entire collection of the celebrated Dutch anatomist Professor Ruysch, whose lecture hall and dissecting room the Tsar often had visited on his first trip twenty years before. The collection, which had been forty years in forming, came with an illustrated catalog titled Thesaurus Anatomicus. Peter also purchased the collection of the Dutch apothecary Seba, consisting of all known land and sea animals, birds, reptiles and insects of the East Indies. These two celebrated collections were the foundation of the Museum of the

Academy of Science, which Peter established in a large stone building on Vasilevsky Island across from the Admiralty. It was his custom to go to the museum at dawn two or three times a week to study the exhibits before he went to the Admiralty. He enjoyed being there so much that on one occasion he decided to hold an audience with the Austrian ambassador in the museum. The Chancellor asked whether the Summer Palace would not be more appropriate. "The ambassador is accredited to me, not to one of my palaces," Peter replied, and he received the ambassador at the museum at five a.m. on a subsequent morning.

At Peter's insistence, the museum was open to the public and guides were provided to explain the exhibits. When Yaguzhinsky suggested that a rouble be charged for admission to defray expenses, Peter objected that this would keep people away. Instead, he said that the museum should not only be free, but that people should be tempted to come by offering in the Tsar's name a dish of coffee or a glass of wine as refreshment. These expenses were paid from Peter's pocket.

To the collections purchased abroad were added curios such as elephants' teeth found near Voronezh which Peter speculated were relics of the passage of Alexander the Great, and antiquities found among the ruins of a pagan temple near the Caspian Sea—images, vessels and several parchments in an unknown language. Similarly, while digging for gold near Samarkand, prospectors had found a number of ancient brass figures, which were sent to Prince Gagarin, the Governor of Siberia, and by him to the Tsar. They included brass idols, minotaurs, oxen, geese, deformed old men and young women. The mouths of the idols were hinged so that they could move; Peter, ever wary of religious superstitions, speculated that "it is likely the priests made use of this to impose on the people by speaking through them."

Peter also attempted to broaden the knowledge of his subjects through the use of books and libraries. The Tsar himself had collected books all his life, and especially on his visits to Germany, France, Holland and other countries in the West. His personal library included works on a wide range of subjects, including military and naval affairs, science, history, medicine, law and religion. Peter's books were first kept in the Summer Palace; then, as their number grew, they were moved to the Winter Palace, Peterhof and other sites. After his death, his library became the nucleus of the library of the Russian Academy of Science. In 1722, Peter sent orders to the principal ancient monasteries of Russia to make a search for old manuscripts, chronicles and books, and to send those that were found to Moscow, whence they were forwarded to Peter's private study in St. Petersburg. Upon the Emperor's death, most of these invaluable documents also were transferred to the library of the Academy of Science.

Peter had admired the zoo in Paris and on his return from France immediately established a menagerie in St. Petersburg. Apes and monkeys, lions and leopards and even an elephant from India were installed, but all had difficulty surviving the frigid months of winter. Although Peter had a special house built for the elephant, with fires burning night and day to warm the beast, it lived only a few years. A different kind of exhibition was that displayed by the colony of Samoyeds, a tribe of savage Laplanders from the Arctic coast, who came every winter, bringing their reindeer and dogs, to camp on the ice in the Neva. There, inside an enclosure, they lived in a model of one of their native villages, accepting the alms-giving of a curious crowd. The Russians did not go too close, however, as the Samoyeds were reputed to "bite strangers on the face and ears."

The new collections and the buildings that housed them were products of Peter's insatiable curiosity and his desire to teach his subjects what he had learned. Every journey in Russia and, even more so, every journey abroad resulted in the acquisition of more oddities, instruments, books, models, paintings and animals. On arriving in even a small town when traveling, Peter always asked to see whatever was remarkable or different in that place. When told that there was nothing unusual, he replied, "Who knows? If it not be so for you, perhaps it will be for me. Let me see everything."

One of the most extraordinary of these acquisitions was the Great Globe of Gottorp. While traveling in Schleswig in the duchy of Gottorp in 1713, Peter had discovered this remarkable scientific and mechanical device. It was a huge, hollow globe, eleven and a half feet in diameter, made in 1664 for the ruling Duke of Holstein. The external surface was a globular map of the earth, while on the inside was a chart of the heavens. Viewers could climb inside by ascending several steps, then sit at a round table circled by benches for ten or twelve people. A winch could be turned which would make the heavens revolve around the audience. Naturally, Peter was intrigued and delighted by the globe, and when the administrator for the young Duke Charles Frederick offered it as a gift in the name of the state, Peter accepted with joy, declaring that the people of Holstein could not have made a more acceptable present. Menshikov, commanding the Russian army in Germany, was ordered to take personal charge of packaging and shipping the globe. Special permission was obtained from the Swedes for its unhindered passage by ship up the Baltic to Reval. In the winter of 1715, the enormous sphere was transported by sledges and rollers over the snows to St. Petersburg. Because the globe was so large and Peter would not risk it being dismantled, in many places the road had to be widened, branches lopped off or even whole trees felled so that the globe could pass. When it arrived, Peter placed it in the house he had built for the now deceased elephant, and he went to look at it for several hours every day.

Peter's most important and lasting contribution to intellectual activity in Russia was his foundation of the Academy of Science.* The project had been suggested by Leibniz, who had already founded the Prussian Academy of Science in Berlin, but who died in 1716 before Peter was ready to act. The Tsar's interest was further stimulated by his own election to the French Academy after his visit to Paris. His letter accepting this honor shines with almost childish delight: "We are very delighted that you have honored Us in this way, and we would like to assure you that we shall accept the position you have given Us with great pleasure, and that it is our fervent wish to apply Ourself assiduously in order to contribute as much as possible to science and therefore to demonstrate that we are a worthy member of your association." As an initial contribution, the new member forwarded a new map of the Caspian Sea. He signed his letter "Affectionately yours, Peter I."

On January 28, 1724, a year before his death, the Tsar issued the decree founding the Russian Academy. Typically, it also contained an explanation

so that Russians would understand what it was that was being founded:

Usually two kinds of institutions are used in organizing arts and sciences. One is known as a University, the other as an Academy of arts and sciences. A University is an association of learned individuals who teach young people. ... An Academy, on the other hand, is an association of learned and skilled people who do research and inventions.

In this case, however—so the decree continued—because learned men were rare in Russia, Academicians would teach as well as do research. An annual grant of 25,000 roubles, drawn from the customs tolls at the Baltic ports, was assigned to support the institution.

Peter died before the Academy began to function, but in

*Which, after two hundred fifty years, remains the nation's preeminent intellectual institution.

December 1725, its doors first opened. Seventeen Academicians had been lured from France, Germany, and Switzerland, including philosophers, mathematicians, historians, an astronomer, and doctors of anatomy, law, and chemistry, many of them scholars of first rank. Unfortunately, there were no Russian students qualified for university classes so that eight German students also had to be imported. Even so, audiences for lectures were smaller than the number required by charter so that Academicians occasionally had to atend each others' lectures.

The irony of a learned academy functioning in a country that lacked any significant number of elementary or secondary schools was not lost on contemporaries, but Peter, looking into the future, thrust all objections aside. Using a metaphor, he explained:

I have to harvest big stooks [shocks of grain], but I have no mill; and there is not enough water close by to build a water mill; but there is water enough at a distance; only I shall have no time to make a canal for the length of my life is uncertain. And therefore I am building the mill first and have only given orders for the canal to be begun, which will the better force my successors to bring water to the completed mill.

62

ALONG THE CASPIAN

With the signing of the Treaty of Nystad, Russia was finally at peace. Now, it seemed, the colossal energies which had been poured into military campaigns from Azov to Copenhagen could at last be turned toward Russia itself. Peter did not wish to be remembered in history as a conqueror or a warrior; he saw his place as a reformer. Yet, the celebrations in St. Petersburg hailing the Peace of Nystad were still in progress when Peter ordered his army to prepare for a new campaign. The following spring, the army would march into the Caucasus against Persia. And, once again, the army would be personally led by the Emperor.

Although its announcement came as a surprise, this march to the south was no sudden whim. For most of his life, Peter had heard stories of the East, the empire of Cathay, the wealth of the Great Mogul of India, the richness of the trade which passed over caravan routes through Siberia to China, and from India through Persia to the West. These tales had come from travelers passing through Russia who stopped long enough in the German Suburb to stir the imagination of the youthful Tsar. They came from Nicholas Witsen, Burgomaster of Amsterdam and expert on the geography of the East, who spent many hours in conversation with Peter during the Tsar's first winter in Holland. Now, at last, Peter meant to carry out these youthful dreams.

He had already attempted to reach out toward China by extending the existing trade in tea, furs and silk and by establishing a permanent Russian mission in Peking. But the Chinese were proud and suspicious. The militant Manchu Dynasty was at the peak of its power in Peking. The great Emperor K'ang-hsi, wwho had come to the throne at the age of seven in 1661 and ruled until his death in 1722, had made peace with all his neighbors and embarked on a reign distinguished for its patronage of painting, poetry, procelain and learning; dictionaries and encyclopedias published with his encouragement remained standard for generations. K'ang-hsi tolerated foreigners at his court, but Peter's efforts to improve relations with China made slow progress. In 1715, a Russian priest, the Archimandrite Hilarion, was received at Peking and given the rank of Mandarin, Fifth Class. Finally, in 1719, Peter appointed Captain Lev Ismailov of the Preobrazhensky Guards as his envoy extraordinary to Peking and sent with him as a present for the emperor four ivory telescopes which Peter had made himself. Ismailov was received on a friendly and dignified footing at the Chinese court, but he outreached himself. He asked that all restrictions on trade between Russia and China be lifted, that permission be given for construction of a Russian church in Peking, and that Russian consulates be established in important towns in China to facilitate trade. To this, the Chinese replied loftily, "Our Emperor does not trade and has no bazaars. You value your merchants very highly. We scorn commerce. Only poor people and servants occupy themselves in that way with us, and there is no profit at all to us from your trade. We have enough of Russian goods even if your people did not bring them." Ismailov departed, and thereafter Russian caravans were hindered more severely. K'ang-hsi died in 1722, and his son Yung Cheng was even more hostile to Christians in general; thus, the avenue to trade with China was narrowed rather than broadened in Peter's final years.

Far to the north, along the desolate shores of the Sea of Okhotsk and the northern Pacific, there was no one to bar the Russian advance. It was under Peter that the huge Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kurile Islands were claimed by Russia. In 1724, shortly before he died, Peter summoned a Danish-born captain in his fleet, Vitus Bering, and assigned him the task of leading an expedition to the periphery of the Eurasian continent a thousand miles beyond Kamchatka, to determine whether Eurasia and North America were joined by land. Bering found the strait, fifty-three miles wide and only 144 feet deep, which subsequently was named after him.*

A year before Bering set out, Peter had dispatched two frigates to the opposite end of the earth, to carry his fraternal greetings "to the illustrious King and Owner of the glorious island of Madagascar." The inhabitants of that gigantic island had a poor record of hospitality to Western visitors: French traders and colonists were massacred in 1674, and through most of the eighteenth century the only Westerners who set foot on the island were pirates such as Captain Kidd. Peter's motive in sending this expedition was not really to establish a foothold in Madagascar. His ships were ordered to stop there and conclude a treaty if possible, then to sail on to their real destination, India. Peter dreamed of a trade agreement with the Great Mogul and also wanted some teakwood on which he could exercise his talent for carpentry. As it happened, the ships reached neither India nor Madagascar; they never left the Baltic. One of the frigates sprang a leak a few days after sailing, and both ships returned to Reval. Peter was disappointed, but he died before the project could be renewed.

It was not the sea route to India, in any case, but the land routes through Persia and Central Asia which attracted him. The Central Asian caravans came over the Khyber Pass from India, passed through Kabul, crossed the jagged peaks of the Hindu Kush and traversed a thousand miles of desert inhabitd by Kazak's and Kalmucks before reaching Astrachan and the lower Volga. In Peter's time, there was more turbulence than usual among these desert people. Two rival Moslem khans, the rulers of Khiva and Bokhara, were struggling for predominance, and each sometimes turned to the Russians for assistance.** Peter, because of his war

*In the years that followed, Russian explorers and settlers crossed the strait, and a string of Russian forts and trading posts sprang up along the Alaska coast. Eventually these Russian settlements reached as far south as San Francisco, where, in 1806, a little over eighty years after Peter's death, a Russian fur-trading center was established. For more than a century, Alaska— known then as Russian America—was controlled by the state-owned Russian-American Company. In 1867, the vast area which became America's forty-ninth state was sold by Tsar Alexander II for $7,000,000. Today, the only point on the globe where the frontiers of the United States and the Soviet Union actually meet is across the fifty-three miles of the Bering Strait.