Terrible tsarinas

1.

According to legend, Monomakh’s Cap (the oldest crown in the Russian treasury) was a gift from the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus to his grandson Vladimir II Monomakh, grand prince of Kiev (1113-1125).

2. Villebois: Memoires secrets pour servir a l’histoire de la cour de Russie.

3. In the 18th century, Russia was still using the Gregorian calendar, so that this date is 11 days behind the date shown by the Julian calendar cur rently in use.

Catherine I was almos t fifty. She had lived so much, loved so much, laughed so much, drunk so much - but she was never satisfied. Those who knew her during this period of ostentatious pleasure described her as a large, rotund woman, heavily made up, smiling, with a triple chin, a ribald eye and gluttonous lips, garishly dressed, overloaded with jewels and not necessarily entirely clean.

However, while everyone denounced her appearance as a camp-follower masquerading as a sovereign, opinions are more varied when it comes to her intelligence and decision-making ability. She barely knew how to read and write; she barely spoke Russian (and with a Swedish-tinged Polish accent, at that); but from the first days of her reign she displayed a creditable intention to emulate her husband’s thinking. She even learned a little French and German in order to improve her understanding of foreign policy issues. And she relied on the common sense that she inherited from a difficult childhood. Some of her interlocutors found her more human, more understanding than the late tsar.