Terrible tsarinas

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An Autocrat at Work and Play rubles per annum to make it a success at these great suppers.

Elizabeth’s admiration for Peter the Great stopped short of imitating his enthusiasm for enormous feasts and drink-to-death binges; however, she did inherit his appreciation for the robust national gastronomy. Her favorite dishes, aside from gala feasts, were blini, kulebiaka and buckwheat kasha. At the solemn banquets of the Leib-Kompania, which she would attend dressed as a captain of the regiment, she would give the signal to drink by emptying large glasses of vodka in one draught.

This penchant for rich food and strong drink conferred upon Her Majesty a premature plumpness and annoying red blotches on the cheeks. After eating and drinking her fill, she would allow herself to nap for an hour or two. To facilitate this rest, a kind of sleepy meditation, she employed the services of a few women who would take turns sitting by her side, speaking softly and scratching the bottoms of her feet. Elizabeth Ivanovna Shuvalov, the sister of Her Majesty’s new lover Ivan Shuvalov, was a specialist in this soporific tickling. She would hear all the tsarina’s confidences during these foot-rubbing sessions, so that she began to be known at the court as “the real Minister of Foreign Affairs.” When the tsarina had finished resting, the foot-scratchers would give way to the favorite of the moment. Sometimes that was Ivan Shuvalov, sometimes the chamberlain Basil Chulkov, sometimes Her Majesty’s eternal suitor Simon Naryshkin, sometimes Shubin (a private in her guard), and sometimes the indestructible and ever so accommodating Alexis Razumovsky, the most assiduous and honored of all.

The people around Elizabeth called him “the night emperor.”

She often deceived him, but in the end she could never stand to give him up. Only in his arms could she feel that she was both dominant and dominated at the same time. He had a deep voice,