What Peter 1 was afraid of. Phobias of famous people. An unusual fact about the character of Peter the Great

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One of the reasons that led to the emergence of the version about the substitution of Tsar Peter I was the research of A.T. Fomenko and G.V. Nosovsky

The beginning of these studies were the findings made during the study of an exact copy of the throne of Ivan the Terrible. In those days, the zodiac signs of the current rulers were placed on the thrones. Thanks to the study of the signs placed on the throne of Ivan the Terrible, scientists have found that the actual date of his birth differs from the official version by four years.

Scientists compiled a table of the names of Russian tsars and their birthdays, and thanks to this table, it was revealed that the official birthday of Peter I does not coincide with the day of his angel, which is a blatant contradiction compared to all the names of Russian tsars. After all, names in Russia at baptism were given exclusively according to the calendar, and the name given to Peter breaks the established centuries-old tradition, which in itself does not fit into the framework and laws of that time.

Photo by Stan Shebs from wikimedia.org

A. Fomenko and G. Nosovsky, on the basis of the table, found out that the real name, which falls on the official date of birth of Peter I, is Isakiy. This explains the name of the main cathedral. tsarist Russia. So, in the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron it says: “St. Isaac's Cathedral is the main temple in St. Petersburg, dedicated to the name of St. Isaac of Dalmatia, whose memory is honored on May 30, the birthday of Peter the Great.

Image from lib.rus.ec

Let's look at the following obvious historical facts. Their totality shows a fairly clear picture of the substitution of the real Peter I for a foreigner:

1. An Orthodox ruler was leaving Russia for Europe, wearing traditional Russian clothes. Two surviving portraits of the king of that time depict Peter I in a traditional caftan. The tsar wore a caftan even during his stay at the shipyards, which confirms his adherence to traditional Russian customs. After the end of his stay in Europe, a man returned to Russia wearing exclusively European-style clothes, and in the future, the new Peter I never put on Russian clothes, including an attribute obligatory for the tsar - royal vestments. This fact is difficult to explain with the official version of a sudden change in lifestyle and the beginning of adherence to the European canons of development.

2. There are quite weighty grounds for doubting the difference in the structure of the body of Peter I and the impostor. According to accurate data, the growth of the impostor Peter I was 204 cm, while the real king was shorter and denser. It should be noted that the height of his father, Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, was 170 cm, and his grandfather, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, was also of average height. The difference in height of 34 cm is very much out of the general picture of true kinship, especially since in those days people over two meters tall were considered an extremely rare occurrence. Indeed, even in the middle of the nineteenth century, the average height of Europeans was 167 cm, and the average height of Russian recruits in early XVIII century was 165 cm, which fits into the general anthropometric picture of that time. The difference in height between the real king and the false Peter also explains the refusal to wear royal clothes: they simply did not fit the size of the newly appeared impostor.

3. The portrait of Peter I by Godfried Kneller, which was created during the Tsar's stay in Europe, clearly shows a distinct mole. In later portraits, the mole is absent. It is difficult to explain this by the inaccurate works of portrait painters of that time: after all, the portraiture of those years was distinguished by the highest level of realism.

4. Returning after a long trip to Europe, the newly-minted tsar did not know about the location of the richest library of Ivan the Terrible, although the secret of finding the library was passed from tsar to tsar. So, Princess Sophia knew where the library was and visited it, and the new Peter repeatedly made attempts to find the library and did not even disdain excavations: after all, the library of Ivan the Terrible kept the rarest publications that could shed light on many secrets of history.

5. An interesting fact is the composition of the Russian embassy that went to Europe. The number of those accompanying the king was 20 people, while the embassy was headed by A. Menshikov. And the returned embassy consisted, with the exception of Menshikov, only of the subjects of Holland. Moreover, the duration of the trip has increased many times over. The embassy, ​​together with the king, went to Europe for two weeks, and returned only after two years of stay.

6. Returning from Europe, the new king did not meet either with relatives or with his inner circle. And subsequently, in a short time, he got rid of his closest relatives in various ways.

7. Sagittarius - the guards and the elite of the tsarist army - suspected something was wrong and did not recognize the impostor. The streltsy rebellion that had begun was brutally suppressed by Peter. But the archers were the most advanced and combat-ready military formations that faithfully served the Russian tsars. Sagittarius became by inheritance, which indicates the highest level these divisions.

Image from swordmaster.org

It is characteristic that the scale of the destruction of archers was more global than according to official sources. At that time, the number of archers reached 20,000 people, and after the pacification of the streltsy rebellion Russian army was left without infantry, after which it was produced new set recruits and complete reorganization of the army. A noteworthy fact is that in honor of the suppression of the Streltsy rebellion, a commemorative medal was issued with inscriptions on Latin, which had never before been used in the minting of coins and medals in Russia.

Image from oboudnoda.org

8. Imprisonment of the lawful wife of Evdokia Lopukhina in a monastery, which the tsar did in absentia, while in the Great Embassy in London. Moreover, after the death of Peter, Lopukhina, by order of Catherine I, was transferred to the Shlisselburg fortress, which was famous for its harsh conditions of detention. Subsequently, Peter will marry Martha Samuilovna Skavronskaya-Kruse, who comes from the lower classes, who after his death will become Empress Catherine I.

Image from wikimedia.org

Now let's consider what the greatest steps were made by the newly-minted tsar for Russia.

All official versions claim that Peter I was the greatest reformer who laid the foundations for the formation of a powerful Russian Empire. In fact, the main activity of the impostor was to destroy the foundations of the former statehood and the spirituality of the people. Among the most famous great "deeds" of Peter are both famous and little known facts, testifying to the true appearance and reforms of the new king.

- Introduction of the Russian form of slavery- serfdom, which completely restricts the rights of peasants both in the old and in the conquered lands. In one form or another, the consolidation of peasants has existed since the 15th century, but Peter I carried out a tough reform in relation to the peasants, completely depriving them of their rights. A remarkable fact is the fact that neither in the Russian North nor in Siberia serfdom was widespread.

- Carrying out tax reform with the introduction of the most severe tax system. In parallel, the replacement of small silver money for copper began to be carried out. Having created the Ingrian Chancellery, headed by Menshikov, Peter introduced ruinous taxes, which included taxes on private fishing, wearing a beard, baths. Moreover, adherents of the old rites were subject to a double tax, which served as an additional incentive for the resettlement of the Old Believers in the most remote places in Siberia.

- Introduction in Russia of a new system of chronology, which put an end to the countdown "from the creation of the world." This innovation had a strong negative impact and became an additional incentive for the gradual eradication of the original Old Believer faith.

- Transfer of the capital from Moscow to the built St. Petersburg. The mention of Moscow as an ancient sacred place is found in many sources, including Daniil Andreev in his work "Rose of the World". The change of the capital also served to weaken spirituality and reduce the role of the merchants in Russia.

The destruction of ancient Russian chronicles and the beginning of rewriting the history of Russia with the help of German professors. This activity has acquired a truly gigantic scale, which explains minimal amount surviving historical documents.

- Rejection of Russian writing, which consisted of 151 characters, and the introduction of the new alphabet of Cyril and Methodius, which consisted of 43 characters. With this, Peter dealt a severe blow to the traditions of the people and cut off access to ancient written sources.

- Cancellation of Russian measures of measurement, such as sazhen, elbow, vershok, which subsequently caused the strongest changes in traditional Russian architecture and art.

- Reducing the influence of the merchants and the development of the industrial class, who was given gigantic powers, up to creating their own pocket armies.

- The most brutal military expansion into Siberia, which became the forerunner of the final destruction of the Great Tartaria. In parallel, a new religion was planted on the conquered lands, and the lands were heavily taxed. The peak of the looting of Siberian burials, the destruction of holy places and local clergy also falls on the time of Peter. It was during the reign of Peter the Great in Western Siberia that numerous detachments of bugrovers appeared, who, in search of gold and silver, opened up old burial places and plundered holy and sacred places. Many of the most valuable "finds" made up the famous collection of Scythian gold of Peter I.

- Destruction of the system of Russian self-government- zemstvos and the transition to a bureaucratic system, which, as a rule, was headed by hirelings from Western Europe.

- The most severe repressions against the Russian clergy, the actual destruction of Orthodoxy. The scale of repression against the clergy was global. One of the most significant punishers of Peter was his close associate Yakov Bruce, who became famous for punitive expeditions to Old Believer sketes and the destruction of old church books and property.

- The widespread distribution of narcotic drugs in Russia that cause rapid and persistent addiction - alcohol, coffee and tobacco.

- A complete ban on the cultivation of amaranth from which both butter and bread were made. This plant contributes not only to improving human health, but also prolongs life by 20-30%.

- The introduction of the system of provinces and the strengthening of the punitive role of the army. Often the right to collect taxes was given directly into the hands of the generals. And each province was obliged to maintain separate military units.

- The actual ruin of the population. So, A.T. Fomenko and G.V. Nosovsky indicate that according to the 1678 census, 791,000 households were subject to taxation. And the general census conducted in 1710 showed only 637,000 households, and this despite the rather large number of lands subordinated to Russia during this period. Characteristically, but this only affected the strengthening of tax taxes. So, in the provinces, where the number of households decreased, taxes were levied according to the data of the old census, which led to the actual plunder and destruction of the population.

- Peter I also distinguished himself by his atrocities in Ukraine. So, in 1708, the hetman's capital, the city of Baturyn, was completely plundered and destroyed. More than 14,000 people out of the city's 20,000 population were killed in the massacre. At the same time, Baturin was almost completely destroyed and burned, and 40 churches and monasteries were looted and desecrated.

Contrary to popular belief, Peter I was by no means a great military leader: de facto, he did not win a single significant war. The only "successful" campaign can be considered only northern war, which was rather sluggish in nature and lasted for 21 years. This war caused irreparable damage to the financial system of Russia and led to the actual impoverishment of the population.

One way or another, all the atrocities of Peter, called in the official versions of history " reform activities", were aimed at the complete eradication of both the culture and faith of the Russian people, and the culture and religion of the peoples living in the annexed territories. In fact, the newly-minted tsar caused irreparable damage to Russia, completely changing its culture, way of life and customs.

Do you have regular bouts of fear of certain things or phenomena? Obviously, this is a phobia - an obsessive state of fear. There are a huge number of varieties of phobias: an obsessive fear of blushing - erythrophobia, fear of enclosed spaces - claustrophobia, fear of sharp objects - oxyphobia, fear of heights - hypsophobia. And there is even a fear of experiencing fear: phobophobia.

Here, for example, is a phobia described by a famous doctor. “He is frightened by the girl playing the flute; as soon as he hears the first note played on the flute, he is terrified.” The fear of the flute is called aulophobia, and the physician who described this condition was Hippocrates.

Nowadays, doctors have more than 500 different phobias. No one definitely knows what the cause of the phobia is. Some experts believe that the nature of the phenomenon is psychological, others - that it is biological. But there is more and more evidence that it is a combination of both. It is known that phobia tends to be inherited. If one of your parents had a phobia, you may have a predisposition to it, but not necessarily to the same one.

Some phobias are more serious than others. If your fears are seriously interfering with your life, you should seek professional help. Every person has phobias to one degree or another, just not everyone is in a hurry to admit it. The Greats were no exception. Here a brief description of phobias of some of them.

Napoleon was afraid of horses

One of the greatest historical characters, the conqueror of Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte was afraid, what would you think? - white horses. Psychiatrists see here as many as two phobias: the fear of horses (hippophobia) and the fear of white (leukophobia). Numerous paintings, where Bonaparte is depicted riding a white horse, are nothing more than the artist's fantasy. The little artilleryman hated and feared these animals, though they were never in his stables.

Peter the Great avoided free space

However, the Russian autocrats were not without some phobias. When visiting the house of Peter the Great and his summer palace in St. Petersburg, the modesty of the autocrat is striking: low ceilings, small rooms. In the summer house, the so-called “false ceiling” is generally arranged: a lower one is suspended from a higher one, creating the feeling of a box. Turns out it's not about modesty. The king could not feel comfortable in large spacious rooms with high ceilings. This indicates ecophobia and spaceophobia (fear of one's home and empty spaces). These phobias of Peter were not limited: all his life he suffered from acarophobia (fear of insects).

Generalissimo's fears

The fears of Comrade Stalin, obviously, largely determined the tragic fate of many of his associates. So, the Generalissimo suffered from toxicophobia (fear of poisoning). Stalin was also pathologically afraid of air travel (aviaphobia). So, being the commander in chief, he was never at the front. And he went to Potsdam for a peace conference by train under heavy guard. In addition, Stalin's famous night vigils make it possible to suspect that he has somniphobia (fear of going to bed). It is known that he fell asleep in a state of complete exhaustion, to which he brought himself at night.

Gogol foresaw the future

Nikolai Gogol from his youth suffered from tatephobia (fear of being buried alive). This fear was so excruciating that he repeatedly gave a written order to bury him only when signs of obvious decomposition appeared. In addition, from the age of thirty, Gogol suffered from pathophobia - the fear of the diverse.

Fear of women: it happens

The outstanding Russian artist, author of The Demon, Mikhail Vrubel was afraid of the women he liked (kaliginephobia). In his youth, because of an unsuccessful love, he cut his chest with a knife. Lost and timid in front of the object of his love, the artist easily resorted to the services of prostitutes. From one of them, he contracted syphilis, which led him to loss of vision and damage to the nervous system.

man playing

Probably, there is no figure in world historiography about which as much has been written as about Peter I. And despite this, his personality still remains a mystery: this man was painfully bright and controversial. He drastically changed the life and customs of the Russian court, reformed the army, conquered new lands - and at the same time undermined the country's economy so much that most of the territorial acquisitions subsequently had to be abandoned. He proclaimed himself emperor, but killed his own son, jeopardizing the continuation of the dynasty. He founded the first museums and libraries in Russia, and personally participated in torture and executions. He arranged gallant assemblies and blasphemous "joking councils." Almost all of his numerous biographers wondered how two such different natures could coexist in one person.

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that Peter tried to turn his life into a game and was most afraid of clashes with reality, because it did not bode well for him.

As magnificent and perfect Peter was in his games, he became just as vile and disgusting when confronted with reality. Starting with amusing campaigns and flotillas, he gradually expanded the scope of his games, transferring them from the village of Preobrazhensky to the Crimean steppes, then to the fields of the Northern War, and sincerely enjoyed it. He loved and forgave those who supported the game, but severely avenged those who did not want to participate in it.

First toys

Peter was the fourteenth child of Tsar Alexei and the firstborn of his second wife, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. Tsarina Natalya was brought up in the family of the boyar Artamon Matveev, a lover of everything Western, so she transferred her usual European environment to the palace: Peter from infancy was surrounded by foreign things: musical boxes, German-made “cymbals”, as well as a “clevichord” with copper strings are mentioned . Natalya loved music - but Peter subsequently did not reveal any ear for music - he preferred the army drum to all other instruments.

Alexei Mikhailovich. Polish engraving. 17th century

Natalya Naryshkina. Unknown artist. 17th century

Seeing the boy's interest in military affairs, Natalya bought for him a whole arsenal of toy weapons: the prince had miniature fortresses, wooden squeaks, cannons, horses and figures of soldiers.

His father, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, nicknamed the Quietest for his calm, complaisant character, was the second tsar of the Romanov dynasty. He was a very educated man, like his wife, who was interested in European culture. It was under him that secular life appeared in Moscow: books of non-spiritual content appeared. He built in the village of Preobrazhensky a "comedy mansion", where Pastor Gregory from the German Quarter staged performances.

The king was very fond of books and even wrote a treatise on hunting himself. Everyone knows a quote from this essay, which has turned into a saying: “Time for work, an hour for fun.”

He was married twice: to Maria Ilyinishna Miloslavskaya, from whom he had 13 children, and to Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, who bore him three offspring.

Being a late child, Peter lost his father very early: in the fourth year of his life. This was the first intrusion of harsh reality into his comfortable existence. At that time, Peter was not considered the heir to the throne: after all, he had older brothers and sisters - the children of the first wife of Alexei Mikhailovich - Sophia, Fedor and John, and several more princesses. It should be noted that all the sons of Maria Miloslavskaya were distinguished by extremely poor health, some of them died in childhood, others in their youth, and no one stepped over the age of thirty.

After the death of Alexei Mikhailovich, the throne was taken by fifteen-year-old Fyodor - an intelligent, educated man, but very sick. His relatives Miloslavsky, to put it mildly, did not like Natalya Kirillovna and her children. They suspected the young, active and beautiful widow of intent to bring damage to the new king, explaining his numerous ailments as witchcraft.

The situation of Natalya Kirillovna and her son deteriorated sharply. The Miloslavskys tried to remove all her relatives away from Moscow: brothers, uncles ... even the teacher Matveev was exiled to the north, to Pustozersk (a town that has now disappeared near present-day Naryan-Mar). Natalya Kirillovna tried to be less at court and settled with her daughter and son in the village of Preobrazhensky, the beloved palace of her late husband.

Meanwhile, Peter was already five years old - the age when the royal children were supposed to begin teaching. He was hired as an educator - clerk Nikita Moiseev, son of Zotov, who, although he did not know the sciences and languages, was quite knowledgeable in history, and even more domestic. Unfortunately, Zotov was very fond of drinking: subsequently, Peter even appointed him president of the jester's college of drunkenness - a kind of gesture in relation to the "first teacher".

Nikita Moiseevich told the prince about the faces and events of the past, using "amusing books with kunshtami" - that is, with drawings. These "funny notebooks" the queen specially ordered from the masters of the Armory. From there, the young sovereign now and then dragged squeaks, carbines and drums - for review. In addition, Zotov showed him the "Article with all the military exercises" drawn up under Alexei Mikhailovich. The teacher introduced Peter to the life of the West through pictures depicting "noble European cities, magnificent buildings, ships, and so on." But the "digital alphabet", that is, arithmetic, was not included in the program of royal education.

Zotov went through the alphabet with Peter, the Book of Hours, the Psalter, the Gospel and the Apostle. According to the old Russian pedagogical rules, “to pass” meant to learn by heart. Even in adulthood Peter could quote these books by heart. But literacy left much to be desired: the future tsar wrote with absolutely incredible mistakes, for example, he inserted solid signs between two consonants. Probably, modern psychologists would diagnose Peter with dyslexia - a feature of the perception of the world, characteristic of creative people with non-standard thinking.

Bloody end of childhood

As soon as Peter was ten years old, reality declared itself again: in the spring of 1682, Tsar Fedor died at the age of twenty. And then the intrigue began!

From Maria Miloslavskaya, Alexei Mikhailovich had another son - John, a weak and sickly boy. Therefore, the Naryshkins who remained in the capital began to persuade the patriarch to proclaim Peter Tsar - bypassing John. In revenge, the Miloslavskys began to spread rumors that Tsarevich John had been killed by the Naryshkins in the Moscow Kremlin. This provoked the first Streltsy rebellion, which is also known as the Moscow Troubles, or Khovanshchina.

The Miloslavskys hoped to use the archers for their own purposes, setting them on the Naryshkins, but events got out of control: such a massacre began that none of the Miloslavskys could have foreseen.

On May 11, 1682, a crowd of archers captured the Kremlin, in front of the ten-year-old Peter, many relatives and friends of his mother were hacked to death and stabbed to death, including Artamon Matveev, who had returned from Pustozersk. To calm the archers and save the rest, Natalya Kirillovna with the children went out onto the porch, directly towards the angry crowd. She showed the archers a living and more or less healthy John, he assured everyone that his stepmother did not offend him and took care of him as if he were his own, but this did not convince everyone. The sent people continued to convince the people that the king was being poisoned slowly, which is why the boy was pale!

The archers were led by Ivan Khovansky, a mediocre commander who did not win a single battle, but who earned the nickname Roughneck - for his love of public speeches. Now he turned to the most real banditry: the archers completely seized power in the city, beggars and vagabonds joined them, robberies began. royal family turned out to be hostages in the besieged Kremlin.

Tsaritsa Natalya Kirillovna shows Ivan V to the archers to prove that he is alive and well. Nikolay Dmitriev-Orenburgsky. 19th century

In all the people's troubles - from crop failure to scrofula - the Naryshkins were blamed. Natalya Kirillovna has not yet been touched: after all, the queen, but her brothers were demanded for reprisal.

Natalya resisted for several days, but in the end she had to give up - Sophia insisted.

“Your brother can’t leave because of the archers, we can’t all die for him!” she insisted.

Cyril was torn to pieces right in the palace. Ivan Naryshkin was confessed, communed and unctioned in the Church of the Savior behind the Golden Grid, and then, with an icon in his hands, he went out to the rebels. They dragged him to the dungeon and tortured him for a long time, hoping to get a confession that he and the queen were trying to exterminate Tsar John - this would justify their rebellion. But Naryshkin was silent. Having achieved nothing, the archers quartered him on Red Square.

Sofia Aleksevna. Unknown artist of the 17th century.

This was not the only execution - the riot continued for another whole week. One after another, the archers filed “petitions”, and the Kremlin hostages obediently fulfilled all the requirements: they tonsured monks and expelled those who were objectionable, they gave out money from the treasury. For this, even silver dishes were melted down into coins.

Satisfied archers, having received "freedom", feasted in the Kremlin chambers. They did not object to Sophia declaring herself the ruler - regent under two young kings, John and Peter: all the same, Khovansky considered himself the real ruler. But already in the autumn of that year, he realized how deeply mistaken he was. However, it was too late: Sophia sent him to the chopping block. She executed several more leaders - and spared everyone who went over to her side.

These events forced the young king to grow up early: a year later, a foreign ambassador mistook him for a 16-year-old. At the same time he had his first epileptic seizure. Convulsions, convulsions, migraines and attacks of panic fear and uncontrollable anger from then on would torment him all his life. These attacks looked very scary: “He made various terrible grimaces and movements with his head, mouth, arms, shoulders, hands and feet ... He turned his eyes and jerked back and forth with his feet.” During the attacks, Peter was truly dangerous: the Danish envoy Just Yul describes how he hacked to death an innocent soldier.

Sofya Alekseevna Romanova, by all accounts, was an intelligent, strong and talented woman. She knew Latin and Polish, read a lot, wrote poetry. But nobody needed all this, because Sophia was a woman. Her fate was predetermined: the young princesses were kept locked up in their chambers, and then tonsured into a monastery. Even marriage did not shine for them: Russian suitors were considered unworthy of the royal daughters, and foreign ones professed a different faith. Such a fate did not suit Sophia, and she entered the struggle for power at first quite successfully. The situation in Russia in those years was strange: the “senior tsar” was John, the “junior tsar Peter” and the regent Sophia. It was she who was the real ruler of Russia in those years.

Merry German Quarter

After the terrible events of 1682, Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna finally retired to Preobrazhensky, trying not to remind herself in Moscow, where the Miloslavskys were in charge. She lived very modestly, constantly needed money, but she did not save on her son: in the surviving palace records, squeakers and amusing cannons, which the growing Peter used to play, are still mentioned. It was then that he acquired a "amusing" army and now and then arranged campaigns in the surrounding villages, ruining the peasant gardens and fields. Looking around the barns of his second cousin, Nikita Ivanovich Romanov, Peter found an old English boat, which became the ancestor of the entire Russian fleet.

All Russian tsars of his age had “amusing” troops, “amusing” stables. Funds were allocated for them from the treasury, funny soldiers were paid a salary - but no one took them seriously, despite the fact that after the toy battles, the real dead and wounded remained on the fields.

The history of Russia could have turned out quite differently if it were not for the neighborhood of two settlements on the Yauza River - Preobrazhensky and Nemetskaya Sloboda. Scouring the neighborhood, Peter inevitably wandered there too.

However, there is an anecdote that connects Peter's introduction to Western culture with the astrolabe presented to him by Prince Dolgoruky - a device for measuring distances. Neither Dolgoruky nor Peter himself had any idea how to use it, and through the mediation of the court physician, a German by birth, they tried to find in the German Quarter knowing person. It turned out to be the Dutchman Timmerman, under whose guidance Peter began to study arithmetic, geometry, artillery and fortification. Timmerman invited young Peter to the German Quarter and introduced him to Franz Lefort, a famous reveler. Foreigners called Franz Lefort a man of great intelligence, well aware of the state of Europe, and pleasant to deal with.

In Lefort's house, Peter "began to get along with foreign ladies and cupid was the first to be with one merchant's daughter", there he "learned to dance in Polish"; mastered fencing and horseback riding, learned foreign languages. Loving and appreciating Lefort, Peter appointed him Admiral General.

"Merchant's daughter" - German Anna Mons was the daughter of a wine merchant from the German Quarter. For more than ten years, she was considered the official favorite of Peter, who was very attached to her, and, according to rumors, even thought about getting married. He gave her rich gifts, built a stone house for Anna, and granted estates to her relatives.

This novel ended sadly, but not through the fault of Peter. On the contrary, he loved Anna "with rare tenderness", but the girl turned out to be ungrateful, and in 1704 a break followed. The wife of the British ambassador, Lady Rondo, in a letter to her friend conveys the following gossip:

“One fateful day he (Tsar Peter - M. G.), accompanied by his own and foreign ministers, went to inspect the fortress he built at sea. On the way back, the Polish minister accidentally fell off the bridge and drowned, despite all attempts to save him. The emperor ordered all papers to be taken out of his pockets and sealed in front of everyone. When they searched the pockets, a portrait fell out; the emperor picked it up, and imagine his surprise: he saw that it was a portrait of that same lady. In a sudden fit of anger, he opened some papers and found several letters written by her to the deceased in the most tender terms. He immediately left the company, came alone to the apartment of my narrator and ordered her to send for the lady. When she entered, he locked himself in the room with the two of them and asked her how it had come to her mind to write to such a person. She denied it; then he showed her a portrait and letters, and when he told about his death, she burst into tears, and he reproached her with such fury for ingratitude that he was ready to kill his lady. But he suddenly also wept and said that he forgave her, because he felt so deeply how impossible it was to win the inclination of the heart, “for,” he added, “despite the fact that you answered my adoration with deceit, I feel that I cannot hate you although I hate myself for the weakness of which I am guilty. But I would deserve complete contempt if I continued to live with you. Therefore, leave while I can contain my anger without going beyond the limits of humanity. You will never be in need, but I don't want to see you again." He kept his word and shortly thereafter gave her in marriage to a man who served in a remote area, and always cared about their well-being.

Portrait of an unknown, presumably Anna Mons. Unknown artist. 1700s

In fact, after the break, Anna was subjected to strict house arrest, and only in April 1706 was she allowed to attend church. At the same time, Peter started a process about bribes that Anna's relatives took.

As for her marriage, the Prussian ambassador Keyserling wanted to marry Anna Mons, but he received permission only in 1711. They did not live long: Keyserling soon died, leaving Anna two children. She died in 1714 from tuberculosis.

But Lefort was not the only one. interesting person, with whom Peter made acquaintance in the German settlement! It is impossible not to talk about Andrei Andreevich Vinius, a Dutch merchant who taught Peter I his language. A translator, compiler of dictionaries, he is also known for his collection of maps, plans, engravings and books. Works on geography, Dutch engravings introduced young Peter to a foreign way of life and extremely interested the prince.

Peter's relationship with Vinius was complicated.

At first, his career developed very successfully, but already in 1703 he was convicted of bribery, beaten with a whip and sentenced to pay 7,000 rubles.

“There is such a habit here that at first a person is given the opportunity to accumulate a lot, and then some accusation is brought against him - and everything accumulated is taken away under torture,” one of the foreigners remarked about his arrest.

In 1706, Vinius fled to Holland, but already in 1708 he came to Russia again, having received the forgiveness of Peter I. The merciful tsar ordered the return of his property “the house was opened, the villages were returned”, only the clerk’s huge library was not in the house: valuable books were transferred in Apothecary order. But then they fixed it. But after the death of Vinius in 1717, Peter again took the books for himself, and then they ended up in the Academy of Sciences.

Faithful Dunka

Peter's mother did not like such liberties, and in order to reason with her 17-year-old son, Natalya Kirillovna decided to quickly marry him. The bride was chosen even without the required bride-to-be - in absentia. Peter did not contradict his mother, and in January 1689 they played the wedding of the "younger tsar" and twenty-year-old Evdokia Lopukhina, the daughter of the okolnichi.

In Russia at that time there was a custom: the royal bride and even her father changed their names, as if starting new life, counting the time with the high honor rendered to them. The daughter of the roundabout Praskovya became Evdokia, and the roundabout Hilarion himself became Fedor.

Evdokia Lopukhina in monastic vestments. Unknown artist of the 17th century.

The life of this woman was unhappy. Although she stayed as queen for 9 years, Peter did not love her, and her mother-in-law soon hated her. It is customary to consider her limited and stupid, but in fact she was exactly like thousands of boyars, brought up in towers, in the old fashioned way, and in no way deserved universal condemnation.

Evdokia loved her husband, during partings she wrote tender letters to him, in humiliated terms, as it should be for a wife brought up according to Domostroy:

“My dear, hello for many years! Yes, I ask you for mercy, how will you let me be with you? And you, perhaps, about that, my dear, write it down. For this, your wife beats with her forehead.

“To my dearest sovereign of joy, Tsar Peter Alekseevich. Hello, my light, for many years! Perhaps, my father, do not despise, light, my petition: write, my father, to me about your health, so that I, hearing about your health, rejoice. And your sister, Princess Natalya Alekseevna, is in good health. And you deign to remember us with your mercy, and I am alive with Alyoshenko. Your wife Dunka.

Evdokia bore Peter three sons, of whom only one survived - Alexei.

In 1698, she was exiled to Suzdal to the Intercession Monastery and forcibly tonsured under the name of Elena. Six months later, Evdokia returned to worldly life, and then she got a lover - officer Stepan Glebov. The king did not support the disgraced wife, relatives sent her money. However, her life was tolerable until Peter accused her son Alexei of treason. Then the lover of the former queen was put on a stake, and she herself was exiled to the distant Ladoga-Assumption Monastery, and then, after the death of Peter, the jealous Catherine imprisoned her rival in the Shlisselburg fortress. The fifty-eight-year-old Evdokia was released by her grandson, Peter II, and spent the rest of her life in respect and prosperity.

Fight with sister

Sophia heard news about the military amusements of her half-brother, and she could not help but understand that in a few years she would have to give up power. Her brother John did not cause such fears: he was "sorrowful head" and, moreover, was fading away before our eyes. Sophia would have been crowned herself, but Patriarch Joachim was categorically against it: after all, she is a woman.

It was her gender that caused the first conflict with her brother. In 1689, on the feast of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, according to custom, a religious procession was made from the Kremlin to the Kazan Cathedral. Seventeen-year-old Peter approached his sister and announced that she should not dare to go along with the men in the procession. Sophia did not answer, but took the image of the Most Holy Theotokos in her hands and went for crosses and banners. Peter defiantly left the holiday.

Further events are extremely indistinct. It is generally accepted that Sophia again began to spread the rumor that Tsar Peter decided to occupy the Kremlin with his "amusing" ones, kill the princess, Tsar's brother John and seize power. The new head of the archers, Shaklovity, gathered regiments in order to march in a "great assembly" to Preobrazhenskoye and beat all the supporters of Peter. But he did not take any real action or did not have time to take it. And just at that time, Peter had an epileptic seizure, coupled with the suspiciousness and anger characteristic of these painful attacks.

Having recovered, he abandoned his mother and pregnant wife and, jumping on a horse, rushed off to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. What for? Indeed, in Preobrazhensky he had "amusing" troops - and in the monastery he could only hope for the piety of the monks.

However, the very next day, Peter pulled himself together: he transported both queens to the monastery and called in the “amusing” troops. Then he publicly announced that Sophia was going to deprive him of power and marry the kingdom herself.

The confrontation between brother and sister continued throughout August. They took turns issuing "letters", calling on the troops to them, they hesitated, not knowing which side to take. As a result, most of the troops still obeyed Tsar Peter: after all, he was a man.

Sophia had to admit defeat. Soon she was imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent under strict supervision, and Shaklovity was executed. The elder brother of the king, John, met Peter in the Assumption Cathedral and officially transferred all power to him.

John V was considered king, but never showed interest in public affairs. Most likely, he suffered from some kind of genetic disorder: at the age of 27 he looked completely decrepit, had poor vision and was partially paralyzed. He died at the age of 30 and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

John was married to Praskovya Fedorovna Saltykova and had several daughters from her, including Anna, who was elected Russian empress in 1731. Another daughter of John, Catherine, was married to Duke Karl-Leopold of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and gave birth to his daughter Anna Leopoldovna, who later became regent for her unfortunate son Ivan Antonovich.

Azov games

A few more years after the power passed into his hands, Peter did not do business, but continued to play and gossip in the German Quarter. “Here a debauchery began, drunkenness so great that it is impossible to describe that for three days, having locked themselves in that house, they were drunk and that many happened to die because of this,” wrote Prince Kurakin. The death of Natalya Kirillovna at the beginning of 1694 only briefly interrupted the usual way of life for the tsar.

"Funny" troops also did not get bored. A few months after the death of his mother, the tsar staged the so-called Kozhukhovsky campaigns, in which "Tsar Fedor Pleshburskoy" (Fyodor Romodanovsky) defeated "Tsar Ivan Semenovsky" (Alexander Borisovich Buturlin), leaving 24 dead and 59 wounded on the amusing battlefield.

The expansion of sea amusements prompted Peter to make a trip to the White Sea twice, and during his trip to the Solovetsky Islands he was in serious danger due to a storm.

As a continuation of the games, Peter approached his first military campaigns - the Azov ones.

Military showdowns with the Tatars were traditional for Russia. The Tatars were supported by the Ottoman Empire - once powerful, but now increasingly weakening.

Peter set himself the goal - to recapture the fortress of Azov, located at the confluence of the Don River into the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov.

The first campaign ended unsuccessfully: the Russians besieged the fortress from land, but they continued to bring supplies there by sea.

Mistakes were taken into account, and by the spring of the following year, a rowing flotilla was built. It was built at a shipyard near Voronezh, at the confluence of the Voronezh River with the Don. In April 1696, the 36-gun sailing and rowing frigate Apostol Peter was launched. It was created by a Dane named Meyer. The length of this flat-bottomed three-masted frigate, which also had 15 pairs of oars, almost reached 35 meters, and its width exceeded 7 and a half meters. This ship served for 14 years - until the unsuccessful Prut campaign.

In the spring of 1696, the fortress of Azov, surrounded on all sides, surrendered.

The next step of the young king was the so-called. The grand embassy is a diplomatic mission in Western Europe, in which Peter Lefort's faithful friend and, incognito, he himself participated. For Russia, this was an unprecedented adventure: Russian tsars never left the country.

The initial goal was to boast of military successes, claim the capture of Azov and enlist the support of European governments in the further fight against Crimean Khanate. But instead, Peter abandoned the fight for the Crimea and allowed himself to be drawn into the twenty-year Northern War. It is possible that he ingeniously foresaw the benefits for Russia from future territorial acquisitions in the North. May be. But something else is also quite probable: the young sovereign simply wanted to take part in the great European game.

Viceroy Fürstenberg in a letter to August II in the most detailed way describes how he received Peter as a guest and, on the orders of Augustus, pleased him in every possible way, indulging the most ridiculous whims. A funny detail: Peter kept incognito, and therefore ordered that no one see him when visiting the castle. However, everyone was aware of his visit: the governor even had to put guards around the castle, which drove away the curious.

Most of all, Peter was interested in the army and everything connected with it, as well as the Cabinet of Curiosities.

“During dinner, I ordered trumpeters and flute players to be placed on the balcony under his room, and also ordered the bodyguards, Life Guards, dressed in Swiss dress with halberds, to march to the balcony, since I know that drums and whistles are his favorite music and in general, his taste is directed most of all to everything related to the war. I put him in such a wonderful frame of mind that he himself took the drum and, in the presence of the ladies, began to beat with such perfection that he far surpassed the drummers.

told Viceroy Furstenberg.

The poor governor complained that, against his own will, he was forced to drink a lot, as Peter demanded it. After drinking, they walked around the garden with the governor, and Peter went to where the carousel was, and for more than half an hour he swayed on a lion.

Here is the famous review of the Elector Sophia of Hanover about Peter: “... he admitted to us that he does not like music very much. I asked him: does he like hunting? He replied that his father loved him very much, but that from his youth he had a real passion for navigation and fireworks. He told us that he himself was working on the construction of ships, showed his hands and forced us to touch the calluses formed on them from work. It must be admitted that this is an extraordinary person. This sovereign is both very kind and very evil, he has a character - absolutely the character of his country. If he had received a better education, he would have been an excellent person, because he has a lot of dignity and an infinite amount of natural intelligence.

Peter was not a secular person. One can also leave an impression of his manners from this entry of a German courtier: “The Tsar surpassed himself throughout the entire evening: he did not burp and slurp, he did not pick his teeth, at least I did not hear or see this, he spoke completely at ease with the queen and princesses.

king executioner

The great embassy was interrupted by a second streltsy revolt. They suppressed it very quickly, but Peter still hastily returned to Moscow. Investigations and executions began, in which all the worst qualities of Peter's nature were manifested: he personally chopped off the heads of the hated archers, avenging the horror experienced in childhood. “The Tsar, Lefort and Menshikov each took an axe. Peter ordered to distribute axes to his ministers and generals. When everyone was armed, everyone set to work and cut off their heads. Menshikov got down to business so awkwardly that the tsar slapped him in the face and showed him how to cut off heads, ”Georg Gelbig, an eyewitness to the events, testified.

About 800 people were executed at a time (except those killed during the suppression of the rebellion), and subsequently several thousand more, until the spring of 1699.

Tsarevna Sophia, who until then had simply been in a monastery, was now tonsured a nun under the name of Susanna. In order to further punish his hated sister, Peter ordered that the executed archers be hanged right at her windows.

Peter had every reason to regard this rebellion as a betrayal, a stab in the back. "Holy Russia" betrayed - and she had to pay for it. Therefore, the tsar did not limit himself to reprisals against the rebels, but immediately began to change the established way of Russian life: right at the feast, he cut off the traditional Russian long-brimmed clothes of dignitaries with scissors right at the feast, and cut off the beards of close boyars. He ordered everyone to change into European clothes. By decree, he introduced a new, Julian calendar: canceling the chronology from the creation of the world and moving the celebration of the New Year to January 1. Before that, New Year was celebrated in the fall.

Then Peter got into the habit of walking with a large club in his hands, with which he beat the courtiers at fault.

The sovereign, turning a human figure on a lathe and being very cheerful that the work was going well, asked the mechanic Nartov:

- What do I sharpen?

"Very well," answered Nartov.

- Such is it, Andrey, I sharpen the bones with a chisel fairly, but I cannot grind the stubborn with a club.

An old joke.

The Vile Story of Mary Hamilton

Gossip related to one of his mistresses, Maria Hamilton, also tells about the excessive cruelty of Peter the Great. As if he had executed her for treason, and when the beauty's head rolled to the ground, he picked it up and began to talk about anatomy, showing the courtiers the severed spine and blood vessels.

Maria Hamilton before her execution. Pavel Svedomsky. 1904

In fact, the atrocity of the king is greatly exaggerated: Mary really had an intimate relationship with him at one time, but the hobby had long since passed. Since then, she had other lovers and was pregnant several times, but miscarried. She nevertheless gave birth to the last baby alive, but immediately drowned it in the vessel (i.e., in the chamber pot), and then threw the corpse into the latrine. It was for this heinous crime that she was sentenced to death, and quite humanely: she was cut off her head, and not buried alive in the ground, as required by the Code of 1649. Maria's head was alcoholized and kept for some time in the Kunstkamera, but then some sailors stole the vessel, drank the alcohol, and threw the head away.

Antichrist of glass city

“The most jesting and most drunken cathedral” is one of the most extravagant undertakings of Peter. For him, it was an opportunity not only to have fun and get into revelry, but also to mock the real, serious life that he hated. Thus arose the collegium of drunkenness, or "the most extravagant, the most joking and the most drunken cathedral." It was presided over by the former tsar's teacher Nikita Zotov, the prince-dad, or "the most noisy and most joking patriarch of Moscow, Kokui and all Yauza." Under him was a conclave of 12 cardinals, notorious drunkards and gluttons, with a huge staff of the same bishops, archimandrites and other clergy who bore frankly indecent nicknames.

Peter bore the rank of protodeacon and himself composed the charter of this cathedral, in which the ranks of the election of the patriarch and ordination to various degrees of the drunken hierarchy were determined to the smallest detail. The first commandment of the order was to get drunk every day and not go to bed sober, and the goal was declared to be to glorify Bacchus with exorbitant drinking. The order of drunkenness, "serving Bacchus and honest treatment with strong drinks" was determined. The jesters had their own vestments, prayers and hymns, there were even the most joking mother-bishops and abbesses, or rather x * abbess - just like that, with a hint of an obscene word. One of them was Anastasia Petrovna Golitsyna - a smart woman, but devoid of any concept of decent behavior and, moreover, an alcoholic. She knew how to amuse the sovereign and for a long time was in favor - but then she was accused of treason in connection with the case of Tsarevich Alexei and beaten with batogs. Humiliated and sick, she lived out her life in the Cheryomushki estate in the south of Moscow.

As in the ancient church they asked the person being baptized: “Do you believe?” - so in this cathedral the newly received member was asked the question: “Are you drinking?” The sober were excommunicated from all taverns in the state, drunken fighters were anathematized.

Often during Christmas week, Peter gathered a huge company, about two hundred people, and spent the night riding in a sleigh around Moscow or St. Petersburg. At the head of the procession is the jester's patriarch in his vestments, with a rod and in a tin miter; behind him, headlong, rush sleigh, packed full of his co-servants, with songs and whistles. The owners of houses honored by the visit of these glorifiers were obliged to treat them and pay for glorification.

Once, at Shrovetide, the tsar arranged a service to Bacchus: the patriarch, Prince-Pope Nikita Zotov drank and blessed the guests kneeling before him, overshadowing them with two chibouks folded crosswise, just as bishops do with dikirium and trikirium; then, with a staff in his hand, the "master" began to dance.

Christmas fun was familiar, but the jokes that the sovereign threw out during Lent jarred on many. Members of the Most Joking Council in turned-out sheepskin coats rode out in sledges pulled by pigs, bears and goats.

"Jester's weddings" were often arranged. Peter could give up all his affairs in order to compose another clownish "decree" or a regulation of the clownish rite. With the death of Peter, the cathedral ceased to exist, leaving behind a bad memory not only as an example of the emperor's tyranny, but also as another proof that he really was the "Antichrist".

Of alcoholic beverages, Peter preferred vodka. The boxes in which the bottles of vodka were stored were shaped like the gospel.

In those years, distillery production was still poorly developed. We would now call the then vodka poorly purified moonshine or raw alcohol. It was no more than 18 degrees strong, but it desperately stank of fuselage. At assemblies, Peter ordered the vessels with this drink to be carried throughout the park and forcibly gave them to guests, including ladies and clerics, until everyone was kicked to the point of a pig.

These amusements gave rise to legends about the impostor king and the Antichrist king. Peter was declared the son of a German woman and “Lafert”, they said that in the “Glass Kingdom” (Stockholm) the real sovereign was kidnapped and put in a barrel, put into the sea, and instead of him they sent a “nemchin”. The schismatics interpreted the holy books, where it was written that the Antichrist would be born from a bad connection from a bad wife and an imaginary girl, from the tribe of Dan, and recalled that Peter was born from a second wife - illegal, thinking that Dan's tribe is the royal one. tribe.

Was Peter such a notorious blasphemer or an unbeliever? That would be strange given his upbringing. In addition, it is known for certain that Peter took care of the construction of temples and even drew sketches for architects himself. So, according to his drawings, the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg and the church on Novaya Basmannaya Street were built - very close to Yauza and Kukuy. In addition, having a good voice and hearing, Peter often sang on the kliros, thereby expressing respect for the church and worship.

"Min hertz" and batmen

Alexander Danilovich Menshikov was the son of a baker, and became a close friend of Peter and the Most Serene Prince of the Russian Empire, the Duke of Izhora, a member of the Supreme Privy Council, President of the Military Collegium, Senator, Field Marshal General, and so on and so forth ... He was a brave and successful military leader, but mediocre a diplomat, a talented organizer, but an unscrupulous bribe-taker. For embezzlement he was repeatedly beaten by Peter himself. In the end, Menshikov made a lot of enemies for himself, was exiled to Berezov, where he died.

“Menshikov was strongly attached to the tsar and sympathized with his rules regarding the enlightenment of the Russian nation. With foreigners, unless they considered themselves smarter than him, he was polite and amiable. He also did not touch the Russians, who knew how to bend their backs. He treated the lower ones meekly and never forgot the service rendered. In the greatest dangers, he showed all due courage, and once he fell in love with someone, he became his zealous friend.

On the other hand, his ambition was immeasurable; he did not tolerate anything higher than himself, nor an equal, much less a man who would think of surpassing him in intelligence. Greed was insatiable and an implacable enemy. He did not have a lack of intelligence, but his lack of education was reflected in his rude treatment.

Colonel K. G. Manstein told.

Rumors are also connected with Menshikov about the alleged bisexuality of Peter the Great. One of the reasons for the emergence of these gossip is the dizzying career of the handsome Menshikov and the address that the tsar used in correspondence with him - “min hertz” - “my heart”.

Another source of rumors is the memoirs of the turner Andrei Konstantinovich Nartov, which says that in the absence of Catherine, Peter put young batmen to sleep with him. However, Nartov explained it differently:

“The sovereign truly sometimes had such convulsions at night that he put Murzin’s orderly on the bed with him, holding on to whose shoulder he fell asleep, which I myself saw. During the day, he often tossed his head up. This began to be in his body from the time of the riots, but before that it did not happen.

Menshikov's excessive love for luxury was reflected in numerous anecdotes of that time. The court jester Balakirev often made fun of the royal favorite.

Jokes:

In St. Petersburg, Prince Alexander Danilovich Menshikov built a palace for himself on Vasilyevsky Island. This palace is modest by today's standards. At that time it was considered one of the largest. The emperor himself supervised the work and more than once came to admire the buildings under construction. On one of these visits, he suddenly noticed that Balakirev, armed with a arshin, with the air of a connoisseur, was importantly pacing around the just finished one, and arguing with himself, measuring everything.

Calling him to him, Peter asked:

- How long have you, Balakirev, become a land surveyor and what are you measuring there?

“I have been a land surveyor, sir, since I began to walk on mother earth, and what I measure, you yourself will deign to see.

– What is it?

- Earth.

- Why?

- Yes, I want to measure out on this foundation how much space of the earth Danilych will occupy when he dies.

The sovereign smiled and looked at Menshikov, who grimaced at Balakirev's words.

One fine day, Balakirev bantered Menshikov for a particularly long and sharp time, so that the prince finally lost patience and wanted to beat the jester. The latter managed to escape.

“Well, you are a swindler,” Menshikov shouted after him, “I will deal with you in order!” Not only to the living, but also to the dead, you will not have peace from me. Even the bones know my strength.

The next day, after the threat, Balakirev appeared to the sovereign bored and saddened.

- Father-king, have mercy! he yelled.

- What does it mean? Peter asked.

- Give me your club.

- Excuse me, but first tell me why you need it?

“And this is why I need it: when I die, I will order you to put it with me in the grave. And do you know what for? Danilych is very afraid of her, so she will protect me. And then the prince threatens that my bones will not have peace from him.

The emperor, smiling, promised him to give him his royal club.

The next day, all the courtiers found out about this, and Menshikov began to treat Balakirev more friendly and favorably.

Prince Menshikov, angry at d'Acosta for something, shouted:

"I'll beat you to death, you bastard!"

The frightened jester ran as fast as he could, and,

running to the sovereign, complained about the prince.

“If he truly kills you,” the emperor said smiling, “then I will have him hanged.”

I don’t want that,” the jester objected, “but I want Your Royal Majesty to order him to be hanged before I am alive.

Narva - broke through!

In addition to Russia, the Northern Alliance against the Swedish King Charles XII included Denmark, Saxony and the Commonwealth (Poland). In order not to be distracted by the Crimea, Peter urgently concluded with Ottoman Empire a truce for a period of 30 years, and on August 19, 1700 declared war on Sweden.

But, alas: this game was not successful for Peter at first, the allies let him down: Denmark almost immediately withdrew from the war, and polish king August failed to take Riga. The Russian attempt to capture Narva ended in complete defeat. The Swedes even issued a medal with the image of the woefully wandering Peter and the gospel inscription: "And the crying cry is bitter, gone out."

However, the Swedes rejoiced early: Peter knew how to learn from his mistakes. He reorganized and re-trained the army, cast cannons, built new ships, and already from 1702 won the first victories. “Narva, which has been tearing up for 4 years, now, thank God, has broken through,” Peter wrote joyfully in a letter. The exit to the Baltic Sea was open.

Baltic beauty

In 1703, during the siege of the fortress of Marienburg, Peter I met 19-year-old Marta Skavronskaya, a Baltic peasant woman. At first, Menshikov liked her, but Peter took the beauty from him and made her his mistress. Soon she converted to Orthodoxy: Peter's half-sister Ekaterina (one of the daughters of Maria Miloslavskaya) became the godmother, and his son from his first marriage, Alexei, became the godfather. Since then, Marta began to be called Ekaterina Alekseevna.

The Frenchman Lavi in ​​1715 described her appearance as follows: “... has a pleasant fullness; her complexion is very white, with an admixture of a natural, somewhat bright blush. Her eyes are black, small, her hair of the same color is long and thick, her neck and arms are beautiful, her expression is meek and very pleasant. Lavi noted that the king treats his wife "with special respect."

Interestingly, despite the abundance of portraits, many biographers stubbornly call Catherine a blonde. Not wanting to abandon the image of a "blonde German", they even came up with the idea that Catherine specially dyed her blond hair black to match Peter's tastes. In this case, they should have mentioned that she was also the first person to wear dark contact lenses.

“Once, when the king was at a dinner with the king of Denmark, where he drank more than usual, the latter, wanting to joke, said:

“Ah, brother, I heard that you also have a mistress?”

The king, finding such a joke far from his taste, objected:

“Brother, my favorites cost me little, but your public women cost you thousands of thalers, which you could use much better.”

In 1706, the king changed in Poland, and Charles XII began a new campaign against Russia, enticing hetman Ivan Mazepa to his side. But luck left him: the battle near the village of Lesnoy and the Battle of Poltava decided the outcome of the war. The Swedish king with a handful of soldiers fled to Turkish possessions. There he was not received too kindly, and soon he was forced to return to his homeland, where in 1718 he died under mysterious circumstances.

Russian diplomacy and dancing on the table

The Swedish Queen Ulrika Eleonora tried to resist for another two years, but in the end she was forced to negotiate peace. In the autumn of 1721, the Treaty of Nystadt was concluded, ending more than twenty years of war. Russia gained access to the Baltic Sea and annexed the vast Baltic lands.

An anecdotal story is connected with the Nishtadt peace talks, which were conducted by remarkable diplomats and, in general, outstanding people Andrei Ivanovich Osterman and Yakov Vilimovich Bruce. Peter, wanting to end the war as soon as possible, was ready to make concessions and give the Vyborg fortress to the Swedes. He sent Pavel Yaguzhinsky to negotiate, empowering him to make peace on Swedish terms. Osterman and Bruce, believing that the Swedes were about to agree to give up the fortress, sent people to meet Pavel Ivanovich with a letter addressed to the commandant of this same Vyborg. The letter contained a request to intercept the envoy, persuade him to go out, get him drunk, and thus detain him on the road. The plan succeeded. Yaguzhinsky was delayed for two days, and when, suffering from a headache and suffering from a hangover, he reached Nystadt, peace was already concluded and became a triumph for Russian diplomats.

The conclusion of peace was celebrated with a seven-day masquerade. Peter was overjoyed and, forgetting his years and illnesses, sang songs and even danced on the tables.

Yakov Vilimovich Bruce- the famous "sorcerer" and scientist. He came from a noble Scottish family and was a descendant of King Bruce of Scotland. His brother, Roman Bruce, was the first chief commandant of St. Petersburg. Their ancestors lived in Russia since 1647.

Yakov Vilimovich participated in all the wars that Peter fought, and was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, many titles and titles.

He was one of the most educated people Russia, naturalist and astronomer. Fluent in six languages, actively engaged in translation and publishing scientific literature, collected a library of more than one and a half thousand volumes and a "cabinet of curious things", which formed the basis of the Kunstkamera. He compiled the "Map of Lands from Moscow to Asia Minor", was the author of the zodiacal radial-circular layout of Moscow.

Jacob Bruce. 18th century engraving

In 1702, Bruce opened the first observatory in Russia at the Navigation School in Moscow in the Sukharev Tower. His passion for astrology was expressed in the publication of the famous Bruce Calendars.

The people made up many legends about Bruce. Allegedly, once Bruce hosted guests at his estate, and in order to entertain them, in the July heat he froze the pond so that his guests could skate.

This text is an introductory piece.

Name: Peter
Middle name: Alekseevich
Last name: Romanov
Date of birth: May 30 (June 9), 1672
Date of death: January 28 (February 8), 1725
Diagnoses during life: gonorrhea, Kozhevnikov's syndrome, uremia, utetritis, urethral stricture, cystitis, pyelonephritis (?), arterial hypertension
Cause of death: stroke

Barbarian who civilized his Russia; he who built cities, but did not want to live in them; he who punished his wife with a whip and gave a woman wide freedom - his life was great, rich and useful in public terms, in private terms, such as it turned out
August Strindberg.

Tsarevich Peter Alekseevich, future first Russian emperor, was the fourteenth (!) Child of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. However, the first from his second wife, Tsaritsa Natalya Naryshkina. In Russian mythology, the first emperor occupies a triple position - firstly, he got the position of a superman, given to him for his high growth (two meters three centimeters) and remarkable strength. Secondly, this is a kind of symbol of the renewal of everything - and it is clear why: a window to Europe, shaving beards, the Battle of Poltava and all that. And thirdly, at the same time the greatest antihero - Cruel person(with fits of kindness and justice), the persecutor of the "old and good" and all that. Usually, even his death seems mythological - the author remembers very well how they taught at school that an absolutely healthy person Peter the Great at the beginning of 1725 (in the prime of his life - only 52 years old!) Caught a cold, saving drowning sailors and died. In fact, the history of the illness of Peter the Great is very extensive, and the final diagnosis is mysterious. But let's talk about everything in order.

It is curious that if we begin to analyze the history of the relationship between the first Russian emperor and medicine, we will again see duality: on the one hand, from a very young age, we have a motley history of Peter Alekseevich, on the other, the tsar himself showed his interest in medicine from his youth.

Peter as a doctor

To begin with - a little history (and the history of art as well). Do you remember Rembrandt's famous painting "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp"? In fact, this is not quite a picture. What is the first thing we see when entering a private clinic? That's right, diplomas of varying degrees of pathos and a photograph of the team. But what were the doctors of the 17th century to do? That's right, invite an artist. And the more pretentious the artist, the steeper the clinic. Sorry, there were no clinics then. And there were guilds.

A person entered the Weight Chamber of Amsterdam, where the residence of the Guild of Surgeons was located, sees a gallery of portraits - and immediately understands who the real doctor is, and how much money doctors can now pour out to the artist. It got to the coolest: for example, to Rembrandt. And since it’s not very correct to simply write a group portrait, traditionally surgeons ordered their portrait in the entourage of a very interesting lesson: an anatomy lesson. This is how the most, perhaps, the most famous corporate "photo shoot" of the 17th century appeared: "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp."

Anatomy Lesson by Dr. Tulp

At the time of the order to Rembrandt (1632), three “anatomy lessons” were already hanging in the ward, written in 1603, 1619 and 1625, but Dr. Nicholas Tulp (or Tulp - he took a surname in honor of the Dutch tulips) was not yet the head of the guild. Then, when another doctor, Dr. Deiman, will head the guild, Rembrandt will paint a new portrait - “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Deiman” (1652). After Deiman, the guild will be led by Frederic Ruysch. In 1670, the artist Adrian Bakker and in 1683 the artist Jan van Nek would write two more "Anatomy Lessons of Dr. Ruysch" - on the first one there will be an autopsy with a demonstration of the inguinal canal, on the second Ruysch will open the baby.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Ruysch by Adrian Bakker

Why are we telling this? And to the fact that fourteen years after writing the second portrait, Ruysch had an unusual guest. On September 17, 1697, Peter, who visited Holland with the Great Embassy under the guise of an officer of the Preobrazhensky Regiment Peter Mikhailov, asked the burgomaster of Amsterdam to personally introduce him to an outstanding physician and anatomist (by that time, Ruysch was already known for his embalming method and his amazing collection of anatomical preparations).
Peter was delighted and left an entry in the guest book: “I, the undersigned, while traveling to see most of Europe, visited here in Amsterdam to gain knowledge, the need for which I always had, examined here things, among which I last but not least, he saw the art in the anatomy of Mr. Ruysch and, as is customary in this house, signed it with his own hand. Peter".

One of the exhibits of the Ruysch collection

Two decades later, Peter, having learned that Ruysch planned to sell his collection, ordered to buy it out - the Kunstkamera would begin with this, but for now the tsar himself "fell ill" with surgery. He tried to be as present as possible. more operations. It is authentically known that St. Petersburg surgeons were afraid to carry out complex operations without calling the tsar for them. In 1717, while in Paris, Peter learned about the skill of the local ophthalmic surgeon Voolgyuz and asked him to perform a demonstrative operation especially for him. They write that a certain homeless man with walleyes was found, on which Voolgyuz showed the operation of squeezing the walleye.

Peter constantly sought to improve his skills as a surgeon. So, especially for Peter I, the then-famous anatomical atlas of Gottfried Bidloo "Anatomy of the human body in 105 tables" (Anatomy humani corporis), published in 1685 in Amsterdam, was translated into Russian. This translation, by the way, was exclusively for one reader, and remained in the manuscript. The king himself constantly took part in autopsies - while his actions were sometimes very cruel.

So, they write that in 1705 the peasant Kozma Zhukov was accused of intent to regicide, sentenced to death, and after death appointed for an autopsy. Moreover, the tsar was often personally present at the autopsies of his relatives - for example, he endorsed the autopsy of his daughter-in-law, who died suddenly, the wife of Tsarevich Alexei (he also personally took part in the torture), Princess Charlotte. As an Austrian resident reported to his homeland, “After opening the body, Peter saw blood spasms, unexpectedly ordered nothing to be taken out, everything was sewn up again and ordered about the burial.” Apparently, the emperor wanted to make sure that his son had not poisoned his not very beloved wife.

Princess Charlotte

In general, Peter's curiosity sometimes reached inhuman cynicism. So, when the widow of his brother Fyodor, Marfa Matveevna, died, he also wanted to be present at the autopsy. The fact is that Fedor Alekseevich, who was in very poor health (his legs almost did not work), after the death of his first wife, he married an 18-year-old young and beautiful Marfa, and died a few months later, and the widow, according to Tatishchev, “was a girl by left him." And now, 33 years later, Marfa Matveevna, who led a reclusive lifestyle, died. As the historian Pyotr Dolgorukov wrote, the tsar "wanted to know the truth about this brief marriage." He was convinced - and ordered to fulfill the will of the queen, transferring her huge wealth into the possession of her brother, General Fyodor Matveyevich Apraksin. And Peter I ordered his beloved sister Natalya Alekseevna not to be buried until he returned from Europe - and the body was kept for more than a year on the glacier.

Marfa Matveevna Apraksina

However, Peter not only watched. We do not know whether he personally opened the bodies of his relatives or his subordinates. However, the fact that he performed operations on his subjects (and not only) is known for certain.
The simplest operation that Peter learned to do during the Great Embassy is the removal of a diseased tooth. As a historical anecdote, a story is given quite in the spirit of Peter, how the future emperor saw a wandering dentist, took him to a tavern, gave him a drink and persuaded him to teach him to pull his teeth. After that, he regularly practiced on his subjects. The well-known Russian historical journalist Sergei Shubinsky, who wrote at the turn of the 19th-20th years, cites the following story (already with a touch of folklore):

“The valet of the sovereign Poluboyarov married a girl whom he did not like at all. She was forced to marry him, because Peter himself wanted this marriage, and his relatives considered such a party to be very profitable. After the wedding, the sovereign noticed that Poluboyarov was constantly cloudy and preoccupied, and asked him about the reason. Poluboyarov admitted that his wife stubbornly avoided his caresses, excused by a toothache. "Good," said Peter, "I'll teach her." The next day, when Poluboyarov was at work in the palace, the sovereign unexpectedly went to his apartment, called his wife and asked her: "I heard that your tooth hurts?" “No, sir,” answered the young woman, trembling with fear, “I am well.” - "I see you are a coward," said Peter, "it's okay, sit down on this chair, closer to the light." Poluboyarova, fearing the royal wrath, did not dare to object and silently obeyed. Peter pulled out her healthy tooth and affectionately remarked: "From now on, obey your husband and remember that the wife must be afraid of her husband, otherwise she will be without teeth." Returning to the palace, the sovereign called Poluboyarov and, smiling, said to him: "Go to your wife; I cured her; now she will not disobey you."

Anecdotes are anecdotes, but the famous bag with the teeth removed by Peter I is a historical reality. It was indeed kept in the Kunstkamera. It is also known that Peter personally carried out more serious operations. So, it is reported (not as an anecdote) about the removal of an inguinal tumor from the manufacturer Tamsen and about the treatment of dropsy in the wife of the merchant Borgete.

Anamnesis vitae

What do we know about the health of Peter himself? Unfortunately, we do not have the earliest information about the anamnesis of the future emperor, at least - more or less trustworthy. Moreover, many important documents relating to the health and illnesses of Peter died as a result of improper storage - they were already lost under Catherine II. So, for example, there is no protocol for the autopsy of Peter - we can judge him only by references to his contemporaries. A lot of information is given to us by the “History of Peter”, written by Alexander Pushkin, who, by the way, by the end of his short life (we refer you to the corresponding chapter of our book) turned from a talented varmint who wrote not only great poems, but also stupid epigrams that spoiled life for everyone indiscriminately, in a very good historian who knew how to work with sources. “Tsidulki” give us a lot - notes that Peter sent to his wife, Catherine I (aka Marta Skavronskaya, aka Marta Kruse, aka Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova).

Let's summarize what we know. Firstly, it must be said right away that Peter was not at all ugly, as it has become fashionable to write now (“Shemyakin truthfully depicted the emperor with a disproportionately small head, etc /”). All independent testimonies of those people who had no reason to flatter Peter speak in different time the same thing: very tall, perfectly built, thin, muscular, handsome face.

Portrait of a young Peter by Kneller

Here is what Princess Sophia of the Palatinate wrote about him:
“The king is tall, he has beautiful features and a noble posture; he has great quickness of mind, his answers are quick and correct. But with all the virtues that nature has endowed him with, it would be desirable that there be less rudeness in him. This sovereign is very good and at the same time very bad; morally, he is a complete representative of his country. If he had received a better education, then a perfect person would have come out of him, because he has many virtues and an extraordinary mind.

princess sophia

The only thing that frightened everyone who communicated with the king was the spasm that at times disfigured his face.

“... The look is majestic and friendly, when he watches himself and restrains himself, otherwise severe and wild, with convulsions on his face, which are not often repeated, but distort both the eyes and the whole face, frightening everyone present. The convulsion usually lasted for an instant, and then his gaze became strange, as if confused, then everything immediately took on a normal look, ”the famous French memoirist, Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of Saint-Simon, described this symptom.
Contemporaries wrote that this symptom appeared after the horror of the streltsy revolt experienced at the age of ten, which Vasily Klyuchevsky vividly describes: “Peter ... stood on the Red Porch of the Kremlin next to his mother ... when the archers picked up Artamon Matveev and his other supporters on spears , [among whom were the mentors of the prince] ... the May horrors of 1682 were indelibly engraved in his memory.

Streltsy rebellion in 1682. Streltsy dragging Ivan Naryshkin out of the palace. While Peter I comforts his mother, Princess Sophia watches with satisfaction. Painting by A. I. Korzukhin, 1882

However, there is evidence that Peter had "nervous attacks" from early childhood. The same Pushkin is looking for other reasons for the emergence of such a neurological status: “the queen (Peter’s mother - ed.), going one spring to a monastery, when crossing an overflowing stream, got scared and woke up Peter, who was sleeping in her arms, with her screams. Peter was afraid of water until the age of 14. Prince Boris Aleksandrovich Golitsyn, his Chief Chamberlain, cured him. Sometimes the seizures led to fainting.

Sudden fits of anger are superimposed on this, the king could suddenly, for no reason at all, beat those close with a club or fist. We have already spoken about the pathological cruelty of the king, which sporadically manifested itself, for example, in his personal participation in the execution of archers. We also observe attacks of sudden motor activity - Peter could suddenly jump up from the table and run into another room to stretch himself. There were other mental symptoms as well. So, Peter the Great suffered from the fear of high ceilings and in many rooms where he lived, he demanded to equip a low false ceiling, which many sources erroneously call agoraphobia (in fact, it is spaciophobia - the fear of empty spaces).

Of course, the neurological status of the tsar could not but be affected by his addiction to alcohol - we are well aware of the All-Joking, All-Drunken and Wildest Cathedrals of Peter I, from which not everyone got out alive.

What caused all this complex of symptoms? Some authors try to attribute neurosyphilis to the king, referring to urological symptoms, which will be discussed later. Alas, too much does not fit here - neither in urology, nor in neurology. Nevertheless, we dare to suggest that the king has as a symptom - Kozhevnikov's syndrome (focal convulsive seizures with an emerging myoclonic tic), as a disease - perhaps a "frozen" Kozhevnikov-Rasmussen syndrome (usually it begins in early childhood leading to severe disability). Of course, accurate diagnosis without magnetic resonance and even positron emission tomography is impossible. But alas, we will never see Peter's PET.

I promised to write this article to my longtime readers (on various resources of the World Wide Web) a long time ago. So I apologize for making you wait. But, firstly, I wanted to properly recall the events of our distant history in order to back up my words with weighty arguments. Secondly, after my condemnation of the personality of Peter and good reviews about Lenin, one of the readers ordered an article comparing these two, in any case, great historical figures.

I'm a little disappointed in advance. Comparison in its pure form will not work, because how can you compare the incomparable? Too different historical eras, different levels of development of technology and knowledge, and finally - completely different thinking.

And, perhaps, the most important thing. The reader asked me to compare specifically, they say, Peter gave the country something, Lenin - something. However, if Peter managed to hold out at the state helm for almost 40 years (considering that he began to rule on his own since 1689, having eliminated his half-sister Sophia, at the same time, he was officially king already at the age of 10, i.e. in 1682- m), then the reign of Vladimir Ilyich, as you know, was short (1917-1923), where the years from the end of 1917 until 1922 were spent on collecting Russian lands (under the new name of the USSR). In other words, the time to do something, the fate of the first chapter Soviet government just didn't.

And yet, I will take the liberty of “at the request of the working people” to draw some parallels. But I will not compare the activities of Peter and Lenin in their pure form, but the time of Peter the Great and the time of the formation of Soviet power (ie, the Lenin-Stalin period). I think that it would be more correct, because. unlike Peter's reforms, the Soviet reforms required not one, but two generations of rulers.

From "medieval" Russia to "new" Russia

Again, among reader reviews in response to my condemnation of Tsar Peter I, there was such a statement: they say, thanks to him, Russia from the Middle Ages “jumped” into the New Age (well, something like that, sorry, if I don’t accurately convey).

I hope no one will argue that the very concepts of "Middle Ages" and "New Time" are very arbitrary? What do you propose to take as a starting point in order to determine that before such and such a year there was the "Middle Ages", and then - already the "New Time"? - What indicators - technical, public? ..

Let's start with the technical ones. Let us take as a starting point the appearance in the army of one or another power of firearms. And what will we get? - Yes, roughly speaking (according to the generally accepted chronology, which, by the way, is also very, very conditional), the XIV century. And in Russia too. Let's remember that "mattresses" (such primitive cannons) appeared on the walls of the still white-stone Kremlin, i.e. under Dmitry Donskoy.

Well, this is already too much, “mattresses” were only in the Moscow Kremlin, therefore, they are not an indicator for the whole country. Let's take as a starting point the creation of the first regular army with uniform uniforms and firearms. In the case of Russia, this is the archery army, which, as you know, appeared with us under Ivan the Terrible (it is believed that in 1550 from the first three thousand archers).

Looking ahead, I will say that PeterI, undoubtedly, greatly modified the army, but NOT TECHNICALLY, but organizationally. Since the time of Ivan IV, small arms have generally undergone little change. Yes, in the middle of the 17th century (shortly BEFORE the birth of Peter), the archery squeakers (in fact, the Russian musket) were replaced by screw squeaks (that is, rifled ones). Peter decides to replace them with a lightweight musket (fusee), which made life a little easier for a soldier (especially if he was short or not distinguished by heroic strength).

Please note that the majority of Peter's soldiers had smoothbore guns. Screw squeakers, or, as they were renamed in the German way under the Western tsar, fittings, armed only the best shooters. What am I leading to? - And to the fact that it is clearly not worth talking about revolutionary rearmament under Peter.

Yes, a regular military fleet appeared, but before that it did not exist at all. And Russian people (who lived by the sea) knew how to manage sailing ships before (we’ll also talk about this).

In other words, in the sense of a technical jump from "one" time to "another" did not happen under Peter.

Do not think that before you is a kind of ignoramus who does not know what is customary in historical science to take as the beginning of the "New Time". I know I know. Such a turning point is considered to be the Bourgeois “revolution” in England (well, in this case I cannot write such a word without quotation marks and laughter) of 1640-1649. Also known as English civil war(the latter is much more like the truth). It is believed that as a result, England turned from feudal to bourgeois (if you like, early capitalist). Those. historians take as a starting point a kind of “breakthrough” from feudalism to capitalism, a new type of organization of society.

Now answer me: did anything similar happen in Russia under Peter? “Obviously not. Serfdom, as it was, and remains. Wage workers, as a class, are not even outlined. They were replaced by a purely Petrine invention - "possession peasants" (we will also talk about the situation of the peasantry in more detail), i.e. farmers attached to early production (manufactory) along with their village. That's right, why pay when you can not pay ...

From all of the above, only one conclusion suggests itself: yes, the country has changed, but the jump from one era to another has NOT HAPPENED!

Russia generally manages to "pass the exams externally" for capitalism. Again, very conditionally, but we will assume that “Russian capitalism” in its purest form will begin from the year of the abolition of serfdom (1861), and already in 1917 it will be put to an end. And thank God!

It is thanks to this that we, the one and only Russian people in the world, will preserve our great and broad Russian soul, not spoiled by the mania for money, as in the West, where this “value” has been planted for centuries. Indeed, even under feudalism, there are such things as COURAGE, HONOR, COURAGE, which are valued by the ruling class (nobility) much higher than money. Under capitalism, the ruling class is the bourgeoisie. To rule, they rule, but they themselves are also SLAVES. Their own money - the ONLY value for them ...

And here is the first sla-a-a-abenkaya such a parallel of Peter with Soviet power(why weak, read above). In 1917, Russia, "surrendering capitalism externally", with terrible pain (did you want otherwise during childbirth?), Stepped into a new society. Much fairer than the bourgeois! No matter how you twist it, the power of the Soviets (of which Lenin was the embodiment) truly forced the country to step into a new era, strikingly different from all previous ones. Moreover, on the whole Earth we were the first in this experience of ours (as well as in space).

In what form did the country go to Peter I

I dare not argue that the young tsar did not get the country in the best possible shape: it lost access to the Black and Baltic Seas, without a regular fleet, with a semi-regular army, the organization of which should have been changed long ago, with an extremely intricate control system. In addition, Russia was still tormented (and will be for a long time) by the raids of the Crimean Khanate from the south.

Another Russian-Turkish war(1672-1681), in which the Crimean Tatars traditionally fought for the Sultan, only died down. The western outskirts of the Russian kingdom did not live quietly either. Ukraine (more precisely, only its eastern part), as you know, returned to the bosom of Russia only under the father of the young tsar, Alexei Mikhailovich. Consequently, the Commonwealth (for all its fragmentation and internal turmoil) had its own plans for a new seizure of our western lands.

Strictly speaking, the then Tsarevich Peter had no rights to the throne. In seniority, Fyodor Alekseevich succeeded his father. But the sickly Fyodor died in 1682, before he was 21 years old. By the way, the older brother Peter also had thoughts about the need for transformations, as history shows us. Alas, fate did not give him time to implement them.

I will not retell the period of the two kingdoms (the only case in our history when two kings shared the throne: Peter and his half-brother Ivan), there is already plenty written about this. Something else is important for us, just to understand that in order to get real power into his own hands, the young king, of course, had to sweat. Indeed, in order to send her half-sister Sophia, who was the ruler with two young brothers, to the monastery, it was first necessary to at least enlist the support of most of the service people, incl. and archers (with whom Peter had no relationship throughout his life, to put it mildly).

And here is the second (I will not tire of repeating, very illusory) parallel for you - the Bolsheviks, with Lenin at the head, got the country in an even worse form: devastated by the First World War and completely mediocre (but in fact - treacherous) policy of the Provisional "government" (also to me , "rulers"), is about ready to fall to pieces. The army, on the other hand, was a completely decomposed mass of soldiers. And here it is important to note that the decay was not due to the efforts of the Bolsheviks, as it is now fashionable to imagine, but, first of all, thanks to the theft of quartermasters and disgusting command.

Let's summarize. Peter got a heavy burden, but at least the question of the further existence of the country did not arise then. But with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks (in their case, there were no rights at all, that is, this power still had to be taken and retained), the question was exactly that. I earnestly ask you to remember for the future, this is important.

Army

It is obvious that, without a strong army, the state can forget about a quiet life (and even more so, about the return of lost lands). In the case of our long-suffering Russia, forever surrounded by enemies, this truth is three times true.

The archery army, inherited by the young tsar from his predecessors, was not drawn to the role of such an army. It is not permissible for a military man to engage in trade, keep mills, etc. in his free time from service. Alas, the archers lived just like that, because their salary was small, not to say negligible.

The regiments of the foreign (or new) system were, as they say, a prototype.

And, if we evaluate "by the top", then we only have to admire the fact that Peter, by the end of his reign, gave the country a regular army. But not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance.

There was one undoubted advantage in the organization of the streltsy troops. Sagittarius are FREE people who did not pay tax (that is, poll tax). Thus, the honor of the position of a serviceman was emphasized, he was not a serf. And I repeat once again, a warrior, of course, should live only by service, more precisely, he should have enough salary received for military work. In return, he is obliged to constantly hone his skills and be ready at the first call to defend the Motherland, if necessary, then lay down his head.

The issue with the archers could be resolved by dismissing those who “stayed too long” and “bargained” from service, raising salaries to the required level, promoting (and if necessary, training) young capable commanders. I am more than sure that none of the same archers would have anything against rearmament. But to deprive the military people of their personal freedom by no means followed!

Peter, in transforming the army, took the path of least resistance. Instead of raising the attractiveness of the service with a high salary, the opportunity to rise through the ranks, a transition to a privileged class, which would give a person the right not to pay taxes (to put it modern language, taxes), the young tsar introduced a system of recruitment sets, when they were literally driven into the service with a stick.

In fairness, it is worth mentioning that at first, a peasant soldier was freed from serfdom, but this was only at first. Then, even after pulling off the 25-year-old "strap", the serviceman again became the property of the master. And if the landowner refused him, then the old soldier had to look for a new master!

It is understandable. Why look for funds, think about how to replenish the treasury, if you can force a person against his will. To those who, having read up to this point, will say, they say, the tsar's treasury was empty, I will ask the question: where, then, did the “Highest Prince” Menshikov steal his millions? And rumors about his theft have reached our days only because he was the "most luminous" close servant of the sovereign. Now think about it, how many less thieves could there be? Here, by the way, the parallel is no longer with the Soviet government, but with the modernity surrounding us (regarding the thieves).

I already wrote about weapons at the very beginning. It must be admitted that with what he could, Peter I rearmed the army (then they simply hadn’t thought of the best yet). We also acknowledge that thanks to the young tsar, in the army he created, they began to study the advanced methods of combat that were used at that time in Europe. And here we come to the most interesting ...

Techniques were studied, but whom did Peter invite as a teacher? - Of course, foreign officers. Often, without checking who they are and where they came from. And the trouble is not that many of them turned out to be dubious personalities, but that, entering the Russian service, they did not even know the Russian language.

Peter, inviting foreigners, did an unforgivable thing - he put them in command positions. If they were simply in the position of advisers to Russian officers, they would not bring harm. But they were entrusted with directly commanding the soldiers, yesterday's peasants, who often could not read or write, who did not know what "right" and "left" were. It is not difficult to guess how the newly minted colonels and generals (let us note that they received a double salary, against Russian officers) from the banks of the Elbe and the Rhine sought the execution of orders: by scuffle, sticks and lashes.

In those days, corporal punishment was a ubiquitous phenomenon in all countries. However, it's one thing when he hits his own. In this case, it is possible (at least sometimes) to avoid punishment, because you understand what it can follow. And it's completely different when your commander is a foreigner, and you don't understand each other. In the second case, daily cuffs are simply inevitable. I'm already silent, about the huge gap between those who speak different languages soldiers and officers.

And if we add to this that the majority of foreigners who came to the Russian service treated the country and the people who sheltered them with deliberate arrogance (they are from “civilized” Europe, where, unlike Russia, there were not even real baths, and Muslims learned to wash their hands before eating during the Crusades), then the picture is completely bleak.

And one more little detail. The uniform of the archers, of course, was not so beautiful, but is it necessary to prove that high boots in the conditions of the Russian mudslide are much more reliable than the new-fangled shoes in which the army was shod? Yes, and linen shirts and caftans warmed better than uniforms (due to the theft of other officials, they often sprawled at the seams).

Fleet

The creation of a regular navy is the undoubted merit of Peter I. Here even I, although not his fan, but I will have to agree. Agree, forgive me my age-old causticity, with a caveat.

There was no fleet, but there were attempts to create one, as well as experience in navigation and shipbuilding. The first hardly deserves attention, here the ship "Eagle" comes to mind, built under the father of Peter I Alexei Mikhailovich, burned by "robbers" Stenka Razin. And earlier - the privateer flotilla of Ivan the Terrible in the Baltic in the years Livonian War. Neither one nor the other can be compared with what Peter did.

But Russian navigation and shipbuilding is worth a stop. The only major port in the time of Peter was, unfortunately, freezing Arkhangelsk (by that time the Russians had already reached the Pacific coast, but our presence there was still very small). Accordingly, the Pomors were the then Russian navigators.

Of course, the unsightly Pomeranian kochi (other names are kocha, kochmora, kochmara) in their appearance could not compete with the beautiful sailing ships of the same Dutch, British and Swedes. Well, the task before them was completely different. But these seemingly not very beautiful ships coped well with sailing in the northern latitudes among broken ice and shallow water. The Pomors knew part of the future Northern Sea Route, the way to Mangazeya (the first Russian polar city in Western Siberia).

As for the secrets of shipbuilding, they were inherited from generation to generation. At first, they tried to attract Pomeranian shipbuilders, along with foreigners, to the construction of ships of a new type, but later Peter, true to his Western predilections, refused the Pomeranian experience. Moreover, in 1719, he allowed the Pomors to leave their old ships, but forbade building new ones, threatening them with exile to hard labor. By a special act, it was forbidden to send goods from Arkhangelsk on the ships of the “former case”. Well, isn't it arrogance?

Peter did not stand on ceremony with the population of the Russian North, he was of little interest that the Pomors were not serfs. If he needed slaves, he simply turned his subjects into them.

In 1712, Peter I took 500 Pomors to serve in the Navy, in 1713 - 550, in 1715 - 2000. Moreover, he took the best young workers, dooming their families to a starvation existence, ruin and poverty. Thousands of families then lost their breadwinners.

In a nominal decree to the Arkhangelsk governor dated October 9, 1714, Peter I writes: “ In the Sumy prison, on the Mezen and in other places where there are the best workers who go to the sea for fishing and animal trade on the bogs, recruit 500 sailors, and that they should not be old, not crippled, namely, that they should not be older in years 30 years».

Needless to say, having got into the Peter's fleet, hereditary sailors, like their brothers in misfortune in the Peter's army, often found themselves subordinate to foreigners who did not put Russian people in anything (and do not put them today!).

And how similar it is to the story with archers, isn't it?! Why try to interest hereditary sailors with high salaries, if you can simply drive them onto ships with sticks? And no one was interested, we repeat, that these are freedom-loving people who have not bent their backs to anyone since childhood.

God alone knows how much the Russian fleet lost from the fact that discipline in its ranks (as in the army) was initially scuffle-killing, and not based on friendship and mutual assistance, according to the customs of the Pomors!

/Vladimir Glybin, especially for "Army Bulletin"/