Historically High - Peter the Great of Russia

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Russian history is pretty wild. Tsarist Russia was in a league by itself. There were two main dynasties, The Rurikids and The Romanovs. Today we'll be discussing the "patriarch" of the Romanov Dynasty and the guy who brought Russia into the modern age. Peter Alekseyevich Romanov had decided he was going to drag Russia into the future whether they wanted to or not. Now Peter wasn't the kinda of dude to send out envoys or ambassadors to do his business, he wanted to stretch his legs around Europe personally. Learning the crafts of ship building from the Dutch to build Russia's first navy. Seeing how artillery worked Prussia to development a modern army. Studying the systems of governance used by other European powers all while his "Grand Embassy" drank and partied their way across the continent. His accomplishments can still be felt today however, there's always another side to the story, and Peter's gets pretty dark. Join us as we discuss the life and times of Peter the Great. Support the show Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What's hello in Russian? Well, I don't even know how to say no. Like, I know, da, yes. Well, either way, class today, we are headed to the Russian Empire. This episode, Chris and I were going to do, he's Chris, I'm Adam. What's up? Our plan starting out with was to do an entire episode on the whole of the Russian Empire. The, okay, it was the Tsars.

Zaris Russia. It's like, hey, yeah, let's do Zaris Russia. And then it was more like, hey, like a day into research. It was like, hey, so should we just do the Romanov dynasty as far? There's two main dynasties as far as Tsarist Russia goes. I can't remember the first one. Do you remember what it was? It was what Ivan the Terrible was.

Yes. And then you had the Romanov dynasty and we were like, well, let's just cover that. So, of course, the Romanoff dynasty starts with the topic. of our class today. A lot of great Peters in the world, but there was only one Peter the Great. And this guy is who essentially kind of brought the Romanoff dynasty

into prominence. And as soon as we start researching and we're like, shit, we're already like, in our minds when we're doing research, we can already kind of tell how many hours in we're going to be based on what we're studying. And we were already two hours in. And I was like,

shit, there's more Peter to cover. Yeah, that was something that we ran into. were regardless of how far we went past Peter, Peter just kept drawing our eyes. It's a situation where Peter was never on my radar. I don't think he was ever on your radar either, as far as like knowing who he was. Weirdly enough, if you would have told me like what sounds more familiar, Catherine the Great or Peter the Great, Catherine the Great.

For sure. And as it, I think, should be. But Peter's a lot of fun. Peter's a dirt bag. Peter's a bad guy. But I think we both kind of fell for Peter because he is just a crazy off the wall. You kind of put it perfectly when we were talking about this. He's like if brilliance and insanity had a child.

He's the epitome of work, hard, play hard. Oh, yeah. But, I mean, it's weird to see because this is the transition from when people talk about, you can talk about certain countries and you get an image of your head of what the traditional, you know, look of that country would be. Sometimes you view it into specific eras if someone talks about Rome or if someone talks about Italy, you probably see like either vineyards or like Rome. Someone talks about Greece, you're automatically going to be thinking, you know, the white cliffs and the white shores and, you know, Athens, all that kind of stuff.

When you talk about Russia, you kind of just view it, or at least I do, I guess, as like the Cold War era-esque gray kind of, you know, just very, blah, just very bland. And with Peter, you get to see how Russia changed from almost like, man, you would almost call it more like Ottoman-Mongolian type style. Knuckle-dragers. Yeah. To essentially almost what would be a mirror image of what we see is most like European medieval societies. But the reason that he did that was because he was the first czar in a hundred years to

to go on what's called an embassy. And it's an incredible story. But that just shows you how far Russia was just isolated themselves from everybody else, that their leader never went out and met anybody else. They didn't do what all of the other empires were doing at that point where they were marrying off children to other rulers or other princes. Yeah. And because of that and because of that isolation and lack of kind of sharing resources or at least information, when Peter got into power, he's just like,

fuck, like we're so far behind. I'm going to go ahead and have to speed this thing up a bit. We don't even have a Navy. Yeah, exactly. The most basic things, and granted, Russia's pretty landlocked and they're frozen for most of the year. Except for up north, but again, that's areas that freeze that you don't have access to.

Yeah. Not to say that the Ottomans were knuckle-dragers, but they were kind of like the cavemen of Russia, or of the Eurasian, continent. Yeah. Like they were the furthest behind everybody else. And Peter was basically, he threw the rope over his shoulder and he dragged Russia into

this new era because the Enlightenment never made it to Russia. No. He kind of had to do his own enlightenment. He kind of had to start that. He was Enlightenment for dummies. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, we're already kind of getting deep into it and everything, but we need to go back

to the beginning. But before we do that, remember, guys, wherever you listen to your podcast, rate us as high as you'd like or as high as you possibly can. And keep sending in the comments and the feedback. We love getting that. You got anything else? No, let's jump it in. All right. Let's get into Peter the Great.

Okay, well, of course, before we get to Peter, we kind of have to set the stage for what Peter's coming into. Yeah, Russia was a place that it seemed like Mongol influence was a pretty big deal. They had come over. they had different standings in the courts of Russia. Russia was known as we just talked about this. The Moscavia, Muscavia? The way you're throwing me off.

Muscovy. Moscovy, that's right. Before it was Russia, I'm sure that's where the name Moscow comes from is the Muscovy people. From the 10th to the 17th centuries, the Russians were ruled by what's known as the Boyard class of basically the nobleman who had a Tsar, T-S-A-R, I think it gets changed as C-Z-A-R after Caesar? Well, no, so what they say is the way that it's spelled mostly.

The whole thing was Tsar is it's off-C-S-A-R, regardless of how they spelled. Okay. Essentially, the Russian spelling of it would be T-S-A-R, the one that we see is C-Z-A-R. Okay. And he was the absolute monarch. He was the ruler, but you also had this boyar class underneath of the nobleman. I want to say at one point in time, and this might have been after him, the peasant class made up like 90% of the population.

I think that's kind of just a commonality. That 90% feels like a lot. Like you're either a nobleman or you're a peasant. There's like working class, I think, everywhere else. Yeah, but at the same time, like you said, I don't think there is that much of a middle class. I don't think there's, you're either you've got it made or you're working for the people that haven't made. And then maybe a smattering of those people that are just kind of in the middle. But I think it has to be a lot. It's, fuck it. It's like today, man, all the money at the very

top. Yeah. And then just everybody done. And then the, the differentiation between that makes everybody else like a peasant class. And it also could be that the null woman were kind of the merchant class because they were the ones that were making money. Had the money to start the business. Yeah. Ivan III from 1462 to 1505 would establish kind of the centralized, Russian state. They would also secure independence from the Tartars, which was a Turkic ethnic group that was in the area.

His grandson, Ivan the 4th, Ivan the Terrible. They have a weird way of... He gained that name, obviously, after he had died. The Terrible is not a big enough word to describe how bad

Ivan the 4th was. This guy was very, very bad. get his own episode. We're talking, it felt like to me learning a little bit about him, he's like a Gangas Kong level bad dude.

Yeah. He would be the first monarch that would be crowned the czar of Russia. There was vast expansion. The Tsar of all Russia. Yeah. Zor of all. Okay,

Zor of all Russia, yeah. There's weird titles that there's Zor of All Russia and then there's what Peter gets, Zah of All Russia. the Russians. You sound like, yeah. And this is partially due to them expanding down into present day Ukraine, more of the northern

half of Ukraine, but still kind of had a hold in the south. So he just expanded this empire that kept building and building once they gained their independence before from Ivan the third. Ivan the fourth is like, all right, let's spread our wings. Let's see what we got around here. and he would be the last in what Chris was talking about earlier, the R-R-K-K-Dynasty, R-U-R-I-K-K-R-K-K, I think. Alexius would be kind of, he wasn't the first Romanov dynasty, but his father was, so he was kind of like where they gained their footing. Because obviously the first guy doesn't create a dynasty in himself, it's passing it down to your child that starts the dynastic line.

Yeah, and the way that it, the way that the naming works out and everything, they have their names, but then they also have their royal title as Romanoff. But I, and I wonder, too, like, we talk about, like, the British royal family, Windsor, but is Windsor still really their last name? I mean, like. Kate Windsor. I, Elizabeth Windsor. Yeah, I've never actually heard their last names be said. Um, besides Princess Die, maybe? So essentially

Alexi his name is And we're talking about Peter's dad Right? Yes Alexius Yeah Alexei Mikhailovich Is his name And this guy liked to get busy With his first wife

13 kids The youngest of those kids With the first wife Was actually Ivan the fifth So you know Like most royal families do You gotta keep lining up the same name Yeah

that has that name recognition and then ends up having three children with his second wife. And was it the youngest of those children was Peter? One of those children was Peter. Yeah. This is where a lot of this really comes to a head was Alexei is having two wives. When it came time for succession, the original family, Melioslav. Mikhailovich? No.

His wife side, the Mioslavskaya side. M-I-L-O-S-L-A-V-S-K-A-Y-A. Milos-L-L-S-L-L-S-L-S-K-A. You guys that love these bad pronunciations are just going to eat this episode up. That was the maternal line that his first wife bore the children from. And then the second line that Peter was from was the Naryshina side, the Naraschina family.

As Alexius gets older, you have to start looking at where this line of succession is going to go. Peter, being the son of Natalia, there was his mother. And he's born June 9th,

1672. So that's when Peter's born. Crazy. To think that in the span of kind of when he was born all the way up until

1918 was just the Romanov family. Yeah. That's a very long time it feels like to be in power. But as Alexius was getting older, they were trying to figure some things out. Fyodor, the third,

was basically, I think he was the eldest son of Alexius from his first marriage. And they only, like, again, this is at a time when mortality, especially in Russia, wasn't great.

And so they'll talk about how many kids they have, but then also have many kids survive into adulthood. And you have like 13 kids. And then you're like, but only five survived into adulthood. Five's a good number. It's more like two or three. Well, and here's the thing, though, too, is making it to adulthood doesn't mean that these people are healthy because that comes in to be kind of a reoccurring problem. Because Alexius in 17 or sorry, 1676, he ends up dying. And Fyodor, the third, ends up taking his place.

So you have him in, you know, he gets in and 1676. 1676, he essentially is not healthy. No. And that's what happens also when, I don't know how much, I'm not, you know, is this a situation where it's kind of like with all of these Boyer class families, things like that? Is this kind of a situation where over long periods of time, this has a Habsberg's type thing to it where essentially people are all kind of...

Inbreeding? Yeah, to a certain extent. And then after a certain period of time, you have so many of those people sharing some type of genetic, you know, lineage that it's going to cause some issues. Yeah, I could absolutely see that because they were so isolated for so long that eventually you're going to... And there's only so many people in the, you know, that upper class. So, Fodor ends up dying in 1682, and one of the things that if you don't have children,

there's no one else. If he would have had a child, that essentially would have been the next person in line. But because he dies childless, now it's... goes into this murky line of secession where is it going to be essentially the next in line from the Milo Slavski line or is it going to be

from the Nershinch, is it Nershina? Nershina. So essentially is it going to be again from his first wife's line or from his second wife's line where Peter's actually? So they end up coming to essentially a compromise because

Peter has the support of what's called the Strelski. and also some of these powerful Boyer families and they want to see Peter actually on the throne. Now I don't know if this is like

hey, this first wife, you had your shot, you had Feodor in there. Now it's time to let the other family have a shot. But what ends up happening is you get this situation where you have essentially Cozars. And so Peter Cozars with Ivan V

who was the youngest son with the first wife. He was also partially blind he was pretty described as weak-minded lame and was pretty much just there as

kind of just a stand-in or a body so the first wife that side of the family still had some semblance of power because if something happened to where there was any type of dispute or something happened to Peter

then they would still be in that seat where they could kind of be the lone you know the lone lineage or the lone line there well and so much of the issue that's going on is Ivan is from the first queen's lineage and she just died. Like it wasn't like there was a divorce. It wasn't like there was a separation.

She died the queen. And so I'm sure the family felt like, well, our line needs to be in there. It has to be Ivan because he was the daughter or the son of the first queen. Well, I mean, and what they end up doing is, so, you know, she dies, but he also, she also had a daughter. Sophia. The daughter's, Sophia. So, Sophia is Ivan the fifth sister. And what ends up happening is because this is at a time, like 1682, he's 10 years old.

Peter is only 10 years old at this point. This is at a time again when even we talked about it kind of during the British Monarchy episode where they were putting up kids. that were like three years old and they're like, no, we're all rallying around this fucking toddler, and he's going to be our ruler, just trying to get into power. You just need a board of regents to be able to guide him. So, and because Ivan V was the youngest at that point, they were closer in age. So you basically have Sophia running the show, so much so, in fact, that they had a dual throne that was made to where Peter and Ivan the fifth were both sitting on it. There was the hole in the back cut out of it.

Natalia was the original Regent. Peter's mom. Okay. And the whole issue that happens was obviously you want an adult in there to be the regent. You'd like that. Yeah.

So Sophia feels like her family has the claim because she's a descendant of the original queen. Sophia starts to spread a rumor throughout the Steltsky, which is, or Strzzi, which is the, like the Imperial Guard, basically, is what they are. It's really the only standing military.

Yeah. They currently have the time. So if something is going to happen, a coup is going to happen. It's not like you can just go and gather up the army. You got to get these guys on your side because they are the ones that currently have the weapons and the force to go and make this thing happen. And she starts to accuse the Narasinka family of poisoning Fyodor to try to get him out of power to try to make Peter the Tsar.

And as she's spreading these rumors, the Strzzi realized that they aren't going to be able to do as much as they want, having an adult in Natalia as the regent. So they start to run with this idea that there was a poisoning that happens. And basically, the Strzreeltsi revolt to try to throw Peter's family, the Nershina family, out of power because Natalia is the regent.

So she's the one that rules over them, but she's not the first queen. She's the second queen. And in this process, through this political violence that happens, um, his uncle, uh,

Artemon, mentyev meant, fucking Artion, Artimon, Artemon, um, is dragged out of the royal, or dragged down the stairs of the royal palace.

He is killed in front of Peter. and his mother. And then he is tossed over the railing, dismembered, and the Strzzi were just taking pieces of him around town and just showing off what they had done. And 10-year-old Peter sees this. And he ends up, like throughout his life, he develops ticks. He is epileptic. He goes into these fits. and it's believed that it was because of all the trauma that he saw that, like, during the days.

It wasn't even just one day of them killing and trying to expel the family. And essentially, they can't, they're trying to take the family out of a position of power, but they can't go so far as to kill Peter, who is essentially at this point in line to be, co-king. Yeah, the Zoh. So after this happens, the Strzell-se, like I said, murder and dismember his uncle, who was also his godfather. Oh, yes.

So that was the Strelti Rebellion. That was April and May. It was two months. Yeah. In 1682. So essentially the same year that Fadour dies. After this happens, the rebellion would lead to Ivan being the senior ruler of the two of them with Sophia is the regent. So the older sister is the regent.

Peter and his mother were banished from the whole entire royal district of Moscow at that point. And they were at like a summer. estate outside of the zone that they weren't allowed to be in any more. They were basically prisoners of this estate. Yeah, but at the same time, it was, they wanted to push them as far away from the seat of power as possible, but then just kind of let them live lives. And this is where Peter starts to develop this fascination with sailing. He would have kind of like teachers almost.

I'm struggling to find the word, not really teachers, but not. mentors? Yes, mentors is a good term. That would kind of be in charge of teaching him the things that he wanted to know. Like tutors. Tudors, almost, yes, trying to educate him and things. But also at the same time, they would be fostering his creativity. So one day they're walking around this estate. And it's him and a Dutchman that he had met, I think, when they weren't into the, what's known as the German district.

and it's just basically where all of the immigrants come. Yeah, it was very, essentially, it was very segregated as far as like if you were, you know, Russian or anything like that, you could live in these areas. Then there was areas in which people, just like they did when people were coming over here to the states, you would gather essentially in communities of people like you because it was just more comfortable. But Peter kind of being afforded, he was basically kind of taken out of the position of ruling because kind of like I was saying before, I can't believe I skipped over the rebellion. Sophia had essentially a whole cut behind the throne.

So when Peter had to be there essentially for appearances to... Go ahead. That was Natalia that had the whole cut there. Sophia was basically when she came in as the regent. She told Peter you're to be seen and not heard. And Ivan didn't really care to be there at all. So she was the one that was doing the talking whenever it was going on. Sophia was the second regent.

Natalia was the first regent that ended up being kicked out. when they made Ivan the senior ruler. But if she got, what I'm saying is if she got kicked out in 1682, what time was there when Natalia would have had been like telling them both to rule? The first couple months. Oh, okay. Because Sophia comes up pretty quickly once she realizes that she's not going to be the regent with the belief that Natalia's family was the one that poisoned Fyodor to kill him to get

Peter into power. Okay. But him and this Dutch friend are walking along and they come upon this building on the property that they said hadn't been opened in like 20 years. They end up opening up the building and somehow, for some reason, it's never explained. I don't get it. I'll never understand it. There is an old decrepit English ship sitting inside of this basically like cabin on their estate. and Peter looks at it, starts talking to the Dutch guy, he's like, do you think we could fix this? He's like, oh, yeah, we can fix this.

We can put this together. And this was like Peter's first time of being able to look at an actual sailing vessel that was a sailing vessel proper. Because like we say with Russia, they have a lot of water ports that are coming off of rivers and that type of thing. But those are more like frigates. They're like little boats that are... Barges. Barges, yes. Flat bottoms.

What's a frigate? Is it a frigate not a barge? A frigate, I think usually is like a smaller warship. Okay, it's just a fun name to say. But these flat bottom barges that would go down rivers, and this is actually a proper English sailing ship. Like, this is a ship that doesn't, isn't just solely dependent on the wind to take it in which direction it needs to go.

Wait, it's not solely dependent? No, because it had ores too. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Whereas the, barges, you throw your sail up, it takes you down river, you have to wait until you can get enough wind to go back the other direction. And Peter just kind of falls in love with sailing. His fascination with sailing would take him to the German quarter that we were talking about

before of Moscow, where he would befriend two guys, Andrew Venetius, who taught him Dutch. So actually taught him the language, and he introduced him to two. other Dutch carpenters that taught him all of these different boat building skills, to the point to where he went back to the estate and was like building his own harbor on the water because he just wanted to be around boats. He loved building boats. And at this point too, he's like probably around 16 years old. Pretty close. I don't know he just he's he went through an event where he saw like a bunch of people in his family basically get killed in front of him. He knows this is something that kind of could happen again because the people that are in control, that are in more control than he is, are the people that actually kind of led that to begin with.

And so at this point in his life, I don't think it's really entering. It's either, he's either really good at hiding this or he's not thinking about at this point of coming back and actually taking the Tsarship or essentially taking the throne. So he's using this time to basically just kind of be like, I'm just going to try to figure out some shit that I like doing. Well, I'm sure, too, at the same time, he's looking for a distraction to take him as far away mentally from what he had just seen as a child. That too. And I think if he is, because of course, he's going to have people watching him. Yeah. If he's sitting somewhere or he's trying to like talk to people and everything, they're going to be like, well, he's trying to, you know, he's still communicating with people, that kind of shit. if the people reporting back to

you know Ivan and Sophia and they're just like no he's just fucking sailing he's built a fucking dock yeah he's just been he's actually been hanging out in the German district and they you know they just talk about shit it's like that's all he's doing so he's not like trying to come and take power they're like

pretty much the farthest thing from it you can yeah his interest at this time we're drawing more towards math geometry military sciences and I'm sure a big part of this is math and geometry, you're looking at the stars, you're trying to figure out sailing routes, things like that as you're looking at maps. He ends receiving a sextant, I think.

Yeah, I don't know what that was. Okay, so sextant is the way that I understand it. It's like, it's a metal tool. And basically, you find, and it's got a scope where you find and you line it up with, I think, either the horizon or two fixed points. Okay. And it can tell you, I think, how fast you're traveling. Oh, that would make sense.

Um, but those things over the arts. Like, he wasn't really into painting. He wasn't into any sort of like, I wouldn't say philosophical, but he wanted to work more with his hands than he did. I feel like he's born into the practicality. The practical sense is if you're going to say that. And part of this was he loved conducting mock wars with his little toy army that he had been given. he would, excuse me, set up scenarios and he would try to outflank himself and to figure out this military strategy. He basically paid a risk.

Pretty much. Yeah. So he ends up, you know, when Sophia takes power, she's in charge, basically, of any, like, decisions that the government's going to do with the army's going to have for conflicts. And she gets started early because in 1682 to 1689, basically seven-year period, she does a couple campaigns into Crimea and things don't turn out so well. They end up losing, I think, both of these campaigns. And kind of looking at that, you know, if you're not, essentially, if you're losing, people are going to be, you know, grumbling and maybe looking for a change of leadership,

especially if there's a known other person that's already kind of in that position, they're going to be asking, you know, well, who was making these decisions? Like maybe we should let Peter start making the decisions. Yeah, it's not going well. Not to mention Russia has a very interesting history in this empire because female rulers, while Sophia is kind of technically the first. I mean, she's a regent, but she's the first female that has superpowers. The other czar is we find it in blind. Yeah, it's true.

It doesn't get more compliant than that. But there are a lot of queens in the Romanov dynasty, which is to me pretty surprising. compared to like the monarchy that we had done before or the Scottish sort of monarchy that we went to in that episode. But Sophia starts to sense that Peter has a desire to take over because he's finally of age. He's not 10 years old anymore. He's not an adult yet, but in Russian terms, he's an adult man in his teens.

So listen, he's kind of moved on from the boat thing. He's starting to look into other stuff. Well, what's he doing? Fuck, we just see him out with his tiny toy soldier. is just making maneuvers and stuff like that. And I'm not going to lie to you. He's getting pretty fucking good. Yeah.

He's moving those pieces pretty well. So Sophia goes to Strzzi and she's like, hey, I need your guys as support. I know that Peter's still around. But just understand if you're loyal to me, I will make sure that your families get kind of first pick out of anything that they need. And again, Strzzi are partially made that the foot soldiers are going to be peasants. They're going to be the poor. But the leaders, the generals within this group are all going to be coming from the upper class. Well, and they know that the current kind of, I guess you can say regime at this point, was the one that they put in there.

So it's the one that they're going to get the most out of. Yeah. And the one that they can manipulate the most because they were the ones that did the rebellion for the first family. Peter kind of creates himself almost two not necessarily standing armies but just through growing up

he's given these friends of these elites he attracts peasant children children of immigrants and he ends up forming kind of like this little child army where it had full blown a ranking system

you start out at drummer boy you get moved all the way up to general and he actually joins his own little army as a drummer boy and out of all of his friends and everything he he brings in older kind of military leaders to teach them strategy and to drill them to make them sort of like this little child fighting force and he believes in merit based what's it called a meritocracy but when you're a meritocracy but when You promotion. Yes.

Marra-based promotions. So even though he is still technically the czar of the country, he is starting himself at the lowest end. And part of the reason was he said that the position of drummer boy was more fun than the general making the actual decisions. Low stakes, man. But you go off beat, you can just find it again. When it comes down to promotion, though, he's the one that's making these choices.

So his friends that are from the lower class are getting promoted. just based upon how good they are in this little game of soldier that they're playing. And some of the kids that are coming from these upper echelon families, like, how come this is happening? You know, why are these kids getting these promotions before we are? Do you not know who our families are? And at the same time, he's also giving promotions to people that are jumping over him as the Tsar of Russia. So there's really not a lot that they can say.

But what were the two groups? it was the Priyobrasinski and the Samyanovski were these two kind of elite forces that he had had

and they had family members that were in the Imperial Army and they kind of got wind that there was a chance

that Peter was going to be targeted by them for assassination and part of the reason they thought this was Peter had sent off

a letter back to what's essentially the Kremlin back then. And his messenger ends up getting picked off by the Strelsy or Strelsy and is killed. So they're trying to figure out what that is, what's going on. He ends up getting moved further away for his own protection. The Strelsy never end up coming for him.

But kind of through this system of these two elite forces that he had created, he starts to speak to the Strelsy. He's like, hey, I want to do this. So kind of the way I'm understanding it to, I'm just, I'm fixing it too much on like building up these forces too much. So from what I kind of got in my research, when you had someone that was like a czar or even someone in the royal family, you actually surrounded them kind of with the kids of like other boy your families, things like that to essentially give them and, you know, give them friends, but also give them kind of a group of people that they can actually grow up with it. then they can assign to different position that they know, they know their strengths, they know their weaknesses. Basically, you're growing them up with an entourage. But because these kids that are growing up are also from these prominent families, these prominent families probably have,

kind of to a degree, their own little armies or securities to patrol their lands. So there's places that they can draw people to fight from. They have a bunch of peasants in the peasant classes that are working their lands. So it's not like Peter is just like, doesn't really, he's just having these kids form these little tactical groups. he's actually able to raise a pretty substantial force just because of the loyalty he has from his little entourage and then their families and whatnot. After the attempts on his life or kind of the talk about the attempts on his life, he basically gains enough support to basically overthrow Sophia.

And that was in the summer. So, I mean, from the time that she's kind of, she's in power from 1682, summer of 1689, basically that's when he kind of enacts his plans to to rest control of the Russian Empire from her then Sophie gets thrown I mean Ivan's not going to see it coming no no certainly not there's one side of Ivan that he can sneak up on that Ivan had have no idea there's another person there he overthrows Sophia and instead of killing her since he's her half brother he just goes ahead and throws her in a nunnery in a convent it was very close to town and the reason that I say that

she was given kind of like a suite so it wasn't like she was locked up in a room she just couldn't leave the convent that plays a part coming up soon that this was within the city when they send someone to a convent like that does that then force them to be a nun or is it just I'm sending you here

because like I don't want you to be able to have sex is it a dual punishment like I'm going to make you because a nun you have to kind of renounce all of those possessions. You have to take your vows. And take your vows.

So in this weird way, it's not only a prison from a standpoint of a physical place where you have to stay. You're also like psychologically mind-fucking this person by being like all of this shit that you become accustomed to, all of these perks that you get from bruling. It's all fucking gone. You're going to have to study the fucking Bible all the time. You're never going to have sex with anyone else again. And you're going to have to do this day. and day out till you die. Yeah, that seems like a pretty bad punishment.

After Sophia is thrown in the convent, Peter and Ivan here again announces the co-rulers, but this time the regent is back to Natalia. Natalia was pretty vigilant over her son, Peter, and she felt at the age of 16, it was time to get Peter married. This is something pretty fun that I found out that they did back then, they were called bride shows.

And think of it as sort of like the bachelor that we have in the States, where it's one man who gets all of these women lined up in front of him. But the tricky part about the bride show is the women that are presented to be the brides for Peter or for whoever the czar is don't come from the highest families in the elites and the Strzzi and anything like that, or in the Boyer, class. They end up coming from lower level families so that way once they get married into royalty and she becomes the Tsarina or whatever they want to call them, they don't have the political cloud or power to try to basically perform a coup and take

over. So we want you to be married to somebody noble, but we don't want you to be married into a noble enough family to challenge us for the crown. Yeah. The woman that Natalia kind of chooses and handpicks. And again, this whole bridal party thing that they do is Peter's supposed to go around and pick who he wants to have. He gets steered by Natalia to a woman named Udoxia Lopencunia. She was the one that was requested by her mother, or by his mother. And she was kind of the antithesis of Peter. She was raised in a way to where she was subservient.

She didn't like that he was kind of a ruffian. And when I say kind of a ruffian, you'll understand very quickly just how crazy this dude was. And they didn't really love each other, which I don't know if love was an actual thing back then that they had. It was more like we could stand each other. This exact thing is going to come into play with something that he actually does and list his reasoning for it. And it makes me come back to this and being like, hmm, he has. maybe some first-hand experience. You got, it'll make sense here a little bit.

And this happens at the age of 16, so that would have been 16, 80. 88. 88, okay. By 1692, he had taken up with a mistress named Anamon's, and he had befriended her brother Willem. These two are very important. Willem will come to a very unceremonious end through maybe some scuttlebutt that happens later on. But as czar, he made these frequent trips into the German quarter where these immigrants were. And he would spend a lot of time with them because he knew that he didn't have a lot in common with the Russian elites.

The boyar weren't really his people. He didn't like them very much because they sort of helped him be taken out of power the first time during this rebellion. You're going to have some mistrust of being like, if I misstep, if I don't do what they want or they're just going to turn around and just, you know, she's still in the convent. I didn't kill her. Uh-huh. Yeah. There's always a chance. Ivan the 5th is still alive.

All the chances are going to flare up, yeah. So as he's spending time down in this area, he ends up starting to make these friends, and he starts to expand his circle. I believe that's where he meets Anamon's and Willem. But at the same time, he's gaining more of this idea of what goes on outside of Russia. He's starting to see kind of what. Western culture in Europe has to offer. And he starts thinking about it as like, well, we're really behind.

These people are telling me all of these stories that are coming out of England, out of France, out of... What is he in the newspaper? The Netherlands. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are you guys talking about?

Um, he would end up becoming independent sovereign at 22 upon the death of his mother in 1694, that had a pretty big effect on him to kind of. to lose the woman that had spent all of this time with him and been through thick and thin with him through these rebellions and tried to raise him and tried to kind of keep an eye on him. So independent rulers in the fact that he no longer kind of has his mother as like a regent type person. Yeah, there's no regent anymore. So it's just, it's actually just still him and Ivan at this point, right? Yeah. And then two years later, it's just him because Ivan ends up dying, making him sole ruler. Um, and along those lines, uh,

Fiero, the first brother that was in. Yeah, Fyodor. It only lived to the age of 21. Just say Theodore like Mike Tyson. Fyodor like Mike. Okay. Fyodor only end up living to 21. Ivan is going to die very young as well.

So at 22, he is the soul czar of all of Russia. And all of these friends that Peter had made growing up, these lifelong friends, there's one of Nikita Zoltov and another one, Michael Romo Romadonsky we'll call him You got it They would play major support roles

During Peter's reign Because he knew that he could trust him Just like Chris was talking about These friends that he had made when he was younger He knew that he could put in positions To trust them to be able to do What they needed to do And a big part of this I'm sure

Was because they knew each other's secrets Because these dudes partied hard Their initial little group of friends they would end up calling the jolly company. I kind of see it like this. You're like, think of it in terms of even like the British royal family. You got Prince William who is going to be the person that's being, especially nowadays, there wasn't a lot of question at what point he was born.

It's, you know, with the survivability and everything like that. So you're Prince Harry. He got to be essentially Prince Harry. He got to like fucking party. He didn't have any of the responsibility. He, you know, he knew he still had a role to play. but he really didn't have any power. So he was just fucking living it up at that point,

and now he finds himself in soul power, but he's got kind of the same group that he likes hanging out with. He's not, like you said earlier, he doesn't get along with that lawyer class. So basically, when he gets into that position, he brings all these people with him, or at least kind of this mentality that he's kind of developed. And through, like you were saying,

through just even speaking to these people, hearing things from, you know, from Western Europe. And he starts to kind of build this ideology for how he's going to modernize Russia. And he felt that it was his duty to essentially bring Russia on par with all these other countries as a European power. Had some kind of negative, you know, feelings regarding kind of his outlook on the Russian people. He saw him as rude, unintelligent and felt that it was his duty to implement changes that would essentially pick these people up out of the mud and kind of elevate these people. It was kind of a situation where it's, I'm doing this for you. You know, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me, but I am actually doing this for you guys.

He did have this outlook, though, where he felt like he had the duties of a monarch to actually care for his subjects, to actually protect them and to actually work for their benefit. working for their benefit was his vision of working for their benefit, but it's still, it's weird to think that there are other rulers and monarchs that really don't care about their people. It's just about enriching themselves and essentially, you know, kind of their group. But he essentially kind of in the same way that de Gaulle felt about France. I think that, you know, Peter feels about Russia. He's just like, I don't really care if you don't want to come along with me. I'm dragging everybody. out of this and we're going to kind of take our rightful place. And that includes this thing that he stated, which was the morality of a statesman versus the morality of a private person. And basically just stated that the morality of a private person meant that they had to abide by the law and whatnot. Whereas the morality of a statesman, as long as it was in the name of the state's interest can, you know, murder, commit violence, forgery, deceit. kind of anything they needed to do as long as it was for the benefit of the people.

This is the Holy War dilemma. Exactly. Yeah. A big part of that is what he kind of starts to see being able to talk to these people outside of Russia is the Enlightenment did a lot for the kind of societal structures. Because pre-enlightment, the church was kind of the, the main. grouping of power and like they were like the overarching yeah like there were separate powers you have the holy roman empire you have france you have britain but then kind of hovering over all of this is this more opaque bubble over the map that says areas controlled by the church yeah yeah and the

enlightenment era did a whole lot to kind of cede some of that power and individualism away from the church and give it back to the people. And the Russian Orthodoxy, I believe they fell along the same split with the Byzantine split, the schism that happened because they were Greek Orthodox. Russian Orthodox, I'm sure, doesn't get completely well along with Catholicism at this point in time, but they still kind of fall under the same banner. And one of the things that he had done to kind of not necessarily try to push this enlightenment or Renaissance period onto his people, But he created this group out of the Jolly Company called the All Joking, All Drunken, Synod of Fools. And what it was was he would give his friends these like bogus religious titles.

So it would be like Bishop Big Dick. Grand Poo-Baw like Cat Dick. They actually named a lot of guys Dick. I remember hearing that several times in the Dick game. Dick, really anything that you can give them. And he would have these ceremonies, quote unquote, where, they were just pretty much drinking games. Yeah.

And as opposed to like what you would do, like if you had a job to do in the church, this would be your job in the synod to kind of play off of it. They would dress them up like the Pope. They would dress them up like friars. Excuse me, probably not friars, but like priests. And they would just party all night long. Peter was such a legendary partier that he ended up accidentally killing two of his prime ministers via Al.

alcohol poisoning because they couldn't keep up drinking with Peter. And it's not like you can just tap out. It's like you're there. And if you try to tap on like Peter, I gotta leave, he's like, sit the fuck down. We're finishing these eight bottles of vodka. There's no telling me no at that point. And his outlook on it was that he thought that he called alcohol poisoning a grave disease. Like it's something that you can't control.

Yeah. I mean, you catch it very quickly, and then it just, I guess, if that's the sense. He had a very, um, weirdly enough, an unorthodox view as far as the church goes and everything, because once he gets into power and a little bit later down the road, a lot of the, if you were opening schools and things like that, the church had a huge hand in how, what was taught, you know, you're not really learning about evolution, all that kind of shit. You're essentially learning theology. He ends up creating this, like version of just like secular schools and universities that people can go to where it's all about the shit that is actually learned during the Enlightenment. But that actually comes a little bit later. Part of his plans for modernization of Russia included, it was basically a complete overhaul. It was going to be modernizing the armies. To do that, he knew they had to become a maritime power. He had heard essentially through not just the great vine, but probably like core, you know, documents, things like that, just stuff coming in that, you know, of all this power being gained by even a private company, the fucking Dutch East India company

that we had just discussed a little while ago. Keep in mind, we're talking about the same time frame as the Dutch East India Company right now. Yeah. So he sees what type of like power, not only from a projection of like military power at sea, but how rich, not only a fucking country, but this company that's kind of this country into itself is becoming. He's like, I got to get in on that. So they need to become a maritime power, but to do that, you need to have access to the

You're like, well, Professor Chris, Russia is like has a ton of ocean. All of that freezes. Well, now. But at that point, they didn't have access to the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, anything remotely down there, and didn't have access to the Baltic because all of that was under the rulership of Sweden. The only place that they had was way up in the North Sea and it was someplace that would freeze during the winter. So they couldn't utilize it as essentially like a port. Not only during the winter, eight months out of the year. Well, that's what I mean.

I meant the winter, but I'm in, you know, Russian winter. Eight months. Eight months out of the year, this port was frozen. And we decided it was called Archangels. Yeah. Yep. It sounds like Archangels, but there's an SK at the end of it because it's Russian, and that's just apparently what they do.

But this was really their only port that they could bring things in and out of. And this wasn't them sending exports out. this was ships from other countries coming into Russia to purchase what they had. How are you also going to be a maritime power if even if you have all your ships up there? You have to sell them further north all the way around where Sweden's territory is, all the way past like Scotland and all that shit, all the way down the coast. They needed someplace else. The Black Sea at that point, I think was under Ottoman control. And then the Caspian Sea was the Safavid or Safarid.

I'm not sure if that was essentially that had to have been someone done in like the Middle East. Yeah, it was probably like a sultanate. I think it actually was. Okay. It was the sultanate. He also was like

enough with this whole staying isolated as far as like marrying just in our country or within our groups. All these other countries we are so far behind. Look at all these other countries that have relationships

just based on blood. There's countries that have taken over other countries. just simply by someone dying and them being the next in line. We need to get ourselves. We got to get ourselves out there. We got to start fucking other people. And we got to start spread our fingers.

So he starts this, you know, basically a campaign to kind of marry off relatives, things like that and trying to look for suitors for him. Yeah. I don't, I think that comes a little bit later on because he has to get. I think that happens after the embassy. And this is just what I'm saying. His ideas for the modernization. not simply when he implements them, because there's also his plan of, like, we're going to also build this Western European-esque city that's going to be the crown jewel of Russian. It's going to be

the new capital. And we're going to have the best of the best that are trying to build this thing. We're going to pull them in from all over Europe. And it's going to be fantastic because at that point as well, places like Moscow and everything, those weren't exactly built with the intention of like they were built and then they had to spread out from there. It was never a grid system or a city that was designed for growth. It was just kind of hodgepodge. They were built by Vikings and Mongols. Yeah, exactly. Two people that aren't exactly known for setting down roots. Their civil engineering routes. But yeah, as Chris was talking about, this desire to find a better

position to create a Navy, Peter needed a seaport. In 1695, he would wage war against the Ottomans for control of the Black Sea at the port of Azov. He was unsuccessful in taking the fortress the first time. He retreated into Russia and he began to build this small navy enough to where he could launch 30 ships against these Ottomans in 1696. And they were in control of the Black Sea. Yes. And so he wants control of this because essentially the Black Sea is larger than a Caspian Sea,

I believe. And then it allows access to get out through this. Why can't I ever remember this? What's the area of the Bosphorus Straits? Yes. and then out into the Mediterranean. By Constantinople. By Constantinople and everything.

But at the same time, to have control of the Black Sea is going to put you in a position where you can negotiate possibly having access to that by controlling these areas. Well, maybe it won't freeze over for eight months after year. So Azov was so important because this actually controlled the mouth of the Don River, where they would actually be bringing in stuff where, like, Russia could actually bring stuff in here. So having controlled that meant that they could kind of get into the Black Sea, kind of like unfettered or whatever. This was his first

four A against the Ottomans. This was excuse me, his first attempt at trying to gain land. So this was the Russo Turkish War, I think, right? I believe. Yeah, because it were at 1695, like you said, this is when he tries to take Azov.

His plan was simply, hey, we'll just go ahead and approach this thing from the land. We'll cut them off. We'll put the city under siege and then we'll end up capturing this fortress this way. plan we've been running for the last 300 years. The plan we've never had to run any differently because we've never had to attack anyone with a water source to go ahead and resupply at their backs. Well, that's exactly what happens is Azov is just able to resupply from the Black Sea and from

the river. And so at that point, the thing about a siege is once you put something under siege, you're essentially fighting on one front while waiting for someone to attack you from behind, so it's got to be quick. Because this thing was able to be a protracted siege, it gave the Ottoman's time to essentially launch forces and they had to end up getting out of there. The second campaign, which I think was that spring 1696, that's when he ends up building the Navy. He's like, okay, all I need to do is if I can control it from both directions, this thing's going to go ahead and fall. And it did. He gained control of Azoff. He gained control of this Black Sea port that was so vital and so crucial to his plans. So a couple of the ships he had,

so we had two ships of the line, which are the ones that I think we've discussed it in previous episodes. Whenever you think of like the huge like British sailing vessels that are just like three cannon decks, you know, tiered, um, those are ships of the line in which they would then pull into line and just basically go broadside to broadside with these other, you know, Spanish ships, whatever. So he has two of these four fire ships, which are ships meant to be set on fire and crashed into the enemy fleet.

Yes. There were simply ships that were sent to be, like they were probably built very tough so they could try to like break into other ships and stick into them and catch them fire. But yeah, you just set these ships on fire and then you pointed them and I'm guessing a dude had to sit there and maybe a small crew and they were like, sorry guys, you got fire ship duty. Bail off at the very end

and we'll try to pick you up from the water at the end of this thing. Pre-ejection seats. 23 galleys, which are still larger warships and then a whole bunch of miscellaneous vessels. You might ask why the Russians didn't build these before. It was because all of the Dutch

immigrants that were there weren't ever utilized. So you have these shipbuilders that are sitting inside of Russia that aren't utilizing their strengths, but since Peter took the time to go talk to these people and get to know them and learn Dutch to be able to communicate, he had people that could build these ships. I mean, he probably already had him in play because he's going from 1695 in the summer when he fails during the first attempt to the spring of 1696. I mean, it takes a while to build these ships because you're building them by hands. But at the same time,

he's, the first time he goes with like 31,000 troops. He didn't believe that they were necessary probably. That's the thing. He's like, these are going to be ready for when I capture this. We can send all the ships down here and it ends up being, he's like, fuck, I have to wait for these things to get done. During this entire, like, little

fight for Azov, the Turks actually show up with 23 ships and 4,000 men and end up having two of their ships sunk, I think, and then they're just basically Like, no, we don't want this smoke. We're heading out of here. We have other places. We can cede this one place off to him.

Yeah. So they end up after bombarding the fort from land and see at this point as of surrenders on July 19th. They, at this point kind of when the, and it's not long after, when this place is secured, they're moving all of these other ships here. Essentially, they've established at this point because they've utilized it. they've established what they consider the Russian Navy so much so that kind of the recognized birth date for the Russian Navy dates back to October 20th, 1696. That's how far back they traced the Russian Navy, like as far as recognized when it was created. That's a fucking long time, especially I know like in America we're talking 1776, and at that point, maybe we could call it the United States Navy. Continental Navy.

Yeah, and at that point, though, that's still, like, that's still quite, that's a hundred years or a little less than 100 years even before. They had the jump start. They'd been around for forever. That's true. This was just the next step. At the same time, they're just now getting access to the place where they can put these ships. Well, and that's... Our entire East Coast was nothing but places to have ships. Yeah, necessity is the mother of invention, but you can't invent something that you don't have a water source to put them on. Exactly. So he makes his first incursion against the Ottomans. He kind of starts to see that maybe these are a foe that he needs to continue to take land from. And also along with this idea that he has to kind of Europeanize Russia and to change things, he needs this gain support from these Western European allies against the Ottomans.

He does something. he gathers what's called the Grand Embassy to travel to Western Europe for a... Before we get into this, because this is probably my favorite part of this. Okay. We're going to take our bathroom break. Okay. Oh, my God, Adam.

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All right guys back to the show. All right. And now we come to the fucking traveling side show that is the Grand Embassy. Part fact finding mission part early 1980s rock band tour. Yeah. This thing took

18 months and just tore through Europe. This was basically just Peter's excuse to get out, figure out and gather all these different ideas on how to do things and then bring them back and implement them in Russia. And again,

this is the first trip that a Tsar is making out of Russia in a hundred years. So he's going to go let off a little steam, I feel like. But at the same time, like we talked about, this whole idea is to kind of try to European He's out looking for

Titans of Industry workers that know all of these different skill sets that are mathematically inclined geometrically inclined shipbuilders, blacksmiths just any sort of kind of European revolution that he can then bring back

to Russia. And along with that he also needs support to try to fight off these Ottomans that he's realized have land that he wants. Yeah, even better. If I can make friends with these people, then they'll actually share the good shit willingly. We can make some diplomatic, you know, trade ties.

They can help me out with my Ottoman problem. And at the very least, if I don't make friends with these people, I just find all the people that are actually doing the work. And I just learn how to do this shit from them. So. And I can get shit-faced the whole way. Uh-huh. Now he goes undercover as Peter Mikhailov.

Now, he's avoiding diplomatic events. He is meeting essentially with, like, diplomats, but he's not going to like the fancy shit. No. We also have buried the lead with this, and this might be the most impressive thing about Peter out of anything beyond his drinking acumen. Peter, who was trying to go undercover with a fake name. Of Peter. Peter, just a different last name.

He's trying to go undercover as a six-foot-eight man in 17th century. Europe. Yeah, still 17th century, I think at this point. The average height was like five, six. So if you know that the Russians have a six foot eight king and you're of any noble ability to know that this guy exists, anybody that walks into the tavern that's six foot eight, probably a pretty good guess? You know he's Russian. Yep. He's got a big group around him doing anything that he wants.

He's thrown around a ton of money. Yeah, six foot eight. Well off. Who else can this fucking guy be? But, okay, here's the thing. We're going to go through the entourage here and then discuss what they got up to. the entourage included 40 Chamberlains. Chamberlains were basically like kind of royal officials.

They basically ran the house. The way I think about it, the new Batman. Yes. Alfred is kind of like the head. It's not just Alfred and Batman where he's the only one that's the butler or Wayne Manor. Alfred also kind of runs the other house support staff and all that kind of stuff. That's kind of what I think Chamberlains are. Three interpreters, because he's going to be traveling around to a lot of different countries,

two clocksmiths because, you can't have just one clocksmith. You can have just one cook, though. Yeah. One priest. Got to have six trumpeters. Got to have guys to announce when you're rolling up. When you're undercover, that's what you want as trumpeters.

Here's the kicker. 70 soldiers as tall as Peter. Did you see that part? There's no way that they were as tall as Peter. Six foot eight back then. There's no way that you could find that many Russians that were that tall. You could find, do you know how many people in Russia? didn't have to just be from the army. He could just be like, do you guys know any, you know,

six foot eight people? Fine. I'll take it down to maybe six, four, six, five. But he could just go out at any point. And a peasant in Russia, he walks up and he's like, what are you doing? I'm fucking planting turnips. You want to come like with me? Like I'll teach you how to be a soldier. You'll get a roll around with me. We're going to travel all over Europe. He's like, yeah, why? He's like, well, you're fucking tall and I kind of need to surround myself with tall people. this was would be in the realm of like yowming in china yes like yowman could never go undercover in china peter could never go undercover in europe because he is the yowming of europe he can never go undercover in his own own home country no no no now if you're going to have that many tall people

you're going to have to balance it out a little bit with some shorter people so you're going to bring along four dwarves and And you're going to make sure you have a monkey. Because how do you round out any entourage? You've got to have a monkey. Got to have bubbles. I'm just going to get this out in the open now. Little people, dwarves, I don't know what they prefer to be called.

I think the common vernacular is dwarves now. And I'm sure that this plays into the fact that I'm a six-foot-six gentleman, but I have a fascination with little people that I've had. for a very long time. My best friend growing up was 5 foot 1 when I was 6 feet tall, so we were at both ends of the spectrum.

I don't know why. I just feel like we have this sort of kinship to where I'm not super duper tall, but I'm taller than the average person. Dwarvens, little people have the... You got a yogi and booboo energy. Is that what it is? Yeah.

Okay. You need the booboo to your yogi. Yeah. I'm not that. I mean, I'm like 5'8, so I'm not that matured. But still, it's a funny juxtaposition kind of like me and you standing next to each other. Yeah, I don't know what it is. I just, I love little people.

And I had no idea that Russia, through all of the history that we have ever talked about, how many little people have we talked about, dwarf, sorry, excuse me, whichever one. Well, there was the show Little People Big World. I don't know. I would imagine. I don't know. That was a while ago. I don't know.

But as far as dwarves go in all of the history that we've talked about, it's popped up in what, Lord of the Rings episode and maybe another episode? I mean, hobbits are a fictional character, but I get with you. Still counts. But our little people history is rare. Not to get too grim about it, but you mortality rates were already so high that if something, it wasn't, you know, the whole point about like even in Game of Thrones, you hardly see any other people like Tyrion because the only reason Tyrion was kept alive is because,

because he was born into a wealthy family, and they kind of looked down upon that. Dinkledge? Yeah. And then if you have, you know, in your country where it's hard enough to just fucking put food on the table and survive, and you have this kid who is different and in your assumption of them being different as a baby and stuff like that that they're going to grow up and not be able to contribute or just essentially be a drain on your resources, fucking sucks. But they're getting rid of that. Yeah. And these guys were a part of the entourage, but they were also a part of some of the partying that they did as well. Because apparently, uh, dwarf tossing was the thing back then.

So I'm assuming they would pick the dwarf up. They would throw them out, maybe javelin style. You think it's like a heave-ho or do you think it's like a running toss? You're going to make me the, it's a heave-ho. Okay. It'll heave-ho, little people, it kind of makes sense. But, uh, yeah, I didn't know that that was the thing. I didn't know the dwarf tossing was a pastime in Russia.

But again, it feels pretty Russian. And that's kind of what the modern iteration of this. that kind of feels like. Yeah, it just, it blew me away that this was. But think of seeing that. Think of seeing that rolling into town. You're seeing 70 guys roughly, even if they're six, five, they're still taller, a head above everybody else who walking. You see, four little people, you see someone carrying a fucking monkey, they're in a cage, or I would, I would pray that it's riding on somebody's shoulder. Yeah, got to be. And six trumpeters, announcing him to, it's like, God damn Prince Ali coming into Agriba

and Aladdin, or it's just like, it's a parade, it seems like. Oh, yeah. So he's going through Europe with this entourage, with this tour, and the incognito thing really doesn't, I don't think it really gets sold too much. I mean, maybe when he's just traveling through the countryside where no one would know who he was, even if he wasn't this huge guy,

that's maybe when he's getting away with it. I also think too less of like that and being noticed and recognized when he does show up to these big cities like you said earlier he wasn't expecting to be invited to

any of the kind of pomp and circumstance not based on his looks but based upon he just didn't have the same name as the the czar Peter like this was his way of being like no I'm not royal I know that I look royal I know that I'm an oddity in this country but

I'm not royal. I'm not him. So, I mean, he's kind of, during this tour, you kind of have a breakdown of where he goes first and things like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but early on, he kind of finds out that this hope of finding support against the Ottomans is not really there. Because France is fairly friendly with them, and they also have an issue of the succession crisis going on in Spain. Yeah. So there's bigger fish to fry than the Ottoman Empire for them. There's stuff closer to home, especially considering if these people,

aren't already hostile with the Ottomans. They don't want to end up making another enemy. Yeah. So eventually at that point, he kind of has to change gears. He kind of starts to look for these craftsmen that we were talking about and to gain these experiences to be able to bring these new traditions back to Russia, to kind of change the culture a little bit in bring in this renaissance that they didn't get to have. I think he kind of looked at.

He's like, Plan A, if I can get in good with the Royals, they'll introduce me and point me to the best people that are doing this. And I'll get the information. Plan B is, if I can't get in good with these people, I just have to do a little bit more legwork to find these people. But I'm still going to then at that point, the plan's going to be the same. So where is the first stop on Petey's World Tour? Latvia. It wasn't Latvia back then. We'll call it Latvia now, just because, again.

Again, the name is probably pretty insane. He started taking notice of these fortifications in Latvia that were Swedish made because they were occupied by the Swedish at that point. Didn't realize that the Swedish Empire was a thing, but they were pretty good fighters. They had a very large army. They took over large swaths of land. They basically had Sweden, Norway, all of Scandinavian. It's kind of what it looked like is they controlled.

And again, he knows. He has this area, Azov, but that's not what he wants. He got that because he could get that. He couldn't take on the Swedish Empire at that point. But worry to have it his way, he wants the Baltic. He wants that area and have all that access because, again, it's closer to home. And ring a ding ding, ding, it's going to be closer to the new capital of St. Petersburg once he starts construction of it. Yeah.

And Peter is walking around in Latvia and he's looking at these structures. He's looking at these kind of castles that are being built, these guard towers and everything that the Swedish are building. And he's inspecting these fortifications. He's drawing pictures of them. He's measuring things. And there's a Swedish commander that sees him outside of the fortification measuring things and drawing them up. Here's the thing too. And I kind of pointed this out.

Sorry to interrupt. he's doing it. Yeah. Yes. When we say he's doing it, we don't mean like the royal we or the royal he. He is actually doing this. He's learning this stuff firsthand by actually doing it. So then he has the knowledge of all of this stuff. He's still going to try to get people to come back to Russia because it's much faster to have these people doing it. But he wants firsthand knowledge on how this stuff works. So when Adam's saying someone walks out and sees him measuring. That's him down there checking stuff out. You know, his chamberlains are taking notes and everything like that.

And he's basically finding this stuff out firsthand. The Swedish commander that kind of sees what he's doing outside, I don't know if you looked at him at 6-8. I need to know who this guy is. 6-8. We're right next to, we're the closest to Russia. Could it be? And there's a large group of men out here is one 6-8.

guy is measuring our walls. Maybe I need to go check this out. He goes out, he tells Peter to stop measuring and to get away from the fortification. Peter then tells him that all he's doing is basically trying to figure out the structure and how it was built. Guy tells him that he needs to stop doing that. Peter kind of brushes him off. Then the dude points a gun at Peter and backs him away from the fortification and they end up

leaving. Now, this in and of itself doesn't really seem like a big point of content. But we'll see later on that he doesn't forget about this when it comes to the Swedish. What do you mean it's not a big point of contention? He's backed off at gunpoint. He's going to have some fucking feelings about that. Yeah, at the same time, though, as a Swedish guy when you see that, would you ever want a potential enemy, like checking out how your fortifications are built? No, definitely not. But there had to be a circumstance in which he was there at that location. I think it was more to the fact that I think I read something as well that the Swedish commander did. didn't acknowledge him essentially as Peter or something like that. Well, I think at that point, because he was there at a military fortification,

there was some... Potentially, yeah. Exactly. But regardless, he ends up leaving that area with not a good taste in his mouth and a grudge and an axed grind. His next stop will be in Prussia, which I think is kind of more modern day like Germany. Poland, I think. Poland? Is it because Poland's its own thing?

Prussian Empire from like World War I. I'll look it up. Okay. It would see him, again, him as an apprentice for two months as an artillery engineer. So he's learning from the Prussian artillery leaders, Russian artillery crew, as to how to run this. And he's not sending these soldiers that he brought with him to do it. He's like, put me in, coach. I need to learn how to do this.

I want to see it. He's still having them trained, but he's not sitting back and just being like, you guys learn how to do this. He's down there being like, I want to be able to tell you how to do this and tell you if you're doing it wrong. Plus, this is someone from a young age that showed interest in just like this kind of stuff, the shit-building aspect of it. He's looking at this. He's like, this is, we didn't have this shit. We didn't see the development of this stuff. I want to know how every little bit of this, you know, works.

to juxtapose what we were talking about, what Chris said earlier with this work hard, play hard mentality, he's an apprentice for two months as an artillery engineer. Two months. While he's still going out and partying. And this guy is a ruffian in the sense that he would actually like fight his own guards. Prussia was actually kind of in what was Poland at that time. It was like a part of the section of it that also like bordered the Baltic as well. And it was relatively small. Okay.

Yeah. Huh. Like, as they would go out, he would pick fights with his guards just to have fun. Like, he would walk up and just Colecock one of his guards in the side of the head just to start a fight. He was constantly, while they were drinking, accusing people of being spies and, like, trying to sabotage his goals and ideas. And while they're overseas, they're out basically starting fights. bites at bars and partying it up like they did at home. It's goddamn King Ralph.

But at this point in time, like, they're in Prussia. Yeah. So they're being seen by all these locals partying in these taverns. They're like, what is this? What are these Russian people doing? We've established that they're Russian. Apparently, this guy's their king that's hiding out, the big giant guy in the back. Well, the big giant guy surrounded by all the big giant guys.

So we can't tell who's who. And at the same. Who's Peter? I am Peter. No, I am Peter. Everybody's Peter. all Peter. But I can't imagine that the

PR that they're doing into these places was like, yeah, these Russian dudes aren't savages. They're actually fairly smart individuals. And by all aspects of everything that we learned, Peter's a very smart man. He just... Still think the guy could be a savage based upon what we're going to discuss here in a few minutes.

Yeah, he's just a ruffian. They would head off to Zandam, which was a part of the Netherlands by boat in August 1697. to study the shipbuilding, the sawmills, and the manufacturing. Okay, so we got artillery check. Yes.

Now we're moving on to the shipbuilding, finding out how, because you said it's part of the VOC, the Dutch and everything, now we're going to find out how to build ships from the guys that have been cranking them out the fastest using their goddamn windmills. Yeah. They're figuring out how these sawmills are working out.

They're learning these shipbuilding techniques from the Dutch, historically fantastic shipbuilder. and then also the manufacturing side of it. So we're not just looking at building one. How can we build 10 at a time? How can we continue to expand this operation to have just large feats? And then after that, how can we use this manufacturing to start building up our country? Yeah.

He ends up only spent it a week there after he has to take off to Amsterdam because he was actually attacked in Zandam. Didn't hear exactly what the attack was. But apparently it was pretty violent and they killed more than a couple of people that they had to go ahead and book it. So then they leave off to Amsterdam. He would end up getting special training and experience in a shipyard that was owned by the VOC for four months. So the VOC, the Dutch East Indy company, the largest shipping, largest company that you would say in the world, he was there working in one of their shipyards, making ships to send out to go raid the Dutch East Indies.

Like just a, the crossover here is absolutely. incredible that the Russian czar was working for a time. Fucker carrying the mask. This is like 6-8. And that's actually the like czar of Russia. It's like the fuck. All these dudes knowingly or unknowingly are working with the czar of Russia and teaching him how to build a ship for the VOC. It blows me away. While he was in Amsterdam, this is where things Chris was talking about. We're entering the McCob here. You would attend

surgeries at the colleges like as an excited person. You have like, is this those situations where like the surgical theaters? Yes. In the round where everyone would be look, yeah. That's so fucking crazy that that was ever a thing. I mean, I think it's still a thing. For medical school, right? Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah, I'm sure they were probably, I don't know if there was general

admission, but I'm sure that there was maybe more of the public than there should have been in there watching it. It seems as weird for King to be like, can I watch this surgery? He would also watch like tooth extractions, different kinds of surgical procedures to kind of get a feel for this. Weirdly enough, this sounds like a situation where

he looks at the advancement in medicine and looks back at Russian is like, we're behind and fucking everything. Let's see what they're doing. He's like, yeah, they're doing miracles and surgery. He's like, what do you, like, they're sawing legs off better? He's like, no, like actual like dedicated surgery. He's like, I got to see this. I think he goes in there with the intention of trying to see with the advancements and how he can apply that. And what happens is as he's watching this, he ends up getting erect.

And he finds out he's got this crazy new kink because who comes marching back after watching a few surgeries with his own little kit. Yeah. Prior to him getting the kit, though, you remember what he did. He had his entourage. that was there watching with him, go ahead and bite the cadaver. Oh, that's right.

That was sitting on the table. For what reason? I'm not sure. But apparently he wanted to get the mouth feel of a human body somehow. He's sitting there just looking at it. His couple guys are flanking him and he's like, looks at one of them. He's like, wonder what it tastes like.

Of course, the guy's like, yeah, yeah, totally. And he's like, bite it. He's like, well, I mean, you wonder what it tastes like too. You agree. Yeah, you agreed. I'm obviously not here. You bite it too.

Point to the other guy. And he's like, the fuck. He's like, yeah, you guys bite it. Just tell me about it. Yeah, I can't explain. I don't even think that he can explain. The King of Russia tells you to bite a dead body. I guess you bite the fucking dead body.

True. Or you become the dead body. Yeah. There's also the threat as you were just talking about, what did he come home with? Yeah. He came home with a full surgical kid. that he would basically if you were in his

entourage and you would mention that you had tooth pain or that you had a hang nail uh-huh something that needed to come off your body instead of Peter suggesting that you go to the hospital he just said hey go ahead and bite down on this or get a hold of him I'm going to yank that tooth

out myself I just I just see the conversation like oh god my fucking he was just he's walking around wherever they're staying just trying to pick up on conversations guys like my fucking tooth. He's like, huh? What was that? Tooth? He's like, okay, we can take care of that for. He's like, no, no, no, it's actually not that.

But he's like, you know what? It could get a lot worse. Uh-huh. We're going to go and pull this out. He's like, I don't know if that's good. He's like, listen, I've been watching surgeries for over two hours. Okay? I know what I'm doing. Have you seen what I can do with a ship? I just studied shipbuilding for four months and I can build one of these things. Like, I could definitely take the tooth out of your mouth. Here's a pint of vodka. You get ready. I'm going to go yank that bitch out.

And I wonder if that's what it was. I wonder if everywhere else he got to apprentice and he got to do things. And when it came time to witnessing these surgeries and these tooth extractions, if he's like... There's no one else he can operate on. Well, yeah, if he's like, hey, you think I could get in there and maybe rip a tooth or two out. The guy's like, no, he had one bad tooth and we took it out. You can't just rip good teeth out. He's like, well, but I want to give it a shot.

And they're like, no, dude, you're not a doctor. We can't let you do any of this stuff. You know what? We need to start doing dental exams because. Because the oral health of all of our people here is of top priorities. So one by one, I'm going to have you come in. I'm just going to give you a little peek. And chances are, everything will be fine.

But if not, it just clinks a couple things together. He's like, we'll take care of it. Yep. Yeah. How many other people can say that they had their tooth extracted by the czar of Russia? I mean, that's a huge honor. And I think we're focusing on this mouth thing. But this was also at a point when if something needed to come off like you were saying,

maybe you got some gangrene or something like that on your finger, who was there with a hell? hand and a pair of fucking shears. Peter the Great. Ready to go ahead and give you nine fingers. After his time in Holland, he was invited by William III, the king of England, to come spend time in England. While he was over there, he for some reason became enamored with the royal mint.

There was something about it to the point to where he would end up visiting it four times. We talked about this during the gold rush, and you got fixated about the mint. Yes. Okay. Now imagine that you're not just hearing about it. Imagine you're looking at something and it's like, yeah, this is how we make the currency that our entire nation uses. And this is how we keep track of it and keep control of it. And he's just like, oh, we don't do any.

This is much better than what we're doing. Like, I need to get in here as often as possible to find out the entire process. Where do you guys get it from? How do you have to stamp it? What weight do you use for it? Yeah. How are you milling these coins to make them so perfectly uniform? form. Yeah, okay. I can see that. Interesting little side fact. Do you know who the warden of the

Mint was in England at that time? I know you're going to say a name that sounds familiar, but go ahead. Sir Isaac Newton. They never met though. No. But just the fact that this is going on at the same time. Yeah. That old Isaac is. And Sir Isaac Newton was in charge of the fucking Mint. Yeah, also very odd. I'm sure we'll learn more about that when we do him. Well, they were there. They were there for three months and you got to have a place to live. You got to know where you're staying. The King of England goes ahead and has this guy named John Evelyn. We said that was how do you pronounce it?

John Evelyn. John Evelyn. He has this estate that King William goes ahead and he's like, stay there. He's not using it right now. You guys can go shack up there and kind of see what's up. Have a little English countryside live in. It's lovely. the landscaping is immaculate.

He's got these hedge mazes and everything like that. You guys can get lost in there for hours. You're going to fucking love it. So putting on again there, we need to impress everybody with Russian manners. They go into John Evelyn's house and absolutely fuck shit up. The series of events that occurs

over the course of the three-month, you know, three-month stay involves destruction of like artwork, furniture, a very charming thing they did was they were wiping their asses with the curtains. Which, thinking about that, do you think that they were wiping their asses with the curtains and then just like piling the curtains? Or do you think they were actually going by wiping their asses on the still hanging and being used curtains? Yeah, I think it's the ladder. Man, that place probably, like, you got to imagine what that fucking place smelled like.

They hit the chamber pot and then they just walked over to the window, wiped with the curtains, through the chamber pot outside. What happens if you're like, how long are you doing that for? Also, if you're walking over to the curtain and you're just searching down the curtain for a spot that doesn't have shit on it? You're looking for somewhere clean? Yeah. Along with the curtains, they were destroying the artwork in the house because they were using them as dartboards. Mm-hmm. Just throwing darts at these paintings.

They just figured out billiards. Yeah. Not billiards. Darts, dude. True. But just the fact that like instead of using a bare wall and just painting something on it or anything like that I'm sure I don't know if this was priceless art. There's some places where you've seen places where there's not even a bare stretch of wall.

This could be one of those places that they're like, I guess we could have taken it down. But then what would we've been trying to hit at? It's barely left any holes. Maybe the best part beyond the shit curtains was the invention of the wheelbarrel had not made it to Russia quite yet. So imagine Peter's surprise when he sees this wheelbarrel outside in this grand, sprawling, beautiful garden estate that they have. Instead of using it in the utilitarian style as one would with a wheelbarrel. Using the recreational style. They decided to have drunken wheelbarrow

races where one person would get in one wheelbarrow, the other person would get in the other wheelbarrow, and then they would be lifted and they would be carried running through. through these hedges, running through gardens, just tearing shit up in general. Just seen who has the most power to try to push through the bunch of fucking six-foot-eight guys just shoving each other through these hedgerows and fucking wheelbarrels. So much to the fact that once they actually were, they were kind of enticed to leave, essentially they cut some of, because they were also footing the bill for some of this as well. The monarchy was.

So they started to kind of scale back funding for them to kind of get. give them the hint of like, hey, maybe it's time to start to start moving along. And then eventually someone ended up kind of like politely kind of kicking them out, right? Yeah. Apparently the damage was bad enough that John Evelyn wrote William III a letter saying that he needed to pay for all the destruction and damage that the people that he invited to the country had done to his estate. Another thing that King William III did, I mean, this was a very give and take type deal. It wasn't just him over there collecting things and finding all of these different European treasures to bring back to Russia. Shitting on furniture and...

King William goes ahead and gifts him a schooner that had a whole crew on it. That's how they got them to leave. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, we got you a boat and it's crude now. Get the fuck out. Well, in exchange for the schooner that they received, England received the monopoly for the merchants to trade tobacco in Russia.

In all of Russia, England, because they gave him this boat. Russians loved a smoke. Yeah. They got the tobacco contract to sell to Russia just based upon King William letting them shit on the curtains and then give them a boat. Where were they getting the tobacco from? They would have been getting it from the colony. Yeah, it wasn't in England. In the States, it would have been from North America.

They're training colonial tobacco. all the way back over into Russia. Yeah. That's pretty cool. So yeah, as Chris said, they go ahead and took the schooner onto Poland. Well, kind of getting back to the business side of things. One thing he also does while he's there in England is he goes in and he observes parliament. Because at this point, too, he's wanting to enact again all these reforms in Russia.

They're not just industrial reforms. They're not just agrarian reforms. They're also political reforms because the current structure of how things, have been working is too chaotic. He's not going to be able to maintain power. He needs to find a way to where the boyers no longer have the power. The Streltzzi no longer have enough power to challenge him. And he's looking at parliament and these other ideas for government about like, who can I assign to do this? How can I form a council? So again, it's not just about the physical acts of like, how do I build a Navy or how do I build artillery? He's like, how do I also run this shit? Yeah, and still kind of keep his autocracy going.

going on where everything still has to flow through him. How do I design it to where it also gives my ability to delegate while knowing that my power is more absolute? Yeah, any ideas that are coming from this are still running through me. I'm the one that green lights any of these ideas that they have. But I need to set it up to where I'm getting these ideas. And I'm not doing everything myself. Well, I think we talked about before the episode, there were as many as like 500 people that he brought back just from England alone, to Russia that came over to work in Russia and to teach these, excuse me, these specialty

trades. He also got a hell of a lot of people. I want to say it was somewhere in the realm of like 8,000 people that they collected to come back to all of Russia. And not just about like industrial trades or anything like that. It was people that were coming back from like the Enlightenment. People that were coming to teach in the schools that he was going to be doing, coming to go ahead and, you know, introduce certain things that they didn't even know about in Russia. We had different farming techniques, just really anything that he could get a leg up on to bring back to his home country. So now are we on to Poland? We're on to Poland.

We are on to Poland on the schooner coming from England. I don't know how long that travel is from England or from England to Poland. Probably not long. Considering I think it's the, it's 13 miles. the, I want to say the, oh, the nervous point of the English channel is like 13 miles, but you're still in the English channel there, I think. Yeah, then you've got to get a little bit of Poland.

Yeah, it's like... Is that on the coast too? Yeah. It's just further to, I guess you would consider that the east. Okay. I looked at the map and checked it out, I should have. On his way of Poland, he's headed there to meet with... Poland at this time.

Yeah, Poland at this time. Yeah, Poland is how you're thinking of it now. He's going to meet the queen, and he's going to meet a man named Augustus the second, or, yeah, Augustus the Second or Augustus the Strong. Now, do you know why this man was nicknamed the Strong? Was he the fox thrower? Yes, that was one reason.

He was the greatest fox thrower in all of Europe. Now, not only did they throw dwarves, apparently, but they also threw foxes. I was going to say, does Peter walk up and he lifts up the fox? He's like, this is so light. He's like, I've been training this. He's like, you guys go underhand or you guys go overhand? How do you do this? He's like, because I feel like I can throw this thing a country mile.

Yeah, it's pretty wiggly, but I think I can get this going. It's got fur you can hang on to? Gus is like, no, man, you're not going to challenge me for this. The second reason that he was named Augustus the Strong, he was said to have 400 children. Oh, that's right. I don't even know how that's possible, man. That's like that stupid-ass Vince Vaughn movie, but except for instead of being a sperm donor, that's 400 children that he's having with.

But he's the king. Yeah, it's got to be a lot of wives and concubines, though. Also, at this point, was prima nocta, maybe still a thing in places? Because that was allowing the king to, like, to flower, to have sex with the bride before. Yeah, to bang that. Yeah. The brides of everybody else. Possibly.

Either way, I can understand why they would name him the strong if he had 400 children, because he's got some strong seed at that point. while in Poland Peter was informed that there was a Strelsy uprising back home and once he heard that the wheels started turning the concern that Sophia had brought the

Strelsy back under their or back under her power and excuse me maybe not so much that as the Strelsy saw that Sophia could be the figurehead for them to go back to kind of ruling and controlling things so

he orders that the rebellion gets squashed and he orders that they build 14 torture chambers. That feels like a lot of torture chambers. Well, I mean, no. I mean, like, there were, what? There were 4,000 rebels. Yeah, you gotta give me more than just now.

Yeah. Well, okay. I guess when I'm thinking, okay, so I'm making the, I'm making the confusion here because we're talking about, like, you know, we've talked about Hitler and the final solution in the Holocaust. We've talked about Stalin and all the shit that's happened. there. When you just throw me a number that it's 14 torture chambers, I guess to the simple fact that maybe this guy really hasn't built torture chambers before, you think he would start with maybe a

smaller, a smaller number. I guess I'm fucking jaded by all of the other torture we've heard about and shit like that. But okay, hold on. Tell me, say it again. Fourteen torture chambers. Yeah, I mean, I guess in the grand scheme of things, him franchising for torture chambers, sort of little, but at the same time. Do you think they were themed? Possibly. Maybe that's part of what the torture was and everything. He had him themed as different things.

One of them was like torture chamber sandals. One of them was a dental office. One of them was a surgical suite. One of them was a forest. So yeah. As this rebellion squash, she decides that he has to cut this Grand Embassy short. A big issue that happened was after Poland, they were supposed to be heading down to Rome.

so he could meet up with the Pope. There was a belief maybe that because he was a member of the Russian Orthodoxy and they had a falling out with the Catholic Church, that this was potentially a way to try to mend fences, to try to maybe bring that type of religion back in. Well, think of it from the standpoint of the position of the church at that time where even in England, like during the Monarch episode, we talked about the excommunication,

that would hurt those countries. so much that you're already in a position where the church isn't on super great terms with you. But if you're able to get on the church's good side, you now have access to that entire community that's then under the church. It's a you scratch our back, we'll scratch yours type situation. Yeah. Potentially the church is probably looking to try to ring suitors back in because this is around the time of the Protestant Reformation in England. Think of the whole reason, you know, Crusades and everything like that with the fucking church trying to pull the Byzantine back in.

Yeah, you can definitely see it. I don't, I mean, the Byzantines, I think, are probably a little bit bigger get than the Russian Empire at that point. But regardless, it's still money coming in. So he has to cut out the trip to Rome. He also had to cut out a trip to Venice. I'm sure with his love of boats going to Venice was probably like what he was looking forward to the most.

He went to Vienna. He did go to Vienna and Austria. at some point during this trip. Was this after this? I don't remember. Because I know that the Grand Dempsey ends up ending on August 25th of 1698. I know during a certain point he goes to Vienna.

He's not really impressed with Vienna. He wants to go to Venice because he's like super enamored with the canals. He's a fucking, he's a boat nerd. He just wants to kind of see how that whole thing works and he's not able to do that. I think he's pretty pissed when he comes home because they cut his fucking tour short.

Yeah. He wanted to go see a city built for boats. And so like you said, 14 torture chambers built. He comes home, kills a bunch of mutineers, does a big display of their bodies, and everything as one does to send a message letting them know that, hey, this stuff will not be tolerated in my new Russia. And where was most of that concentrated around? That would have been the Streltze. Is that correct? That was who he was torturing.

Where were the bodies primarily hung? outside of Sophia's window at the convent. Ah, that's right. Just to maybe remind her if you were a part of this. Also, to go along with that, some of the nuns that were in, or, yeah, that's the right term, right, nuns? Yeah. That were working around Sophia and some of her chambermaids within the convent were also tortured and questioned as well to try to figure out if she had any connections with this uprising. This, like, almost increased, like, the seclusion that she was put under.

convent at this point. He's still not going to kill her. What he is going to do, though, because the stralty keep popping them. They haven't been a positive thing in his life previously. From what, you know, his first experience, or one of his first experiences, like, hey, aren't you the motherfuckers that, like, kill the chopped of my uncle, and they're like, yeah, that's us. So he's like, you guys are fucking done. We're disbanding you. What I'm going to do is instead of having you guys be the only standing military force, I've actually learned some shit while I've been away. And we're going to go and create just a standing army that's going to actually be loyal that I'm going to be in control of.

Well, and if I need an elite guard, I already have these two groups that kind of help me kick your ass the first time. Yeah. So he comes back to kind of a new Russia because it's out with the Strzzi Guard. It's in with all of these new things that they've learned. This embassy trip inspired Peter in so many different ways that it's almost stuff that you don't really think of. But like the official dress and kind of the military dress. and kind of the military dress of how the people within Russia would be.

And this is where I get a touch confused. Because when you look at traditional English dress, that's made for kind of the climate. When you look at traditional Russian dress, everything is going to be a little bit baggier back then. It was built for the cold of Russia. So to change like the military outfits and uniforms that were probably mostly made of like wool or anything like that that were very heavy. something that would keep you warm if it was cold outside, you're kind of pushing that to the side and bringing in this new fashion of a climate that your people aren't used to and will not ever live in. Yeah, so like European style is coming in,

caftans, which are basically like, the way I look at them is caftans are almost like a robe type thing. In the sense that, like you said, it's more free flowing, you know, of course it's decorative and everything like that. but it's more of what you think of like kind of a nomadic more of like even like kind of a middle eastern type dress like an ottoman type dress and that's where you also kind of when i saw that you know you see a picture of peter the great you're like that looks like a european picture for sure you know he's either wearing an armor he's wearing a traditional you know european military uniform but a puffy shirt yeah exactly but before this this was more of like robes and you know shit like that There was also this huge emphasis essentially on kind of like, you know, Stalin kind of sold,

was that the virility and like the manliness of the Russian people growing these big huge beards. Well, the rest of Europe is clean-shaven traditionally. Maybe mustache, probably fashionable mustache. Not a tiny one. No. Not a little tiny one. That was a sect that comes later. But he basically is like, you know what?

I don't like the beard. We're getting rid of the beards. Everyone, trim your beards. We really, really want to keep our beards. He's like, you know what? You can keep the beards, but you're going to pay a 100 ruby a year beard tax in order for you to go ahead and keep that. Otherwise, shave the shit off. And if you're ever in my presence and you're wearing a beard, there's a good chance I'm going to shave it off myself.

That would, Peter would literally shave people that would come into his core. if he found them to be unkempt. And this was a pretty big deal because Ivan the Terrible was somebody that instituted these beards as kind of this exactly what you're talking about with this clean-shaven virility of man. This beard was almost a religious symbol of like your dedication to how tough you were going to be. You were going to be the man that's outside that's going to make it for himself.

And now we're giving that up to the point to where they said some people would shave their beards and they would keep it to be buried with them. So when they made it up to heaven, they could be like, I was a supporter for as long as I was able to with this beard. Please retouch this. Can we put this back on? Just stuff like that to where he's changing so much of it. And again, to me, a beard in Russia only seems like the brilliant idea to have because you need

something to cover your face during this bitter cold that they have to deal with. One thing he does, too, is he gets rid of arranged marriages. He's like, we're fucking done with the arranged marriages. That was, and that's still a thing fucking today in some places. But his argument on it, it makes perfect sense. He's like, here's the deal. I'm in an arranged marriage. It's not fucking great.

I'm letting you guys know it leads, it's barbaric, first of all, that you're making these two people that may not like each other on both sides marry each other. And I believe that it leads to domestic violence. Now, I don't know if he's just speaking from experience, but he's like, I can 100, I can tell you in 100% of my arranged marriage cases, it has led to domestic violence. Yeah, it might be from a little bit of experience, but like you were talking about earlier, this is kind of after he gets back from the embassy and he sees how things are going in Europe, if you can avoid these arranged marriages and get out of this idea,

that you have to do this within your own country. then you can start selling off nieces, nephews, children, excuse me, to these other kingdoms to try to get a foothold in their politics. The other thing, too, is he changes New Year's. He moves New Year's from September 1st that they celebrated in Russia to January 1st. So September 1st was based upon the years of the creation of the world. How? What do we do?

what is that? How do you figure that out? How do you know what day the world was created? Because obviously, the world was created before men were created. So how do you know that date? How do you also know how that that date is still that date based upon the fact that there's been changes in count? Like it's, again, we're trying to make sense out of the senseless. Just September 1st is a wild, wild New Year's day. So yeah, like Chris said, changed it to January 1st, the birth of Christ for the Julian calendar. I am not sure again how that would come to past because if you're to believe that Jesus Christ was born on December 25th, how is the New Year starting on the first of January? Like, what's that thought process? Why wouldn't the

first of January or why wouldn't New Year's Day be the day that Jesus was born December 25th, right? Like, what do we're talking about the fictional birthdays of fictional characters. I know, I know. Another reform was that he would lessen the amount of monasteries in the area. He would kind of start to contract the hold that the church had. And by taking away these monasteries, he's turning monasteries that have kind of these smaller roles with less monks in them, I guess you would say, and just turning them into just regular churches.

So he's not stepping on religion enough to try to stomp it out, but he's like, if I can take these guys down a notch and lessen their importance in this empire, they're going to start looking to me as more of the religious figure. He starts turning some of them into schools too. Yeah. So there's this wave of, it would be secularism, right? Essentially the separation of like more so.

Yeah. So there's this wave of secularism that he's, you know, kind of trying to cover across Russia. He's building canals. He fucking, he didn't get to Venice, but he fucking loves canals. Because, again, he thinks that the efficiency, apparently at this point, point, too, getting stuff around by boat was probably, they didn't have fucking willbarrows. Yeah. So, you know, getting stuff around by boat was probably a much better alternative for them.

So he's building canals. He's opening educational institutions for all kinds of things for surgery. He's actually inviting in all of these, you know, foreign specialists to teach at these schools or to kind of help in opening these other schools. Hey, you have schools of mathematics, schools of navigation that are brought in. And they're bringing in specialists from the Netherlands, from Scotland to start teaching these things. And again, we're looking at mathematics and navigation, two skills that are very important for sea travel and also very important in the military. Which is why he's requiring all of his officers to go to these schools.

He's training a new generation in a new way that they've never had before. We get to 1702. Peter is introduced to a woman named Martha Helena Scruel. Wait, wait, wait. Where are we at? 1702. Okay, we got to go back for a second. Okay.

Okay. So back in 1700, kind of while he's also on his, you know, on his rump spring or whatever it is, Treaty of Constantinople actually gets signed. Oh, yeah. I know you love treaties. So basically, it's a 30-year truce between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The deal is that the 3rdinople, the third. the Russians get to keep Azov.

And the Sultan also allows free Russian pass to the Holy Land as well. So we get a little touchback in the world as well. So that actually happens. And then also in 1700, this is when it leads to the kind of Peter versus Sweden situation. And he's kind of because he has this deal with the Ottomans. He's like, okay, I can focus my attention elsewhere. The Baltic has kind of always been my goal. It's much closer. I know I can't take on the Swedes by myself. The whole embassy tour that didn't yield the results as far as diplomatic alliances that I was really hoping to.

So I got to find a way that I'm able to essentially take on Sweden. And one of the ways that he does this as well is because, again, as he's been bringing these guys back and everything like that, they haven't had a whole ton of time. but he's also been industrializing and opening up essentially. The country is just insanely full of these natural raw materials. So all of these advances that he found in how other countries are actually mining for ore, they have these vast forests. So of course they have access to all of this timber for building up the Navy. So he's using this time as well to kind of like also consolidate and modernize his military forces so he can launch this campaign. This just came across my mind, and I don't know if we have time for a little deviation.

But it almost seems like this is a theme in Russian history where they are behind the times so much. And then they get a leader that kind of throws this injection of energy into the country to bring them back up to kind of par with everybody else. because we see this with Peter, we obviously see this with Stalin, is to the detriment of his people, he kind of forced them into this industrial age out of this agrarian lifestyle that they had before. It's like if you're looking at it from like the graph,

most places would just kind of probably advance it. Kind of not a steep angle, but a nice consistent level of advancement. There's his flat, flat, flat spike. And then it has to shoot up to try to catch up with everyone else there. it's flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, spike. I do wonder if maybe that's where Stalin gets a little of his influence from.

We sure as shit know that Pouty right now gained a lot of influence from guys like Peter, from guys like Ivan the Terrible, and from Elizabeth the Great, from her husband. And it only makes me think that potentially we will see another one of these in our lifetime in Russia. There's a chance that they're going to try to play catch-up again. So, yeah, his push to get into Denmark, he kind of needs a crew. He needs Augustus the Strong from Poland, and he needs Frederick the 4th from Denmark. And they kind of come together in this triumvirate to start what's known as the Northern

War in Sweden that would begin in 1700. This was a 20-year war. So again, we're talking about another just a war, the length that we rarely see before. I mean, I guess the Afghan war was extremely long, but it kind of runs a similar course to where eventually it's just not as necessary. And they're just kind of over there to try to finish up the job that they can't really get mopped up. And I mean, just because you're at war doesn't mean you can't be, you know, advancing your personal life. So go ahead with that.

Oh, yeah. So we'll jump forward and then we'll jump forward. and then we'll jump back again. But 1702, Peter is introduced to Marta Helena Skrotska. Not important because the name gets changed very quickly here. He was introduced by a friend named Menshkov that was kind of his boy for his entire life. He grew up with him. They were very, very close.

At one point in time, he becomes like his most trusted ally. Was it his mistress to begin with, though? Yes. Okay. So Marta was brought over. after her first husband had died in a war against the Russian, she was brought over as basically a slave. I guess the first time that Menshkov laid eyes on her,

she was just walking in a line in shackles with just a, like a basic... Yeah, like a sack over her. He ends up taking her in as basically a... What's the word that starts with a pee? Prostitute. No. I want to say pilgrim, it's not pilgrim. Like the lowest member of society?

Peasant. Peasant. Yes. That's the P-word. A lot of weed this episode. Brings her in is kind of a peasant servant in the household. He was known to have a few mistresses. And Marta was pretty cute, caught his eye.

One night while Peter's over at Menshkov's house, he runs into Marta. He asks Menchkov kind of... Smitten. What her deal is. Menchkov says she's my servant she does things around the house I'm sure he probably mentioned about taking her down a time or two

Oh yeah what is she service And Peter decides that he needs a new mistress Because his loveless marriage is not going very well So he would end up taking up with Marta She would eventually convert to the Roman orthodoxy She would become known as Catherine the first Because back then there was concerned that after

he was already married and I forgot the first wife's name but her family would be concerned about him consorting with another woman because... In the same way that they ran into between his father's first wife and everything

like that. A very similar situation because he had had a kid with his first wife that was Alexius, correct? Or Alexi? Yes. Okay. So that person, Alexi, he's already got someone in the line of secession with his first wife. Yeah. So in order to not run into this crisis, they have to keep their relationship on the down low.

They were married in secret in 1707. They would be officially married in 1712 after he, instead of divorcing his wife, he talks her into becoming a nun herself and going out. Which absolves him of his marital requirements. Yes. And taking up the cloth and taking her vow of celibacy. So charming and so convincing. I wonder how he did it.

And Catherine's a pretty cool chick. She seems like a hell of a lot of fun. She didn't care too much about his escapades with other women as he would go on campaign and he would be off. They would write letters back and forth to each other. I feel like it's a real pretty woman type situation. She's from the streets. She's smart. She's something new that he doesn't understand.

And yeah, they like to experience outside of the relationship, but she knew what was up because what did she tell him? Just don't bring your VD back home. Don't bring that shit back home with you. They seem to have a pretty great relationship and a great marriage. Later on, after they would become married when they would travel to go to other places and she would be meeting other royalty. They obviously didn't know anything of her background. They didn't know that she wasn't a noble. Everybody was fairly impressed with the way that she handled herself in public.

She was semi-literate, which I think was probably a pretty big deal for women back then. But all in all, she seems like a very supportive woman that I think they had a pretty good relationship. I don't think that this was just a fling of the flesh, as you would say. but yeah it's she was gentle enough with him to where when he would have like an epileptic fit she would sit with him she would kind of nurse him back to health after it she was very understanding of what his job was and how she could support him and she was pretty down there were times um we might talk about a little bit later where she actually joins him on the battlefield and they're living in tents out there and she's living the exact same life as these

soldiers out there on the battlefield. So she gains a lot of respect of the people because she's out there doing it. She was a fucking peasant before. Yeah. Anything for her. Even being at a tent on a battlefield, it's the fucking Tsar's tent. Anything is better than she's like, I was just a peasant at this other guy's house and he was forced me to bang him every so often.

Yeah, I have to bang this guy, but this guy actually cares about me and I'm living the best life I've ever dreamed of. Yeah, I can handle that on the battlefield, I'm sure. So to get back to this Northern War. against Sweden. Like I said, it began in 1700. It was a 20-year war. It was against someone named Charles the 12th. Charles the 12th was like the anti-Peter. He was a nerd. He was really pious. He didn't drink. Didn't do, basically didn't believe in in any type of like luxuries or anything. He essentially trained with like his men in like Calvary and things like that.

And just from a standpoint, you know, both of them being into military shit, but from a standpoint of just like their social lifestyle, completely polar opposites. Couldn't be any different. But if cocaine would have been a thing back then, you know that Peter would have been ripping a rail off of his sword before getting ready to start a battle. Every single, probably before you get ready to start anything. Charles was very, very good at war. He would end up ascending to the throne, I believe it was at 16 years old. and during his lifetime as far as like growing up being the era parent that's coming through,

he was given a lot of the same kind of treatments that Peter was, but his treatments were that of somebody who was being groomed to be the king. So he's talking to military advisors. He's going over different things. He's talking to a history teacher about Alexander the Great at one point in time. Whereas Peter, when he's in his seclusion, is being actively kept away from military advisors and people to teach him this kind of stuff. We don't want to get him that psyched up.

But Charles is talking to his history instructor about Alexander the Great, and he was talking about his affinity for what Alexander did in the lands that he conquered. And his instructor brings up that Alexander the Great only lived to like 36 or whatever he did. And Charles looks at him and he goes, how long do you have to live after you've taken that much land? Like that was his His thought was Quality over quantity when it came to time If you were that good at what you were doing

It didn't matter how long you live Yeah there's a reason they're still talking about Alexander the Great At this point in time is because he was that good So Charles was very adept at war He was very good at leading his army Peter was in search of this warm seaport To expand his navy or his navy And to expand his trade

So fucking crazy that they consider even that area in the Baltic to be like a warm seaport just because it didn't freeze up all the time. Yeah. It's still not great. I mean, it's good in the summertime, but I'm sure in the wintertime it's not awesome. So this idea to move into the Baltic to try to take over is kind of spearheaded by Peter and by Augustus and by Frederick. It didn't last that long that this triumvirate would stay because Charles XIV's just basically trounce. the Danes in their first meetup.

It was bad enough that it forced their full withdrawal. And Charles actually laid siege to Copenhagen, which Frederick didn't think was going to be something that would happen. And immediately is just like, we're out, we'll sign an armistice. I'm done. I've had enough. Augustus Peter, takeover. So, and you would think that in this situation when you're like, yeah, they form like a

partnership, this anti-Swedan League or whatever you want to call it. Of course, you're going to team up together and you're all going to attack them an overwhelming force of once. That's what the common thought would be in this situation. Instead, it's like, okay, so when are you going to attack him? Well, we're going to attack him at this point. Okay, great, you fight him. Okay, well, he beat the shit out of us. Oh, that's not good. Oh, he's coming to beat the shit out of us. Okay, yep, we're out. And then all of a sudden, now he's just fighting these three individual forces. Yeah. Um, their first, a little bit more of a handicapped match.

He would focus on the Polish and the Russians, and he would inflict heavy losses on both of these forces, enough to make the Russians retreat back. And for some reason, I don't know why it was, and maybe it was because he beat the Russians so handily the first time that he didn't really consider them a threat anymore. I think that's what it was, because when he's fighting against the Danes, when he's fighting against the, so it was the Dutch,

Danes are from Denmark. So when he's fighting against him, he's fighting against other more modern European armies. True. Yeah. Probably a little bit harder in that scenario. Peter, again, still hasn't had the time to implement all of these. Because again, we're talking about 1700 at this point. He just got back from the Grand Embassy in, you know, the later part of 1698. He has these plans, but he's kind of trying to do these things before he has the ability to actually do them the way he wants to. And so you have this well-supplied, well-trained, advanced, you know, in terms of compared to Russia, Swedish Army. Yeah. And even if they have a numerical advantage, they're just going to be, you know, their weapons are more advanced.

They're going to be causing a lot heavier losses. Yeah. You don't really even have a chance to see if what you learned is going to work on the battlefield because it wasn't like they had a warm-up. but it wasn't like they brought in a minor league team to try to fight them to see if all of this new military doctrine was going to be effective for them. And here's the thing too, Sweden isn't just like, oh, you guys are attacking me. I'll just go ahead and defend my borders. Charles is like, oh, okay, we're fucking doing this. Fine, then we're fucking doing this.

Because as soon as he's able to go ahead and take his attention off of Russia when they have to end up retreating, he just gets to go ahead and turn his full focus onto Augustus in Poland. and I don't care how good you are at fox throwing, you're going to get your ass kicked by Charles the 12th because he was built for this shit. And he ends up dethroning Augustus and basically is just like, hey, you know what you should do, Poland?

You should put someone that's a little bit more pro-Swedish on the throne. And in 1704, he does, they do just that. Yeah, he basically cuts the head off of Poland by getting rid of Augustus because the way the Poland worked back then was I guess you would say sort of a republic because they had

it wasn't a full republic because it was basically they had their their version of the boyar over there which would then get together and they would elect the new king. So there was still an election process but it was just all of the rich people that had

governmental powers would do the voting and Charles having just kicked Augustus's ass probably has the hammer when it comes to choosing where the new king is going to be coming from. So you have a pro-Swedish influence in Poland. The Russians come back strong, though. From everything that we've learned...

21-year war. Yeah. Well, from everything that we've learned about how he got the port and Azor, or... Azov. Azov. He was unsuccessful the first time he came back. He regrouped. he figured a couple things out.

He's figuring out how to use heavy artillery more efficiently. He's figuring out the Navy even better. And when he ends up coming back against the Swedish, the Russians actually score a victory at the fort of Nayan, which gave him access to the Baltic. Nine. Nine. It gives him access to the Baltic.

But more importantly, what Chris was talking about earlier, it gives him a spot to where he can lay out the blueprint for, What is modern day St. Petersburg today? By 1704, there was the island that was floating out. This is the weird part about it. Was this area of land that they had taken wasn't a good area of land. It was very swampy. There was basically an island to where they started to build St. Petersburg.

So it wasn't like a direct connection to land. And I mean, it makes sense too, because if you're Sweden, you're going to go after, and I don't know if it was a strategy on Peter's part or just kind of a lack of awareness on Charles the 12th part, but that's probably not a super desirable location, which means that the defense of that location might not be as strong. And then also the desire to try to take back the location, especially if it's kind of on the fringe of where you're controlling. And it's not just smack dab right in the middle of your territory.

You might just kind of be like, what are they going to fucking do there? We didn't even really build anything there. We had some, you know, some token place there. but yeah, I guess fucking let him hold it for a little bit. Well, and the other part of it too was it was at the mouth of a river so blockading this place

wasn't going to be tough for the Swedes. They could cut off resources to them. They could stop them from being able to build which again, they underestimated the Russian Navy at that point in time. We've got to talk a little bit about St. Petersburg now because this is incredible.

Just this city that they built and how they built it. Because again, the main form of transportation in St. Petersburg was by boat. And that was both by necessity and also by just a personal preference of Peter because he loves fucking boats. This was also at a time when he was requiring people to travel by boat by sailing. So I don't know, I have never sailed before. I am not one of those people, however, that look at someone who's sailing and saying,

I can do that because I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. What needs to go up? What rope needs to be this taught? All that kind of shit. I'm guessing that most of the people needing to get around this newly established, no fortress and city probably don't have a lot of that know-how either. And it ends up leading to like the loss of a couple different guys. He ends up losing a couple generals. Yeah.

Yeah, he ends up losing a couple fucking generals from a boating accident. And so you'd be like at that point, they're like, oh, Peter, we just lost these guys. They were so important. He's like, oh, you know, we should probably build some bridges. He's like, what do you think, Peter? And he's like, you know what? Let's give them oars. They can start using oars to navigate the waterways and everything like that.

I think that'll go ahead and resolve this situation. So not fucking bridges. Let's just give them fucking sticks of wood. And then, you know, all will be solved. That way they can, you know, row their way up and down to figure out which direction they need to go. There's estimates that right around 100,000 people's lives were given to create St. Petersburg. Most of that were Swedish slaves that they had taken from their last win there, and then just a hell of a lot of peasants.

Surprisingly enough, somehow the great invention that they had found over in England of the wheelbarrow didn't make its way back into Russia. So all of this digging that they were doing Was all by hand to the point where they were carrying out rocks and loads of dirt Just in their arms to try to get them out Wheels are for artillery What is for ships We're not wasting it on some They didn't even know that it would actually carry like gardening stuff

Or it could carry stones They're just like no, this is a man carrier We don't need to supply this place with man carriers They didn't need to be having fun This is a mode of transportation Not a utility thing. But another thing that he would do that I found pretty funny was, and again, this is awful. But they would ride around to check on like work that was being done in and around St. Petersburg.

And if they pulled up and he wasn't happy with the work, he would get out and just beat the foreman. He would just knock him around. And the guy that he had put in charge would go on these trips and these carriages. with him. And if there wasn't like a foreman on the job to beat, he would make him get out and he would beat him and then he would throw him back in the carriage and they would just go on to the next place.

That guy just sitting there, go. God, let there be a foreman here. Either that or please let this work be satisfactory. He's already wot my ass three times today. Just let this be okay. One of two options. They've done a good job or there's a foreman on site. So

he's a pretty hands-on guy even in his across the board. Yeah, pretty much. From then on, like I said, 1704, this island of Kotlin is where they would begin building their own fortresses for St. Petersburg. The Swedish would then blockade

St. Petersburg in 1705. The Swedes fought off the Russians pretty well, just fought off their advance, trying to come into their territory as much. And they continued to make incursions into Russia. The Russians would leave the Polish front in 1706 being pursued by the Swedes.

So they were trying to kind of win Poland back for Augustus and keep them off their doorstep. As the Swedes would pursue them deeper and deeper into Russia, we see kind of two Russian hallmarks. Peter had this belief of scorched earth. So as they were retreating, they were burning any natural resources that were around. We believe nothing they can use. And then we also get the onset of the famous General Winter as the... I don't think General Winter's new here. In General Winter is just something that occurs kind of all the time.

Probably at least once a year. But General Winter, as we know, is taken down many of forces that have moved into Russia. It has, but who do you think, like, are the... people that it shouldn't take down. That should show you how fucking brutal and crazy the Russian winters were. If the fucking Swedes that had that entire area up there in Scandinavia where it's also snowy and cold as fuck, we're like, oh, this is fucking really cold. This is horrible.

And part of that has to also be, because I believe that area kind of like driving into Russia there, probably a lot of it also being a little bit closer to the sea, blowing that stuff in, those cold fronts, but probably not a lot of trees and everything. So it's planes that these just fucking storms are just moving across. Well, what are you supposed to do if he went through and went scorched earth and killed off all the natural resources and you have to hunker down for winter? You're waiting on supplies and you're waiting on reinforcements that are showing up. He's burning the wood.

You got nothing to burn for warmth or anything. They're also trying to figure out how to get these reinforcements to them without being cut off by Russia. supply train issues. Yeah. It comes up. They never learn about Russia. All the time in war.

They were pretty saff of energy by the time it came down to the Battle of Poltova in Ukraine in 1709 and just basically got their asses kicked by the Russians. This was the major death blow to the Swedish. It was a pretty decisive victory for the Russians. And although it didn't end the war, it was kind of the turning. point. This was the Stalingrad of this. The midway of Northern War, yeah.

The Northern War. For sure. And after that, there was just kind of some some piddly engagements for the next basically like 11 years. 1710, Russian forces would capture Riga, which was actually the town that

Peter had the gun pointed at him in. So, again, we're starting to see, call that coming full circle. Yeah. Everything's coming for a circle. And this was the most populated city within the Swedish realm at that point in time.

So you're taking a major city off the map for Sweden. Tallinn, I believe is how it's pronounced. Which the battle that happened in Tallinn kind of clean the Swedes out from the entire Baltic provinces. So now instead of just having St. Petersburg, you are able to have a map. massive front of the Baltic Sea to be able to work off of. Prince Charles had headed off, I believe, into the Ottoman Empire for protection.

He was still coming out, taking pot shots, but at the same time... Charles the 12th? Yes. So, King. Yeah. You said Prince Charles. Oh, sorry. Charles the 12th had taken off.

He had seeked refuge to just basically try to survive. and if your general is in hiding, your military is going to fall apart pretty quickly. So I think he was sheltered by the Ottoman Sultan, I believe. Yes. And then at that point, you know, Peter was like, well, I just got done with this thing, with the Swedes and everything. I still have this 30-year truce with the Ottomans. I think he did request they turn over Charles. The Sultan said he's not doing it.

But then at a certain point, Charles kind of wore out his welcome. And the Sultan was like, you know what? You're getting to be, I don't think you're going to be able to take, you know, take this thing back. Yeah. I don't think you're going to be able to beat Peter. So you're going to need to maybe kind of find some other place to lay low. It ends up kind of like kicking him out of his protection. Yeah.

And in 1718, Charles would be shot dead while they were laying siege in Norway. So you just lost your king. The Treaty of Nicestead would be signed August 30th, 1721, which would officially end. this northern war. Kind of getting back home. This is interesting to me, and I don't know if it comes across the same way to you or the listeners, but we learned about in the monarchy episode,

in the Scotland episode, if you had a king that was around a lot, he would tend to usually wear out his welcome. The best thing that a king could do would be to go on to a conquest, to go fight at war. That's why Richard Lienhardt, so fucking, The guy had enough time about to fart in England before he left. The seats of these crowns were rarely used because these guys were out on campaign doing things.

I think part of that too, especially in this situation, is that he had all of these reforms that he was trying to do. One of them that he did kind of going back to him observing parliament is he ends up like kind of getting rid of the power of the boyers. He established as I think like this council between 10 or 12 people that kind of like ran the day to day, but couldn't take any actions or make any finalized decisions without him actually doing that. It was also someone that he could go with to with his ideas and then have that disseminated out and taken care of. He installed essentially like a governor type situation in Russia to where instead of having just the centralized power in one place, he had a reach out. everywhere else, and then those guys also reporting to him. So it gave him greater control over essentially his entire empire. Well, and this is massive too, because this reform that he's bringing into Russia, he's a king that's going out and fighting these wars. Well, that's what I'm saying

is so he has these reforms, but while he's out doing something, these reforms probably aren't at a full clip. The driving force behind these reforms is outfighting battles and everything. Once he gets back, like you're saying where they come back and kind of wear out their welcome, once he gets back and his focus is no longer on fighting, but it's on making all of these changes that he's started to lay the groundwork, that's when people that are more of the traditionalists that are going to have a problem with these changes are going to actually start to feel the pinch. Yeah, more of what I was getting at was they just went through a hundred years of their Zorne never leaving the country. Like, never going out and doing anything. Oh, so they sought the other way.

Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. In Russia, they're used to a king being around. Misread where you're going with that. Yeah. It's your point's very valid too. But they're used to just a very sedentary king that's just kind of there to show up and do things.

They're partially blind. Yeah. They're running the day to day within the country. Whereas you get this Western European influence where now the king is going out on campaign and he's not there. But like you said, you, or he created this. form of government to where he could still have power back at home, just like the English kings and the French kings and everybody that went to the Crusades would have to where he could come back. And then once he comes back, as you were pointing out, if you're not going to war, you have to start focusing

on something else. Yeah. And that's when these reforms start kicking in to kind of start to transform the way that things are done. And I think that he did a fairly good job of making all that happen. He's still making stuff happen even during the war. It's not like he's. He's just taking 21 years hiatus on these plans. Even during the war, 1714, he issues this decree, basically for compulsory education, for any children of mobility between the ages of 10 and 15. So he's like, these are going to be the people that are going to be helping run this country. I'm going to go ahead and get them educated the way that I want them to be educated. So, of course, they're carrying along my ideas and everything.

But this is going to be the future generations that are going to be actually seeing these changes. be implemented and actually stay long term? A large part of that was he instituted a law that the firstborn child in each noble family after this age 10 to 15 and this compulsory education that he laid down was they had to give the next 20 years of their life and service of the government. So it was preparing them to come in and be good people within the government. government to know what's going on. In 1719, I had to throw this in just to kind of keep pushing this insane narrative behind Peter.

Mary Hamilton was a mistress that he had had prior to. I don't know if they were still hooking up. Don't really know how he found out about it. But she ends up kind of falling on the wrong side of him because he had found out that she was basically having miscarriages, abortions, different things like that. And he accuses her of infanticide. So regardless of those are bastards, those are still his. And I'm not saying this in defense of that.

I'm saying his thought processes, regardless if those are, you know, my, my bastards, that's still part of my lineage. That's part of my bloodline. Like, what are you doing? Yeah. Along with whoever else she was hooking up with, she's actively trying to, not actively, but she's basically doing what she feels right to. And at the same time,

what's going to happen when he comes back and she's pregnant with not his, but another one of the people, you know, and I think that was also probably the rationale too, is if she was like, well, I don't even think that these were yours. He's like,

what do you mean? These weren't mine. Like, who else have you, like that? It's a no-win situation for her. So she goes ahead and gets a death sentence. She is to be beheaded.

in the public square. There's a very large audience that's shown up to see this. I'm sure this was a pretty good pastime back then in Russia. No. Peter goes ahead and walks up onto the platform with her. He apologizes to her for doing this, but says that it has to be done, kisses her on the mouth,

lays her head down, gets her head chopped off. He then reaches down, grabs it by the hair, picks it up, turns it to where, the crowd can go ahead and see the fresh cut wound and starts pointing out where the windpipe is, where the spinal column is connected to,

and just kind of giving a quick little anatomy lesson to these hardened Russians. This is where you get a peek at the psychopath. Yeah, that everybody in the crowd is like, ah, shit, we came here to see it beheading. I didn't want to see how the sausage was made. I didn't want to see what happened in there. Once he gets done with his quick little anatomy lesson, he then brings her back to face him, kisses. her bloody lips and throws her head in a basket and just kind of goes off about his day.

Like that was that was just what he showed up to do. He gave a little informative lesson. He kissed a beheaded woman's beheaded head. And then he hauled off and went a way to do his thing. He also had this thing called the cabinet of curiosities. They said a lot of rulers had cabinets of curiosities. And it's exactly based on what Adam just said about the beheading. I'm sure you. can understand what the cabinet of curiosities would actually entail. Not only was it like things from around the world like trinkets or idols, things like that that he found interesting, it was also stuff that you would have to float in formaldehyde, you

know, body parts and the such. Fetuses, fingers, hands, heads, everything that was kept and preserved for this kind of little gross museum that he had had. We kind of start to see where he gets his final title, which is. On November 2nd, 1721, Peter has declared the emperor of all the Russians. This would include the areas in Ukraine that they had taken in just kind of this new vast expanse of land. He's not only the emperor of Russia. He's the emperor of all the Russians.

Just to make sure it's completely clear, along with the new territories, that's encompassing all of what I'm ruling. Yeah. We did miss it too. I got sidetracked by Mary Hamilton in 1719. But in 17, 18, he's put pressure on his son Alexi that Chris was talking about earlier. He is the heir to the throne. He will be taking over from him. Alexi is a child born from his first wife.

Oh, yeah. Him and Elizabeth also have 12 kids of their own. You and Catherine? Or Catherine, yes. Yeah. Him and Catherine have 12 children. And she's just rapid firing him out. I think only like two or three of them live to adulthood.

He has two daughters. kids like that. Yeah. He has two daughters that'll play a big part coming down later on in another episode. But Alexi is his focus. Alexi is not a child that was born in his father's image. He's very opposite. Yeah.

This is a kid essentially that's budding heads with him. Essentially, in every rural ideology, he's more of a traditionalist. He has more, I think, of that because of his family and because he's probably not been around, you know, Peter's court and stuff like that. I don't think Peter was probably really there as an involved father and everything, but Alexi kind of went the other direction, more of the Boyer route to where he was more of that staunch, you know, traditionalist that was actually fighting against most of the reforms that Peter was trying to do and was very, very vocal about it. Enough so to the fact where he actually had to flee the country because he suspected his father was going to kill him.

rightly so he headed off to austria yeah interestingly enough the emissary that he sends to austria to go try to bring his son back is a tolstoy who is of the lineage of leo tolstoy who wrote the book crime and punishment uh war in peace so this is how far back some of this stuff goes he's like his great grandfather something like that right yeah a tollstoy was involved in this.

And he was like the head of the kind of secret police that he had had. Well, and he comes back and he's talking to Alexi, and he's like, your father's not mad. He's not mad at you. He knows you've been talking a lot of shit and basically, you know, letting everybody know that as soon as you're in position of power, you're going to undo all of these changes that he's trying to make. He's not, you know what? He's a little disappointed, but I'm sure it's something that you guys can go ahead and discuss

and kind of meet in the middle. so why don't you go ahead and come back with us and we'll get this whole thing squared away. And you guys can get back to, you know, you're going to be on the throne. So you don't want to screw that up. So, you know, what's, what's Alexi going to do? He's going to trust him. He's going to believe him. What other choice do you have?

Yeah, exactly. So he ends up coming back. And as soon as they get him to a position where they're able to, they basically just slap him in chains and take him back to Russia. Yep. He gets locked up in something called the Peter and Paul Fortress. I'm not sure if Mary would. a part of this whole...

God damn it, you beat me fucking too. The whole adventure. I don't know if there were any dragons in there. You think there were dragons in the Peter Paul and Mary Fortress? Nobody named Puff. There was probably something called the dragon in this fortress because this place was basically Alexi's new home that he was going to be tortured at.

Yeah. And some of the torture even came at the hands of Peter. Peter was torturing his own son trying to get him to fall in line and admit that he was essentially trying to over, not overthrow, but that once Alexi took the throne, all of the reforms that Peter had just put in to try to catch Russia up, Alexi would basically banish. And he knows that it's not something to where Alexi, I mean, I'm not justifying this, but it's not something that Alexi is just like, oh, when I come in, everyone will just go ahead and go back to the way things were. He's essentially also torturing him to

find out who are the people that are actually going to be helping Alexi. Like, there are still these, like, boyers and everything that are still these, you know, noble families that are still in positions of, you know, higher society. He's obviously going to have support from them. And those people, if they're rooting against Peter, can also be hindrances to his plan. So they're trying to also get information about kind of who he's working with. Yeah, absolutely. So Peter has either by his hands,

or by him ordering the torture of his son, Alexi ends up dying in prison. What was the rash? He died of illness in prison. So essentially, of course, they're not going to be like, extra, extra read all about it. Peter, torture his son to death. We love our Zah.

No. So this is all happening behind closed doors. But because Alexi is no longer going to be showing up, he's got to essentially put a, he's got to put a bookend on that because he's asked to let people know. Alexi is no longer in business to be the, you know, the error. So Alexi actually came down with something. He got really sick.

He passed away, unfortunately. But, and listen, I know that he said some things about me and some, you know, probably kind of left you with a certain feeling about, oh, is there, you know, there's no unity. Is there political intrigue and, you know, conflict and everything? we had a talk while he was sick. And, you know, he said he was wrong about everything. Um, he said that, you know, he came around to my way of thinking. And I know he did some stuff, but we're going to go ahead and just pardon him for all of that. He came back into the fold. So, you know what? This little snafu about my lineage, you know, going against me, that actually is kind of a

relevant. It doesn't matter anymore because, you know, he came back. And he's gone. He, he, he got square with God and then he went to meet God all at the same time. 1722, Peter decrees the abolishment of the transfer of the throne to direct descendants. And this is huge. This is a very big decree to be able to put out there because this opens up Peter to be able to handpick his air. This really hasn't been done before. No, no, this is all new. This is something that Russia has never ever seen before.

I don't even mean just in Russia. I mean doing this to be able to essentially pick out of your non-direct descendants. Like, that's extremely new just even within Europe. There are times when people get overthrown and a new dynasty comes into, but that's not just a rule. That's essentially a violent, you know, overthrow. This is him just saying, so I'm just going to get to fucking pick whoever I think is going to do the best job or whoever, you know, I want to be in this position, regardless if they're my descendant or not, or direct descendant, I guess.

I'm trying to think was that the example, William the Orange and Mary, William and Mary. I can't remember. Because I believe William the Orange would end up becoming king. But refer back to the monarchy episode. But it opens it up to anybody that Peter is to choose. His doting wife, his beautiful wife, Elizabeth. Catherine. I don't know why I keep getting those two confused.

I was just literally waiting for it. You knew it was coming too. This whole stepping out of the marriage thing was really only a one-way street for Peter. She had gone ahead and made friends, potentially shacked up. I believe that would probably be

what was more likely happened with a man that we had talked about earlier named William Mons, that was the brother of, Annamons that was the mistress of Peter. Small world. Yeah, pretty shocking. So when he finds out that Catherine is a friend, a very close friend, maybe a flesh friend of William Mons,

he goes ahead and rounds up William and everybody else around him and goes ahead and tortures them and prisons them, kills them. And then he just goes ahead and beheads his own friend, William Mons, for banging his wife when he took his sister as a mistress way back before this. This is a fucking like this is a czar. This is a king. Like you can't I get your rationale here. Yeah. It's it's a tip for tat thing. And in the world of like blind justice, yes, that's how it should kind of work. But you are literally plowing the fucking czar's wife. There are so many other people that you could guess what? Even if she comes on to you, you pull out.

lightly excuse yourself and you run for the fucking hills because that is not going to be a situation you're going to walk out of with your head no and i guess i hope it was good and i it was worth it it had to have been good because guess who doesn't get killed here catherine no in fact what happens to catherine she gets crown the empress of russia on may 7th 1724 and why does she end up getting crowned as the empress of russia because peter has the idea that after he expires, Jesus, yeah, no,

Catherine is going to be the new Empress Zara of Russia. 1723, Peter begins to suffer some bladder and urinary tract tissues. I'm pretty sure with as heavy as we've been laying on the VD talk. It's from the gonorrhea.

Yeah, definitely from the gonorrhea. Peter would end up dying February 8, 1725 of gangrene in the bladder. which I can't quite think of much that would be worse and gangering in the bladder, except for one of the ways that they tried to alleviate the urinary tract issues was they installed a catheter in him with zero anesthesia. Did you see how much it had to drain out? Oh, what was the number? It was a big number.

I think it was two pounds of urine. Of urine. That couldn't pass through. Oh my God, that's a lot. but just to think about hooking him up to a catheter. I'm sure he was drunk as could be at that point to do that to it. Oh, you had to be. But I don't know how they install catheters now,

but I would like to think that there's some anesthesia involved. He probably tried to do himself. He's like, well, I don't know how to do it. He's got a set of pliers in his hands. Like, dude, you don't want to use those. That's not the tool for this job. I brought surgery to Russia. Let me do this.

Yeah, so Peter ends up expiring February 8th, 1725. And after that, Catherine is crowned the czar of Russia. And we see the second woman come to power leading this new Russian empire that is revamped and ready to go. I mean, that's a... Peter was a crazy man that seems to be kind of wildly cunning in his own ways. Like, how do you get taken down by gonorrhea, though? I mean, what's the fix for it back then? Oh, sorry, four pounds of blocked urine.

Oh, that's a lot of urine. As soon as I said two, I was like, two's a lot. But four is even fucking crazier. Yeah, you get taken down by your dick. I think you could probably trace a lot of rulers in history that in one way, shape, or form probably get taken down by their dick. Yeah? I also kind of wonder too, because again, this is in 1723.

When was it that he ends up, you know, his son ends up dying in 1718? I know syphilis is one of those things that eats weight your brain. Yes. Gonorrhea, I'm not sure. But I would imagine that if you have it for long enough, enough to where it gives you gangrene in your bladder, that might drive you a little bit crazy. Not giving them an out or anything like that, but it, just seems like it's so weird he like we were talking about this weird blend of of genius and

madness and everything because he was so interested in like doing this advancement and this modernization of Russia but he really was kind of a by any means necessary the rules don't apply to me type person and i mean i guess it catches up with you it certain point. Yeah, but at the same time, it wasn't like he was directing this stuff. He was so hands on with being able to learn it. It's like as he broadened his own horizons, it was in effect broadening the Russian horizons. Yeah. But he wanted to be the guy to learn at first so he could have kind of an understanding of how everything went. And he, it's, it's just brilliant madness. Like you say it was by any means necessary, we're going to drag Russia into this Western European

post-enlightenment, post-Reformation time zone that, I mean, I like him. I like what he did. Bad person, but at the same time, he was just so fun to learn about. In the grand scheme of things for historical figures, it's someone like, it's, it's both sides. Yeah. It kind of always, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's people. Like, we always want to think that these leaders and these, you know, recognize people in history where these epitomies of morality and shit like that and they're not. They do, you know, great things. And that's why they're remembered for them.

Here's the thing, too. A lot of this shit and the bad things about them don't come out till later. And then by that point, all the good that they did, people are like, yeah, but they, it's the fucking Michael Jackson thing. You're like, ah, he fucking did that to those kids. And then all of a sudden you're like, but thriller. It's certainly tough. I almost, I think maybe my adoration might be the right term or wrong term. But the reason that I feel the way I do about him is because all of these other kings kind of did their dirty, despicable things behind closed doors.

I don't think Peter really cared about that. No. Peter didn't have a desire to keep his drunkenness within the walls of the castle. He was just kind of a good time, Charlie were ever with. Peter was going to Peter. And he, I mean, there's a reason he's known as Peter the Great, and he was given that moniker by his people. And that moniker stayed it. It's not like it got tacked on like Ivan the Terrible, and that's how people know and everything.

He did really, regardless of doing it rather forcefully, he really did drag Russia out of its dark ages. and kind of bringing it to to its, you know, more modern place in the world. And it's kind of like we talked about before the episode. There's even, you know, fucking Putin even harkens back to comparisons, self-proclaimed comparisons or those prompted by him to fucking Peter the Great. And so he's definitely one of those people that's, although polarizing is definitely an iconic figure that people in the way, you know, in a different way than, you know, they look back at Stalin. And they're like, we don't like to talk about Stalin.

Like, Peter is one of those people that look back on. They're like, this guy's kind of like, you can't touch this guy. Yeah. Yeah. And if you enjoyed this, we're one into the Russian Empire. And the research I did into Catherine the Great is going to almost uphold these kind of same, just Russia is a wild place back then. And it still is. And Catherine the Great is not Catherine the first.

No. So it doesn't go straight from Peter the Great to Catherine the Great. Essentially, there's some time that goes down and how Catherine ends up coming into power is nuts. But as we leave you at this point, think of it this way. Essentially, the Romanov's, like Adam was saying, their dynasty lasted all the way up to 1918. We're just getting started with it. And all of a sudden after Peter, you now have someone that grew up as a peasant now ruling the Russian Empire. So that's going to make for some crazy shit happening down the law. I'm fucking excited to get into it. Absolutely. All right. You got anything else, man? No, I think we're good. All right, guys.

Well, thanks for joining us on another episode. We'll catch you on the next one. Peace. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us for another episode. If you like what you heard, hit that subscribe and like button. Follow us. If you didn't like what you heard, still hit that anyway because we'll probably cover something in the future that you do like. Please follow us on our social media.

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