St. Petersburg, 1718: An Early German Depiction NYPL, Map Division

From childhood, Peter’s behavior scandalized those conservatives who regarded Muscovite customs as sacred and foreigners as heretics. He surrounded himself with friends from the Foreign Quarter of Moscow, and in 1697 he became the first Russian ruler to go abroad since Ol'ga (in Ukrainian, Ol'ha, 890–969) in the 10th century. While claiming that he was traveling incognito, he took with him an entourage of 250 that included military men, diplomats, and dwarfs. This giant of a tsar aimed to learn everything he could about western technology and practices. For over a year, he toured museums, factories, and hospitals; inspected shipyards and examined artillery; studied architecture, engineering, book printing, and dentistry; and appalled fellow monarchs with his hard drinking and untidy manners. Hearing that the musketeers were attempting to place Sofiia on the throne, Peter interrupted his trip, raced back to Moscow, and unleashed his violent temper: he publicly executed 1,200 strel’tsy, sent the rest to Siberia, forced Sofiia to enter a convent, and divorced his wife and sent her to a nunnery, as well.

	Russia Learns the Art of French Fortifications NYPL, Slavic and Baltic Division

Fresh from his visits to England, Italy, Holland, and the Germanic states, the tsar proceeded to remodel Russians and their institutions along European lines. Among the elite, he liberated women from the isolation of the terem and forced men to shave their flowing beards, throw off their caftans (ankle-length robes common in Ottoman Turkey, Persia, and other West Asian lands), smoke tobacco, and have social gatherings with women. Many Orthodox faithful, especially Old Believers, branded him as the Antichrist. Further demonstrating his hatred for the Kremlin and the Muscovite way of life, Peter founded and personally drew up the plans for a new capital on the banks of the Neva River, which empties into the Baltic Sea. He forced the nobility and government to relocate on this swamp 500 miles northwest of Moscow, and eventually St. Petersburg became the grand “window on Europe” of which the emperor had dreamed. The marshy land and cold climate took the lives of thousands of laborers and the health of many more.

In his undeterred quest for westernization and the expansion of knowledge, Peter pursued a number of policies: he ordered young men to study abroad; he laid the foundations for the Russian school system and for an Academy of Sciences as well as the first museum; he ordered the translation of scientific and political books; and he simplified the alphabet, sponsored the printing of secular books, and established Russia’s first newspaper, the Sanktpeterburgskie Vedomosti (St. Petersburg Gazette).

Modeling the administration along the lines of other European states, principally Sweden, Peter instituted a senate to handle the system of justice and legislation. He also inaugurated twelve colleges, or ministries, to head military, financial, urban, and industrial affairs and introduced measures of local self-government. In addition, he created a police force with wide powers over law, order, morality, sanitation, and social services to “regularize” and “civilize” his subjects. Believing in a meritocracy, Peter instituted the Table of Ranks: anyone (including the tsar) who aspired to high office in military or civilian life had to work his way up through fourteen rungs on the promotional ladder. Also, while a devout believer in God, the tsar wished to reform the Russian Orthodox Church and ultimately make it more compliant to his will. He replaced the Patriarchate with a Holy Synod, a committee of ten overseen by a layman with the title of Procurator, and they took control of church affairs. These changes were such a departure from past practices that they constituted a revolution that brought Russia into the modern world. The most influential of the 18th-century writers, Voltaire (1694–1778), enthused: “At last Peter was born, and Russia was created.”