Chapter I
The childhood and youth of the prince

As soon as the first rays of the rising sun gilded the domes of the Kremlin cathedrals, the Orthodox evangelism informed the Russian people about the birth of the prince, to whom astrologers predicted a great future. The morning of May 30, 1672 was taking place outside.

His father, the autocrat of all Rus' Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, nicknamed the Quietest, was especially happy about the birth of his son. Married by a second marriage to Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, he hoped for a healthier offspring: his sons from his first marriage - Fedor and Ivan - had clear signs of the degeneration of the dynasty. At baptism, the younger prince received the name Peter and justified the hopes of his happy parents: he grew up a healthy, strong, beautiful, mobile and cheerful child, however, quite ordinary, without showing any special talents. Like thousands of other boys of that time, he was primarily interested in military amusements, for which the young prince had a complete toy arsenal - sabers, pikes, reeds, bows, arrows, squeakers, horses, drums, banners ... noble boyar families.

Peter was not even four years old when his father Alexei the Quietest died suddenly. The eldest son of the deceased tsar, Fedor, a 14-year-old boy, ascended the Moscow throne, suffering from a severe form of leg disease. At the throne of the young king, a struggle for power began between his maternal relatives Miloslavsky and the influential minister of the court Artamon Matveev, the tutor and benefactor of Peter's mother, behind whom was the Naryshkin clan. The confrontation ended with the fall of Matveev and the removal of the Naryshkins from the court. Natalya Kirillovna settled with her son in the village of Preobrazhenskoye near Moscow.

Fedor's disease progressed. The young king's legs were so swollen that he almost lost the ability to move. Shortly before his death, Fedor forgave Artamon Matveev, ordered him and the Naryshkin brothers to be returned from exile. Fedor reigned for six years, managed to marry twice, but left no offspring.

The question arose before the Boyar Duma: who should be king - Ivan or Peter? The first at that time was fifteen years old, the second - ten. Fedor did not leave clear instructions as to which of his brothers would inherit the Moscow throne. The weak-minded and half-blind Ivan, not only the state, was not able to manage himself. Peter is still too young. Despite the infancy of the younger prince, most of the boyars and Patriarch Joachim took his side. Some pointed to the birthright of Ivan. To finally resolve the issue, the boyars with the patriarch went to Red Square and asked for the voice of the people. Ivan's dementia was widely known. Following common sense, the people shouted for Peter. By tradition, his mother Natalya Kirillovna became the regent of the young tsar. The Naryshkins were back in power. Since Natalya Kirillovna was far from politics and did not understand anything in government, she urgently summoned her patron Artamon Matveev to Moscow. A threat hung over the Miloslavskys. They began to "boil the conspiracy" immediately - on the day of Fyodor's funeral.

Contrary to the customs of the Moscow Kremlin, Princess Sophia, the half-sister of the deceased, who was inseparably with Fedor during the last years of his life, appeared at the funeral ceremony. Status did not allow her to attend the funeral of the king. But smart, dexterous, energetic and very ambitious Sophia decided to oppose not only the old rites. Lamenting in front of a large crowd of people, she wailed about the “malicious” enemies who poisoned Tsar Fedor, hinted at the illegality of the election of Peter as Tsar to the detriment of her elder brother Ivan, complained about the heavy orphan’s fate, asked to be released alive to foreign Christian lands, if she was guilty of anything ... The political performance played by Sophia made a strong impression on the crowd - the Russian people always sympathize with those offended by the authorities.

The accession to the throne of Peter coincided with unrest in the archery army. Created under Ivan the Terrible, it turned into a special military caste. In peacetime, the archers carried out police and guard duty, accompanied the royal people, and put out fires. They lived in special settlements with their families, in their free time from the easy service they were engaged in privileged duty-free trade, crafts, trades, and regularly received generous gifts of money and food from the treasury. Streltsy were easily distinguished on the streets by bright coats, red belts, morocco boots and high velvet hats with sable edges.

But even under Fedor, the life of the archers began to change for the worse: they lost not only part of their privileges, but also faced the arbitrariness and greed of their superiors. Taking advantage of the weakness of the tsarist government, the archery colonels appropriated the salaries of their subordinates, used them to work on their own estates, extorted bribes, and subjected them to cruel punishments.

The injured archers submitted a petition to Natalya Kirillovna demanding that their commanders be punished. Otherwise, they threatened to deal with them personally. Needing the support of the streltsy army, Peter's mother ordered the arrest of sixteen colonels and removed the boyars from the government, objectionable to the streltsy. But this concession only further inflamed the streltsy passions. Realizing their strength, they did not want to wait for an investigation and an official trial of those arrested, threatening an uprising, and demanded that the colonels be handed over to them for immediate reprisal. Patriarch Joachim unsuccessfully tried to persuade the archers to wait for the royal court, rightly believing that the streltsy lynching would serve as a bad example and a reason for general disrespect for the authorities. Natalya Kirillovna was completely at a loss. As never before in this turbulent time, she needed the support of Artamon Matveev, who was delayed on his way to Moscow. Unable to pacify the agitated archers, she followed the cowardly and unreasonable advice of the Boyar Duma: she handed over those arrested for arbitrary reprisals.

Accused of abuse, the colonels were publicly thrown to the ground, beaten with batogs (sticks) and whipped until the archers considered the punishment sufficient. The cruel procedure was applied to especially hated bosses several times. To the cries and groans of the tortured archers, they announced clearly inflated amounts of money owed to them by former commanders. The execution continued until the archers got everything they demanded from them.

Feeling their strength, the archers completely unbelted: they wandered around Moscow in drunken crowds, oppressed the townspeople, robbed merchant shops, threatened with reprisals against the hated boyars, who tried to call them to discipline, the chiefs were thrown from the tower. Passions ran high in Moscow.

The Miloslavskys quickly figured out how to use the combustible material to their advantage. Rumors appeared in the Streltsy settlements that the Naryshkins not only poisoned Tsar Fedor, but also planned to lime Tsarevich Ivan, that Peter was not the son of Alexei the Quietest at all, but the fruit of the queen’s fornication, her brother Ivan Naryshkin intends to become king, put on royal clothes, sat on the throne and tried on a crown; the new government intends in the near future to pacify the archers with the most drastic measures, definitively deprive them of their privileges, put an end to their arbitrariness and liberties, move the archer regiments away from the capital ... Rumors were reinforced by the distribution of money and generous promises.

Natalya Kirillovna Artamona Matveeva was waiting like manna from heaven. The Miloslavskys also prepared for the meeting. To lull Matveev's vigilance, a delegation of archers greeted him with bread and salt. Influential boyars from various sides showed him signs of respect and recognition, as the future de facto ruler of the Russian state.

Artamon Sergeevich Matveev is an amazing person, one of the first Russian people who was keenly interested in the achievements of the Western world at a time when everything foreign was perceived in the Moscow state as an extremely hostile and harmful influence of Catholics and Protestants mired in heresy. The mere fact that he was married to a Scottish woman did not fit into any Russian medieval framework. The European-style Matveev's house was probably the first Russian secular salon, where the most enlightened people of that time gathered. Widely educated, speaking several foreign languages, including Greek and Latin, he collected an extensive library and put a lot of work into spreading European culture and science in medieval Muscovy, paying special attention to medicine, history, book publishing, and theater. A skilled diplomat, courtier and warrior, Matveev once commanded the archery army, therefore he knew the fermented environment well. The Naryshkins and their supporters hoped that he would tame the archers, and then become a mentor and leader of young Peter. However, the Miloslavsky party did not doze off. Everything was ready for the coup, it only remained to bring the fuse to the gunpowder.

On May 15, 1682, riders galloped through the streltsy quarters, shouting the terrible news as they went: "The Naryshkins strangled Tsarevich Ivan!" The archers sounded the alarm and from all sides, fully armed, ran to the Kremlin to punish the hated boyars. The order to lock the Kremlin gates came too late. Having overturned guard posts, killing boyar serfs along the way, a crowd of angry archers broke into the Kremlin. Everywhere their cries were heard: “Tsarevich Ivan is killed! Death to the Naryshkins! We demand the extradition of the murderers, otherwise we will put everyone to death!

The meeting of the Duma has just ended in the Palace of Facets. Hearing the rage of the crowd, most of the Duma boyars rushed about in horror, hid in the most remote corners of the palace. In order to dispel the false rumor and calm the raging archers, Matveev, maintaining complete self-control, advised Natalya Kirillovna to take both princes to the Red Porch.

The appearance of a living and unharmed Ivan cooled the ardor of the archers. The most agile of them set up a ladder to the porch, climbed straight up to the prince. Convinced that there is no substitution here, and Ivan has no malice towards anyone and does not complain about anything, the rebellious army finally fell silent. Patriarch Joachim, Artamon Matveev, head of the Streltsy department Mikhail Dolgoruky and several other noble boyars stood behind the princes and the queen. Matveev descended from the porch and addressed the archers with a friendly speech, reminded them of the glorious victories won with them on the battlefield, reminded them of the oath given to the popularly elected Tsar Peter. It seemed that the incident was over and one could expect that the archers would go home, but then shouts were heard in the crowd: “Let the younger brother give the crown to the elder, we will not let Ivan offend! The Naryshkins and Matveev poisoned Tsar Fedor, death to them! Tsarina Natalya - to the monastery! Streltsov was again seized with rage, many of them drank vodka for courage, the arguments of reason could no longer reason with anyone, the crowd was thirsty for blood.

Patriarch Joachim began to persuade the rebels to calm down and go home, but few listened to him: there were many schismatics among the archers. Seeing that persuasion was useless, Mikhail Dolgoruky threatened them with a gallows and a stake for disobedience. This threat turned out to be the last straw that overflowed the cup of archery hatred.

Seized with rage, several people ran up to the porch, seized Dolgoruky, and, to the cries of the crowd, “Lubo! any!” they dropped him on the archery spears that had been set up. Chopping the body of Dolgoruky into pieces with reeds, the archers clung to Matveev. In vain Natalya Kirillovna and Prince Cherkassky tried to protect him. The queen was unceremoniously shoved aside, the prince was beaten, after which Matveev was thrown onto the peaks after Dolgoruky and the body was also shredded. To the jubilant cries of the rebels, Natalya Kirillovna, in horror, dragged the princes into the inner chambers of the Kremlin. During this terrible scene, young Peter did not make a single sound, his face remained impassive, his body motionless. Probably the shock was so great that the ten-year-old boy was in complete prostration.

The archers broke into the palace, and the massacre began according to a pre-compiled list, which included more than forty names. The running around, the crackling of broken doors, screams, abuse, groans, lamentations and pleas for mercy were drowned out by the beat of archery drums coming from the street. Archers searched every corner, looked into chests, ripped up featherbeds, poked spears under beds... Even temples could not protect the doomed... Finding another victim, the rebels killed her with sophisticated cruelty, some were cruelly tortured before death, cynically mocked the corpses. A sea of ​​rage and blood spilled onto the city streets. Pogroms of government institutions began, murders and robberies of wealthy citizens, officials, random people ...

By evening, a storm hit Moscow, it seemed that the end of the world was coming ... Having cordoned off the Kremlin and its surrounding areas with a dense ring of guards, the archers, feeling like full masters of the city, went home to celebrate the death of their enemies. But this was not the end of the bloody drama ... Ivan Naryshkin, the brother of Natalya Kirillovna, who was especially hated by the archers for his arrogance, arrogance and love of power, remained alive.

Arriving at the Kremlin the next day, the rebels presented an ultimatum: either they would be given the tsarina's brother, or they would slaughter all the boyars who had escaped death the day before. This was not an empty threat, everyone understood that after yesterday's massacre, the archers had nothing to lose. The surviving boyars on their knees begged Natalya Kirillovna to sacrifice her brother in order to save many other lives, perhaps including her own and young Peter.

All this time, Ivan Naryshkin was hiding under a pile of mattresses in the room of Peter's younger sister Natalya. Having made a difficult forced decision, the queen ordered to bring her brother, who courageously listened to the decision of his fate. After confessing and taking communion, he calmly went out to his executioners.

The triumphant archers grabbed Naryshkin by the hair, dragged him to the torture chamber, demanded a confession that he had made an attempt on the life of Tsarevich Ivan. The queen's brother was hung on a rack, flogged with a whip, burned with a red-hot iron, broken ribs and joints, but he never admitted his guilt. Tortured and broken, he was publicly raised on spears, cut into pieces, dumped in the mud and impaled on stakes for all to see. Ivan Naryshkin was only 23 years old.

The terror continued for several more days. Natalya Kirillovna looked after Peter, who had collapsed in a fever, and trembled with fear for her own and her son's future. Having destroyed sixty boyars, the rebels took a break and, threatening further reprisals, demanded that both brothers reign, with Ivan, as the eldest, becoming the first king, and Peter the second. The Duma and the Patriarch resignedly obeyed and even gave positive examples of dual power from the history of Sparta, Egypt, Byzantium. But who will really rule the country? Ivan is weak-minded, Peter is still a child. Sagittarius wished that Princess Sophia became the regent. All key positions in the state were occupied by its supporters. Natalya Kirillovna and Peter were again removed to Preobrazhenskoye. The surviving Naryshkins and their supporters were exiled, others fled Moscow themselves. The victory of the Miloslavskys was complete. The archers feasted in the Kremlin, Sophia personally carried them with wine from the Kremlin cellars.

The bloody scenes of the Streltsy rebellion could not but affect the psyche of young Peter. The terrible death of people close to him haunted him all his life, affected the formation of his personality - the young king grew up a nervous, unrestrained, restless, impressionable boy, prone to the manifestation of unbridled rage and cruelty. He was haunted by nightmares, in moments of anger his face would grimace with convulsions, attacks of epilepsy, which he probably suffered from birth, became more frequent.

In Preobrazhensky, Peter was left to himself, not bound by palace ceremonial, he could allow himself to follow his natural inclinations, which later made up his bright personality. Military amusements continued to absorb all his attention, new comrades for games appeared - the artless sons of the yard servants. Most boys love to play war, and the little king has the opportunity to play almost real war. Very soon, the amusing guards of Peter changed the wooden sabers and squeaked for military weapons, up to cannons.

Tall, strong and hardy, the young king was interested in crafts, he spent whole days in the forge. The sight of red-hot iron, the scattering of sparks fascinated him. The people marveled at the eccentricities of Peter - it’s not the royal business to swing a hammer and fire cannons in company with grooms and serfs.

Peter was taken care of by his uncles (tutors) Boris Golitsyn and Tikhon Streshnev. He considered the latter to be his father. The young tsar was sympathized with, the representatives of noble families who suffered from the archers tried to be useful to him - primarily Dolgoruky and Romodanovsky. When Peter was fourteen years old, Yakov Dolgoruky, noticing his new passion for overseas technical curiosities, told him about a device with which "you can measure distances without leaving your place." Peter caught fire, asked to get him such an instrument. Dolgoruky, who was on a diplomatic mission in France, brought the promised gift to the tsar - an astrolabe. Peter immediately asked to be shown how to use such an amazing device. Neither Dolgoruky, nor anyone else from the environment of the young king had the slightest idea about this. The situation was saved by Peter's personal doctor, a German, who promised to ask around knowledgeable people in the German Quarter, where foreigners lived. On his next visit, the doctor brought with him the Dutchman Franz Timmerman, a carpenter and merchant who had some knowledge of engineering, but Peter did not understand anything from the Dutchman's explanations - he did not know either arithmetic or geometry. Until now, no one has been engaged in a serious education of Peter, he read with difficulty, and wrote even worse. From the day he met Timmerman, another powerful passion for life awakened in him - to knowledge. The Dutchman not only became his teacher, but also a comrade, although he was almost thirty years older than his student. In his studies, Peter showed diligence and brilliant abilities. Timmerman did not have extensive knowledge, teaching was reduced to a simple presentation of the basic rules of arithmetic and geometry, but his student grasped everything on the fly, reached many intricacies of science with his own mind. With particular interest, he listened to the course on fortification and the construction of fortresses; The acquired knowledge was immediately put into practice.

In the vicinity of Preobrazhensky village, a whole military town grew up - barracks, arsenals, fortifications. The fortress of Pressburg was built on the banks of the Yauza. Peter's war games were becoming more and more serious, the number of amusing soldiers was growing, and weapons were being purchased. Everyone from the surrounding villages of Semenovskoye, Izmailovo, Vorobyevo was accepted into the service of the young tsar, regardless of the “breed”, if only the recruits had a desire for military science, were diligent in teaching, quick-witted, nimble and executive. Along with the grooms and lackeys, the offspring of noble Moscow families comprehended the tactics of hostilities - the future field marshal Mikhail Golitsyn began his military career as a drummer, however, like Peter himself. The commanders of the "amusing robots" in military affairs were mainly foreign officers, who were attracted through Boris Golitsyn, who had extensive connections in the German Quarter. In 1987, from soldiers trained according to Western models, Peter formed two battalions, from which the Russian guard later grew - the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky regiments.

Naturally, all this could not help but worry Sophia and the Miloslavskys, who were in power, although outwardly they did not show much concern, they represented the shooting in Preobrazhensky as extravagant tomfoolery. Clever and very ambitious Sophia, whose dreams stretched to the very royal crown, could not help but understand that the battalions of her half-brother could interfere with her dizzying plans. But with all her desire, she could not forbid Peter's "fun". He was the king, all orders for the purchase of weapons, uniforms, recruitment of recruits were carried out by official letters through the Duma and Orders. Failure to comply with the king's demand is tantamount to a death sentence. Also, Peter replenished his arsenals through intermediaries in the German Quarter in the form of gifts from foreigners, which were generally not subject to government control.

Sophia could solve the problem of Peter, for whom time worked, in only one way - to eliminate the growing rival and become the sovereign autocrat herself. Brother Ivan, the first tsar, was not at all interested in power, most of all he wanted to live a private life in a country estate. The regent could no longer fully rely on the archers again: many of them were dissatisfied with her rule, while the new coup seemed too risky to others. Attempts to carefully probe the ground for accession to the throne turned out to be depressing: Patriarch Joachim answered with a categorical refusal, the boyars could not even imagine a woman on the Moscow throne in a nightmare - this did not fit into the Russian monarchical traditions of the late 17th century. But Sophia, who had tasted the sweetness of power, now found it very difficult to give it up.

While examining the Izmailovsky barns for all sorts of interesting and useful things to him, Peter came across an old rotten sea boat that belonged to his grandfather Nikita Ivanovich Romanov, which was once used for walking along the Moscow River. This meeting turned out to be fateful not only for Peter, but for the whole country. He was fascinated by the sharp keel, the graceful contours of the sides, the upturned nose. The young king had never seen anything like it before. Timmerman explained that such vessels are used in the navy with large ships for communications, transportation of goods, reconnaissance of the coast, landings, rescue of the crew in case of a shipwreck. Peter was especially struck by the fact that, unlike the Pomeranian boat, the boat is able to sail both with the wind and against it. Greatly surprised, he was inflamed with the idea of ​​​​repairing the ship, equipping it and personally testing all its capabilities. But are there people who are knowledgeable in this matter? Timmerman knew them. Carsten Brand, a Dutch carpenter, lived in the German Sloboda, who, under Alexei Tishaish, took part in the construction of the first and only Russian warship Orel, burned by Stepan Razin on the Oka right at the pier. Brand quickly put the bot in order, which was tested on the Yauza. The narrow river was not suitable for sea maneuvers - the boat now and then rested on its banks. The local millet pond also turned out to be insufficiently spacious for the young tsar's new hobby, which gripped him imperiously and swiftly, for the rest of his life. He ordered the boat to be delivered to Pereslavskoye (Plescheyevo) Lake, located one hundred and twenty miles from Moscow. Here, under the guidance of Brand, he comprehended the science of sailing and decided to build several more ships.

Natalya Kirillovna was worried about her adored Petrusha: he was in his seventeenth year, his son grew almost three arshins tall, but everything would not calm down, he indulges in fun, like a small child. We should marry him. Settle down, take over the mind. She also found a bride - Evdokia Lopukhina, a pretty, well-behaved girl, brought up according to the canons of "Domostroy", a kind of not rich, but ancient and very numerous. The last circumstance was especially important - the Naryshkin clan, pretty chopped up by archers, needed new allies. Peter was coming of age, and if Sophia did not voluntarily cede power to her younger brothers, a new struggle for the Moscow throne would begin.

Peter did not resist the will of his mother, whom he loved very much. The wedding took place at the end of January 1689. But as soon as the snow melted in the spring, he left his young wife in Preobrazhenskoye and again went to Pereslavskoye Lake. Ships interested him much more than women.

From time to time, Peter was obliged to attend meetings of the Boyar Duma, Orthodox holidays, and take part in solemn palace ceremonies. He enthusiastically sang on the kliros in churches, but he could not stand the endless and tiresome Kremlin rituals, which he tried to avoid as much as possible.

Work on the construction of ships on Lake Pereslavl was in full swing. Peter worked with enthusiasm and passion, but in the middle of summer, at the urgent request of his mother, he had to return to Moscow to participate in the feast of the icon of the Kazan Mother of God. After the service in the Assumption Cathedral, a religious procession was supposed, in which men usually took part. Previously, for Sophia, as a co-ruler, an exception was made. But this time, Peter told his sister to leave. It was a clear hint that the young tsar was ready to take control of the state into his own hands. Sophia silently ignored the words of her fledgling brother, picked up the icon of the Mother of God and led the solemn procession. Peter in a rage left the Kremlin.

To an even greater extent, he was outraged by the celebrations on the occasion of the return of Vasily Golitsyn, Sophia's favorite, from a campaign in the Crimea. Despite the failure of the military campaign, the government, saving face, declared it a victory and did not skimp on generous rewards for dubious deeds. Peter defiantly refused to participate in the cheap farce. When the favorite, accompanied by his comrades-in-arms, arrived at Preobrazhenskoye for an expression of royal gratitude, the young tsar did not even accept them. Now Sophia flared up with anger.

Provoking a conflict, Peter followed the advice of Boris Golitsyn and Lev Naryshkin, who returned from exile, who decided to claim the rights of the young tsar. Peter himself at that time was only interested in work at the shipyard. If it were his will, he would immediately return to Pereslavskoye Lake, but now there was no time for the construction of ships. The situation heated up every day. Boris Golitsyn believed that Sophia, thirsting for sole power, planned to destroy Peter. Sophia was afraid of a sudden attack on the Kremlin by the Preobrazhensky battalions. The two warring camps closely watched each other.

On the evening of August 7, an anonymous letter is found in the Kremlin chambers. It reported that at night Peter was preparing to attack the Kremlin in order to deal with Sophia and Tsar Ivan. Sophia immediately took action: she ordered all the gates to be locked, and she sent seven hundred archers to protect the government. Among them were secret supporters of Peter, who decided that Sophia decided to attack Preobrazhenskoye. They immediately hastened to inform the king of the mortal danger.

Peter was awakened in the middle of the night. Probably, terrible pictures of the Streltsy rebellion of seven years ago flashed through his memory. Animal horror seized the young king, his face twisted into a nervous tic. In a panic, he jumped out of bed, rushed to the stable, jumped on his horse in one shirt and disappeared into the nearby forest. Gavriil Golovkin, Peter's bed-keeper and future chancellor of the empire, found his master buried in the bushes in an extremely confused and depressed state. Feverishly dressed in the brought clothes and boots, Peter galloped to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. Completely exhausted, he got there early in the morning. The monks took him off his horse, picked him up by the arms, and put him to bed. But Peter could not sleep, every now and then he jumped up, rushing from corner to corner. When the abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Vikenty, appeared, he burst into tears, in a trembling voice asked for protection and patronage. The archimandrite kindly reassured the king, assured him that he was completely safe behind the walls of the Trinity.

In the evening of the same day, Boris Golitsyn arrived at the monastery. He told Peter that the Preobrazhensky battalions were following the Trinity, the Sukharevsky Streltsy Regiment had gone over to the side of the tsar, that he had foreseen such a development of events, had a plan of action and was confident in a successful outcome. The composure and confidence of the uncle helped Peter regain his composure. The nervous, overly impressionable king, subject to a sharp change in mood, had to make tremendous efforts in the future to cultivate courage, determination and courage.

The ratio of the warring parties at that time was seven to three in favor of Sophia, but Boris Golitsyn believed that half of the archers and regiments of the foreign system could be pulled over to the side of Peter. Messengers with royal letters rushed from the Trinity to Moscow. The tsar ordered all archery colonels and elected archers, ten people from each regiment, to immediately come to him to solve an important state matter. Sophia declared royal letters anonymous and, under pain of death, forbade the archers to move; held before them a strong speech, called for fidelity.

Sophia made several attempts to persuade her brother to return to Moscow, explained that she had called the archers under the walls of the Kremlin for her own escort on a pilgrimage, and offered to end the matter amicably. Peter didn't react. Then she sent the most authoritative negotiator to the Trinity - Patriarch Joachim. This decision turned out to be a political mistake for her: the patriarch stayed with Peter, expressing his support for him.

The Streltsy regiments were in indecision and doubts - their heads were the stake in the feuds of the royal family. In such a perilous position, the right choice must be made quickly. At the end of August, five streltsy regiments went over to the side of Peter, their colonels testified that the head of the Streltsy order, Fyodor Shaklovity, incited them to carry out a palace coup in order to put Sophia on the throne. Peter demanded the extradition of Shaklovity to search for a state crime case. Sophia answered with a categorical refusal.

Following the archers, the command of the tsar to appear under his eyes was also received by the commanders of the regiments of the foreign system. Colonel Patrick Gordon showed the royal charter to Vasily Golitsyn, his immediate superior, asked for his advice, but Sophia's favorite did not say anything definite, was confused and inactive. Foreign commanders decided that the future belongs to Peter and the very next day they kissed the hand of the tsar, who offered everyone a glass of vodka, including Colonel Franz Lefort, who was introduced to him, who soon became his closest friend and mentor.

The scales of political confrontation began to clearly tilt towards Peter. The archers who remained in Moscow came to the Kremlin and, threatening Sophia with a riot, demanded that Fyodor Shaklovity be handed over to Tsar Fedor Shaklovity - he was to become their expiatory sacrifice, which would satisfy the tsar's wrath for failure to comply with the order. The boyars surrounding Sophia fell at her feet, shouted that they would all be lost if she did not yield. The townspeople, fearing a new massacre, took refuge behind strong bolts. Sophia, in hopeless despair, succumbed to the rebellious archers. Shaklovity was taken to Trinity, where, under torture, he admitted that he planned to set fire to Preobrazhenskoye and, in the confusion, on the sly, kill Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna, but he denied accusations of preparing an attempt on the life of the tsar. After five days of interrogation and torture, he was publicly executed with two accomplices, three others were flogged with whips, their tongues were cut and sent to Siberia.

The events took on an irreversible character, saving their lives, the ruler's associates left her. Archers in droves went over to the side of Peter. Vasily Golitsyn appeared at Trinity with a confession. The life of Sophia's favorite hung in the balance - Shaklovity testified against him as well. Thanks to the efforts of cousin Boris, the deposed favorite escaped with exile. Sophia, on the orders of the tsar, retired to the Novodevichy Convent.

Two months after the stampede from Preobrazhensky, Peter solemnly entered Moscow. The archers, who remained faithful to Sophia until the last hour, as a sign of humility and trusting in the mercy of the sovereign, lay down along the road on the block with stuck axes. Peter generously forgave them.

In the Kremlin, he was met by his brother Ivan, who all this time remained neutral. The two kings embraced. The crowd rejoiced and wept with emotion. Peter always treated his sick older brother very warmly.

Chapter 2
Youth of the king

Peter became a sovereign king, but he was not interested in power. He left all state affairs to be dealt with by his mother's inner circle - Lev Naryshkin, Boris Golitsyn, Tikhon Streshnev, and he himself returned to his former hobbies, to which was added a passion for fireworks. Her inspiration was Colonel Patrick Gordon, who was well acquainted with pyrotechnics.

Gordon was thirty-eight years older than Peter, which did not prevent him from becoming close to the young king immediately after the fall of Sophia. A Scottish mercenary, he left his homeland as a young man, for many years he sold his services to the Germans, Swedes, Poles, until thirty years ago he settled in Russia. Such an experienced warrior interested Peter, the king needed such a mentor - his fun went to a new, higher level. Especially for Peter, Gordon arranged maneuvers for his Butyrsky regiment, drilled according to the advanced canons of Western military science. The tsar especially admired the actions of the grenadier company, first created by Gordon in the Russian army.

The Scot took up the military education of the king. Peter took books from him on artillery, fortification, history and geography, worked with the Scot on experiments on creating grenades, and improved his skills in cannon shooting. Gordon possessed not only deep knowledge of military affairs, he was a multilaterally educated person of the European type. He carried on extensive correspondence with foreign correspondents and was aware of all the important political news in Western Europe, subscribed from England for newspapers, books, maps, tools, weapons, scientific publications of the Royal Society.

On February 18, 1690, Tsarina Evdokia gave birth to a son, Alexei. To celebrate, Peter ordered the firing of cannons, which was a completely new manifestation of celebrations, alarmed all of Moscow.

On the occasion of the national holiday, the tsar invited Gordon to the Kremlin to the solemn table. Patriarch Joachim resolutely opposed this, reprimanded the tsar that it was unsuitable for foreign heretics to be present at court in such cases. The authority of the patriarch was so high that Peter did not dare to disobey, but the next day he paid a visit to the offended Gordon, dined with him outside the city and had friendly conversations on the way back.

The capital was overwhelmed with endless holidays. Feasts and parties were accompanied by the most extreme manifestations of the jubilation of the Russian soul - brawls, fights, violence, pogroms of shops and total idleness. The mountain feast lasted for a whole month - until the death of the patriarch.

Joachim bequeathed to the Russian tsars not to get close to the Gentiles, not to appoint them to the highest positions, to prohibit the construction of Catholic and Protestant churches in the German Quarter, to demolish those already erected, to introduce the death penalty for those who incline Orthodox Christians to another faith. However, Peter was already old enough to blindly follow the calls of the late patriarch, he was imperiously attracted to knowledge that he could only receive from foreigners.

The young tsar proposed to elect as the new patriarch the Pskov Metropolitan Markell, who was distinguished by liberalism and breadth of views, who traveled widely, knew Latin, French and Italian. Natalya Kirillovna and the majority of church dignitaries spoke in favor of the Kazan Metropolitan Adrian, arguing their choice by the fact that Markell spoke "barbarian" dialects, had a beard of insufficient length, his coachman sat on a goat, and not on a horse, as it should be. Peter gave in. He wanted to put an end to the election of a new patriarch as soon as possible and return to his old way of life.

The advanced military knowledge received from Gordon, he longed to work out in practice. Regular exercises began as close as possible to hostilities, with the use of all types of weapons. The battles were so fierce that they did not do without the wounded and dead. Peter himself was once severely burned in the face with gunpowder, Gordon was wounded in the leg.

Mars "fun" was replaced by Neptune. On May 1, 1691, the tsar launched the first ship built on Lake Pereslavl - a small yacht. Then several more small ships left the stocks. The maritime glory of Russia began with this flotilla.

Peter preferred to rest from his labors in the German Quarter. It was a completely different world from patriarchal Moscow, into which Patrick Gordon introduced the young tsar.

Located on the Yauza River, just two versts from Preobrazhensky, Nemetskaya Sloboda was a small Western European town with straight streets, neat, ivy-covered brick houses, green alleys, flower beds and even fountains - an unprecedented luxury for those times. Cleanliness and exemplary order reigned everywhere. The contrast with the chaotically built-up wooden Moscow, dusty and cluttered, with stinking gutters, domestic animals roaming the streets, was striking. Cozy dwellings were furnished by foreigners with beautiful comfortable furniture - damask armchairs, elegant chairs, round tables on one leg, walls were decorated with mirrors, paintings and engravings, when, as in the houses of Moscow inhabitants, wretched simplicity reigned - benches along long rough tables, massive chests in the corners and ancient smoked images.

A variety of people lived in the German Quarter - from adventurers and adventurers to political emigrants expelled from their homeland and victims of religious intolerance. They all came to Russia to look for a better life. Germans, Dutch, Livonians, Swedes, Swiss, English, Spaniards, French, Italians... Different in birth, language and faith, they showed amazing loyalty to each other, they were the best doctors, engineers, artists, teachers, merchants, jewelers in Moscow, officers ... In the settlement, foreigners erected their churches and schools, staged performances, read novels, played music on the harpsichords, held balls and masquerades, for which ladies ordered exquisite toilets from London, Berlin and Amsterdam. In Russia, however, public life was limited to visiting Orthodox churches and wall-to-wall fist fights; there were no comprehensive schools at all. The connection of foreigners with Europe was never interrupted, they closely followed the events in their homeland, most of them hoped to return home sooner or later.

But not clean streets and flower beds mainly attracted Peter here - many brilliantly educated people lived here, benevolent, courteous, easy and interesting in communication. Through Patrick Gordon, the Tsar became intimately acquainted with the Swiss Franz Lefort, who became his closest and most intimate friend.

Lefort left his father's house when he was fifteen years old. He studied commerce in France, but dreamed of military service, which he began in Holland under the banner of William III of Orange, distinguished himself in battles with the French, and risked his life more than once. When the war ended, Lefort decided to continue his career in distant Muscovy.

Tall, strong and handsome, an excellent rider, swordsman and archer, the Swiss attracted Peter's attention not so much with his knowledge and education as with his personality. Lively, witty, resourceful, open, good-natured and cheerful, Lefort was distinguished by a rare charm. A wonderful storyteller and a passionate admirer of the fairer sex, he most of all valued pleasure in life, was the soul of the company, spoke six languages, flaunted refined manners and French outfits. Under the influence of a new friend, the tsar ordered himself a foreign dress, a wig and a sword on an embroidered golden sling, but he dared to put on "basurman" clothes only in the German Quarter.

Visiting Lefort's house, Peter drew attention to the servant of the Swiss - Aleksashka. Nimble, executive and quick-witted, foreseeing all the desires of a distinguished guest, the tsar liked him so much that Peter took him into his service as a batman, from whom the Most Serene Prince, Duke, Admiral and Field Marshal of the Empire Alexander Danilovich Menshikov later grew up.

Lefort had a great talent for arranging merry feasts and taught the young king to drink and smoke. Sometimes the feasts lasted for several days without a break, numerous guests drank themselves to the point of falling, but Lefort himself always remained on his feet, retained his common sense, regardless of the amount of wine consumed, which brought Peter to complete admiration. Local ladies were invited to the holidays with music, dances and games. Unlike Russian women, doomed to live as recluses in towers at the spinning wheel, modest, bashful, downtrodden and devout, foreign women enjoyed a sufficient degree of independence, broadmindedness, were well educated, read novels, played music, danced with gentlemen, knew how to lead an easy and relaxed conversation. Some of them were famous for freedom of morals unprecedented for Moscow, which gave the process a special intrigue. The Russian tsar learned the old German dance Grosvater, which he liked very much.

At one of these holidays, Lefort introduced Peter to Anna Mons, the daughter of a wine merchant. A charming German woman, cheerful, courteous and desirable, captivated the king. The experience of the king in the female part was limited to yard girls and his wife, for whom he never experienced anything but youthful sexual curiosity and in the field of high relations remained a mere baby. Passionate and addicted nature, Peter fell in love immediately, at full gallop.

Like any real man, he did not allow himself to be carried away by women so much as to forget about business. Leaving his beloved, Peter began to prepare for the "sea" campaign. He was so absorbed in the maneuvers on Lake Pereslavl that he frankly neglected his representative functions in the Kremlin. In Moscow, the Persian ambassador was waiting for the royal audience. In order to avoid a diplomatic scandal, Lev Naryshkin and Boris Golitsyn personally arrived at the shipyard to persuade the tsar to respect the distinguished guest with their attention. Having learned that the ambassador brought him a lion and a lioness as a gift, Peter agreed - he was always interested in everything new and unusual.

The young king began to awaken interest in international affairs. He began to closely follow the claims of the French king Louis XIV to continental domination, against which almost all of Europe was united. When the English fleet won a brilliant victory over the French at Cape La Hogue, the Russian Tsar celebrated this event on Lake Pereslavl with a volley from the cannons of his small flotilla and, in a fit of enthusiasm, even expressed a desire to take part in the war against Louis on the side of the British. Through the Dutch ambassador Keller, Peter began a correspondence with the mayor of Amsterdam, Nicholas Witsen, in which they discussed the prospects for the development of trade with Persia and China. The stories of Lefort and Yakov Dolgoruky about the rich and prosperous Holland made a deep impression on the young tsar, he was fascinated by this amazing country, whose ships plowed all known seas and oceans.

Peter was getting crowded on Lake Pereslavl, youthful amusements were receding into the past, he irresistibly wanted to see the real sea and large sea ships, to look beyond the edge of the horizon ...

The only Russian seaport of that time was located on the shores of the White Sea - Arkhangelsk. The way from Moscow is far and unsafe. The young king went to ask his mother for permission to travel. Natalya Kirillovna persisted for a long time, but could not resist the persistence of her beloved Petrusha, she unwillingly blessed her on the way, but took his word from him that she would not go by sea, but only look at the ships.

The farewell to the tsar continued in the German settlement for three days and three nights, culminating in cannon fire with colorful fireworks, to which Moscow had already begun to get used. On July 4, 1693, the tsar, accompanied by his closest friends and a detachment of archers, set off on his first long journey. It turned out to be a real adventure and a major event in his life. We got to Vologda on horseback, then moved on longboats by water - along the Sukhona and Northern Dvina rivers. On July 30, Arkhangelsk greeted the sovereign of all Rus' with a cannon salute, which greatly pleased the tsar.

The gloomy White Sea shocked Peter. The earth had never seemed so huge and powerful to him. The boundless water element, leaving for unknown distances, filled the king's soul with such delight as he had never experienced before.

Peter plunged headlong into the hustle and bustle of port life. He examined with interest the English, German, Dutch ships that stood in the roadstead, watched their unloading and loading, visited the offices of foreign merchants, warehouses, customs, and asked about trade. In Europe, Russian furs, caviar, mast timber, hemp, leather, walrus ivory, honey, wax were highly valued ... Among foreign goods, fabrics, metals and metal products, weapons, glass utensils, paints, paper, wine, fruits, salt were imported ... Sovereign gladly accepted the invitations of foreign captains to dine on board the ship, played skittles with them, talked for a long time about sea routes to Europe. He also went to port taverns, easily sat down with sailors to taste overseas wine in a cheerful company. One thing was upsetting: in the only Russian port there was not a single large Russian merchant ship. Compared with foreign ships, Pomeranian boats seemed like child's play.

Peter appointed his friend Fyodor Apraksin governor of Arkhangelsk and instructed him to lay a merchant ship at the local shipyard. The tsar ordered another vessel to the Amsterdam burgomaster Witsen - a frigate in full combat armament.

When the merchant ships loaded with goods were preparing to weigh anchors, Peter, despite his mother's promise, decided to go to sea with Timmerman on a small yacht to see them off on a long journey. The king rejoiced in the rolling and the free wind like a child. At the borders of the Dvina Bay, a high wave went, the yacht shook hard, the king, who was standing at the helm, was doused with a fountain of cold water. With difficulty, Timmerman convinced Peter to turn back - it was too dangerous to go further on such a small vessel. The first sea voyage, which lasted six days, made an indelible impression on the king - it could not even compare close to his amusing maneuvers on Lake Pereslavl. The sea and the fleet became his main love and destiny for life. In the autumn he arrived in Moscow with the firm intention of returning to Arkhangelsk the following summer.

At the end of January 1694, Natalya Kirillovna died. The queen died quickly, within five days. Heartbroken, Peter retired to Preobrazhenskoye and endured his pain in solitude, as he would always do so that those around him would not see his weakness. The son was not present either at the funeral or at the funeral of his mother, which caused gossip, misunderstanding and condemnation. Peter came to the grave a few days later, alone mourned his dearly beloved mother, after which he went to the German Quarter, where he quickly recovered from grief in the circle of friends. By his nature, the king was not able to indulge in inaction, despair and sadness for a long time, which in many respects influenced both his life and the fate of the country as a whole in the future.

In the month of May, Peter again went to Arkhangelsk, where the ship "St. Paul" built by Apraksin was waiting for him on the stocks. The king himself cut the supports and, under the thunder of cannons, lowered him into the water. Peter was impatient to go out to sea again. On the yacht, which he tried last year with Timmerman, he sailed to the Solovetsky Islands.

There was a storm along the way. The sky was torn apart by thunder and lightning, the downpour was pouring down like a solid wall. The yacht was bursting at all seams, burying its nose into the raging sea to the very top. High lead waves threatened to crush the ship. The collapse seemed inevitable, courageously preparing for death, the tsar and his companions partook of the holy mysteries from the hands of the Dvin Archbishop Athanasius, who accompanied the expedition. The situation was saved by the Pomeranian helmsman Antip Timofeev, who was on board, who skillfully and calmly brought the yacht to the Letniy Shore and hid it in Unskaya Bay. On the occasion of the happy deliverance from death, Peter himself made a wooden cross and hoisted it in the place where he stepped onto the saving shore. Returning to Arkhangelsk, the tsar generously rewarded Antip Timofeev.

On July 21, the long-awaited sails of the frigate "Holy Prophecy" ordered in Holland appeared on the horizon. In the port, guns fired salutes, bells struck throughout the city. Peter rejoiced, he had never been so happy about any event in his life. A real warship! Forty-four full guns, beautifully furnished cabins, silver utensils in the officers' mess, a supply of first-class provisions and barrels of French wine in the holds. Like a boy, the tsar examined the ship in detail, meticulously asked the Dutch sailors about the purpose of all the components of the rigging, learned to climb the shrouds and masts, spent hours in the captain's cabin over maps and sailing directions ... The Russian tricolor flag (a variation of the flag of Holland) was raised on the frigate's mainmast for the first time ), which is still the state symbol of Russia.

Having celebrated the significant event with a grand feast, Peter made another trip on new ships - to Cape Svyatoy Nos on the Kola Peninsula, separating the White and Barents Seas. On the voyage, the ships ran aground, lost their bearings - the king's team was still too inexperienced, but everything ended well. Having fully enjoyed the dangerous adventures in a real sea voyage, Peter returned to Moscow, where he began preparing large-scale maneuvers on land.

At the end of September 1694, military exercises began in the area of ​​​​the village of Kozhukhovo, in which twenty thousand people took part, divided into two "armies". One stormed the fortress, the other defended it. All methods of war were used - crossing the river, digging, mining, erecting redoubts, overcoming the ditch, sortie of the besieged, working out well-coordinated interactions of various units in battle. Under the unfolded banners, the roar of cannon guns, grenade explosions, salvo shots, the sounds of trumpets and drums, the king with a sword at the ready was the first to attack. The siege of the fortress lasted three weeks. When she fell, the losses on both sides were twenty-four killed and fifty badly wounded. No one counted the stab wounds received in hand-to-hand combat. The captured defenders of the fortress were kept tied up all night, after which they were released and invited to the laid table, at which the king celebrated Victoria.

Peter's friendship with Lefort, who took an active part in all the affairs of the tsar, grew stronger. The sovereign allocated considerable funds for the expansion and decoration of his house in the German Quarter, which turned into a luxurious palace. The huge hall with expensive furniture, sculptures, mirrors and paintings, decorated with Persian carpets and Chinese silk, was especially magnificent. Here, in a relaxed atmosphere, chic receptions, feasts and dances were held until the morning. The house was surrounded by a park with a menagerie, guards were on duty around the clock at the gate.

Peter was in his twenty-second year, fun was a thing of the past. The young king dreamed of creating a fleet and developing maritime trade. Arkhangelsk was not very suitable for this purpose: for seven months of the year the White Sea was ice-bound, the port was too far from the economic centers of the country, and the long way from it to Western Europe ran through the harsh northern seas. The Caspian Sea has no outlet to the oceans. The Baltic was controlled by Sweden, and the Black Sea was the inland basin of the Ottoman Empire. To gain access to them, there was only one way - war.

Under the Treaty of Cardis, Russia has been in a state of "perpetual peace" with Sweden since 1661. In the southern direction, there was a more convenient situation for the implementation of the tsar's ambitious plans: in 1686, Moscow joined the Holy League, directed against the Ottoman Empire. Russia's allies expected Moscow to resume hostilities, which had ceased with the fall of Sophia's government. Peter began to prepare for a war with Turkey for access to the southern seas - the Azov and Black.

In the summer of 1695, Russian regiments with Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks attacked Turkish fortifications in the lower reaches of the Don and Dnieper. The main goal was the fortress of Azov, located fifteen miles from the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov on the left bank of the Don. In the event of the capture of the fortress, the tsar planned to make it a stronghold for creating a fleet and endanger the Crimean Khanate - a vassal of Turkey and a longtime enemy of Russia.

The Turkish quadrangular stone fortress, surrounded by a high earthen rampart and a moat with palisades, had a garrison of eight thousand, the size of the Russian army was thirty thousand people. Peter was in high spirits, he was arrogant and had no doubts about the success of the military campaign.

The siege of Azov began with the fire of batteries commanded by the tsar himself. Fires broke out in the fortress, but the powerful stone walls survived. Peter called his generals Gordon, Lefort and Avtonom Golovin to a military council. Each of them commanded a separate corps, decisions on the course of the military operation were made collectively. Lefort proposed to take the fortress by a general decisive assault. Gordon objected: to do this, you first need to break through the walls, provide the troops with assault ladders. The tsar, who was impatient to win his first victory, supported Lefort. In addition, having no combat experience, he was guided by personal sympathies, and the Swiss was the closest person to him.

Gordon's corps was the first to storm the fortress. With a decisive onslaught, he managed to capture the shaft, but Lefort and Golovin did not support this success in time. With a quick retaliatory attack, the Turks pushed back Gordon, who suffered heavy losses.

Peter was convinced that the Azov stronghold could not be taken without the destruction of the fortress walls. The military council decided to dig a tunnel and lay powerful charges of gunpowder under them, which was extremely unsuccessful: the powder chambers were not set close enough to the wall, a powerful explosion not only did not harm the fortress, but also claimed dozens of lives of Russian soldiers. On the eve of Gordon convinced the king that the undermining would be useless, but he again took the side of Lefort, who accused the Scot of insufficient desire to take possession of the fortress. Rivalry, disagreements and growing hostility between the generals harmed the common cause.

The besieged made daring sorties, in one of them the Janissaries slaughtered more than a hundred archers sleeping in the trenches after dinner, captured and ruined many cannons. The archers turned out to be bad warriors: during enemy counterattacks, they fled more than once, which caused the anger of the sovereign. It seems that they were only suitable for palace coups.

It was impossible to take Azov by starvation: the fortress received everything necessary for defense by sea. Without a fleet, Peter could not cut the sea communications of the Turks and block the fortress from all sides. In September, heavy rains began, the trenches turned into a quagmire, the Russian army lacked food, especially salt - the rear administration for supplying the troops turned out to be completely incapacitated, many suppliers, having received money, went on the run.

Another dig brought the same deplorable results. Finally, through trial and error in one place, they still managed to bring down the wall. Preobrazhensky battalions and Don Cossacks rushed into the gap, and a fierce hand-to-hand fight ensued in the fortress. But this time, too, it was not possible to develop success: the activity of some units was combined with the indecisiveness and passivity of others. The assault was choked with blood. A tough Turkish nut was too tough for the young king.

Peter was in the most gloomy frame of mind. After a three-month siege, he gave the order to retreat to Cherkassk. On the march through the desert steppes, they had to fight off the sudden attacks of the Crimean cavalry. Suddenly, early winter came, it snowed, frost hit. The soldiers suffered from hunger and cold and died in the hundreds. The road from Cherkassk to Moscow was littered with the corpses of people and horses who died along the way for eight hundred miles.

The failure at Azov was partly offset by the success of the troops under the command of the boyar Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, who, together with the Zaporizhian Cossacks of Hetman Mazepa, easily captured the poorly defended mouth of the Dnieper on the Black Sea. The actions of Sheremetev and Mazepa were of a distracting nature from the main goal in the war with the Turks - Azov.

In these difficult days, the young king for the first time showed amazing fortitude, perseverance and purposefulness in achieving his goal. He took the campaign against Azov not as a defeat, but as a lesson from which it is necessary to draw conclusions about the reasons for the failure, eliminate them and get down to business again with redoubled energy. Already on the way to Moscow, Peter lived not in the past, but in the future.

A cold-blooded analysis of the failure of the military campaign showed: the fortress must be blocked not only from land, but also from the sea; to continue the war, competent military engineers and demolition workers are needed. And Peter immediately develops vigorous activity.

Dvina governor Apraksin receives an order from the tsar to deliver ship carpenters, including foreign ones, to Moscow by good or by force. Diplomats in Austria and Brandenburg (Prussia) were instructed to demand specialists in organizing explosive siege operations; in England, Holland and Venice - sailors and shipbuilders. Messengers rushed to all counties of the country with the royal decree on the mobilization of not only the nobles, but also everyone, including serfs, who, having joined the army, received freedom. In the dense forests of Voronezh, thousands of local peasants began to cut timber.

At the end of January 1696, Tsar Ivan died. After burying his brother, Peter left for Voronezh, where work on the construction of the fleet began to boil at the shipyard created in the shortest possible time. The king himself, with an ax in his hands, worked tirelessly next to his subjects in the sweat of his brow. The main part of the fleet was built on the model of a battle galley ordered in Holland, which was dragged along the ice of rivers and snow-covered roads from Arkhangelsk. It was a bitter winter. Hundreds of peasants driven to the sovereign's construction site died from poor nutrition, terrible conditions and overwork, and others were driven in their place. For the sake of achieving his goal, Peter was ready for any kind of sacrifice, he did not spare either himself or people.

The results of the tireless activity of the young tsar amazed contemporaries: in the spring, two frigates, twenty-two galleys, four fireships and one thousand three hundred plows descended from the stocks of the shipyard into the waters of Voronezh. A country that never had a navy acquired one in one winter.

All this time, replenished old and newly formed regiments arrived from Moscow to Voronezh. The number of new troops amounted to forty thousand people, which were later to be joined by twenty thousand Cossacks and three thousand Kalmyk cavalry. Taking into account the unsuccessful experience of the collegiate command of the previous company, Peter subordinated all the ground forces to the governor Alexei Semenovich Shein, Gordon was appointed his assistant. Lefort received the post of commander of the fleet. The Swiss had a very vague idea about maritime affairs, but the king simply did not have other people, devoted and well trained.

In May 1696, Russian troops again approached Azov. The Turks were so confident that for a long time they discouraged them from storming the fortress that they did not even fill in the trenches they had dug last year. The Tatar cavalry tried to prevent the troops from taking their former positions, but was driven back by the mounted noble militia.

On the evening of May 19, under the command of Peter and Lefort, nine galleys, accompanied by forty Cossack gulls, went to sea for reconnaissance. In sight of the Turkish squadron standing in the roadstead, the galleys ran aground. Having dragged the ships into the high water, Peter ordered to return to the mouth of the Don. With ill-equipped and untrained teams of his ships, Peter did not dare to risk a sea battle with the Turks in completely unfamiliar waters. The king was gloomy and depressed. Blocking the fortress from the sea was not as easy as he imagined.

The problem was solved by the Zaporozhian Cossacks: at night, on their own initiative, on their light ships, they overcame the shallows and suddenly attacked the Turkish squadron. One ship was burned, two were captured, the rest were put to flight. Peter perked up, immediately began a complete blockade of Azov. Having explored the coastal waters, he took the fleet out to sea, ordered the construction of two forts on both banks of the river mouth.

It remains to take the fortress from the land. It was necessary to develop a siege strategy that would lead to success. At the military council, the archers proposed the legendary method that the Kiev prince Vladimir the Great used in the 10th century when taking Kherson: to build an earthen rampart on a level with the fortress and, pouring it in its direction, bring it to impregnable walls. Perhaps, in the absence of guns in gray times, such an idea was innovative and effective, but seven hundred years have passed since then ... Nevertheless, the military council approved the plan. Fifteen thousand soldiers enthusiastically set to work. Their ardor was not even cooled by the aimed fire of the Turkish fortress cannons. Despite the losses, the work went well.

Three days later, Austrian artillerymen, miners and military engineers arrived near Azov, led by Baron Ernst von Borgsdorf, a major specialist in taking fortresses. Foreigners marveled at the unfolding large-scale work, competently installed batteries on the erected hill and destroyed the corner bastion of the fortress with hurricane concentrated fire. Under the cover of cannons, the Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks rushed to the assault, acting equally bravely both at sea and on land. They managed to capture part of the enemy fortifications and gain a foothold on them.

On June 14, the Turkish fleet, consisting of twenty-three ships, hastening to help Azov, appeared on the horizon. Peter gave the order to the galleys to prepare for battle. This time the Turks evaded the battle and went back to the sea. Hoping that they would return, the garrison of the fortress held out for another month - until the ammunition and food ran out. On the eve of the assault scheduled for July 22, the commandant of Azov began negotiations on an honorable surrender - saving the lives of the soldiers of the garrison, free exit from the fortress with personal weapons and things. Peter accepted the terms. As trophies, the winners got one hundred and thirty-six guns.

Having celebrated his first military victory on a grand scale, the tsar attracted foreign engineers to the restoration and reconstruction of Azov in accordance with the latest achievements of fortification science. He himself began to search for a more convenient harbor for basing the fleet. This turned out to be at Cape Tagan-Rog. Here the king planned to lay a fortress and a city, securely gain a foothold on the seashore, develop a fleet and begin a further struggle with the Ottoman Empire for access to near and far seas. For Russia at the end of the 17th century, these were unprecedented and grandiose decisions.

On the way to Moscow, Peter visited Tula. According to legend, on the eve of the second Azov campaign, the tsar asked the Tula gunsmith Nikita Demidov to fix a German pistol, which he really liked. Demidov not only complied with the request of the sovereign, but also made an exact copy of that pistol. Delighted by the master's art, Peter made him a state order for three hundred guns according to the Western model. Even if this is a historical anecdote, it is very typical, vividly characterizing the methods of the king to attract to the cause all the talented people he meets, regardless of their most “mean” origin. Be that as it may, but in Tula the tsar really visited Demidov's weapons workshops and ordered him to allocate five thousand rubles from the treasury for the development of domestic weapons production.

On September 30, 1696, a triumphal procession of victorious troops took place in Moscow in the spirit of ancient traditions. The regiments, stretching for several versts, entered the capital through a huge arch, the vault of which was supported by the statues of Hercules and Mars. Its pediment was decorated with a bas-relief depicting scenes of a military company and a painting on canvas with a chained Turkish sultan. Voivode Shein, Gordon and Lefort sat in full dress in luxurious carriages, and Peter himself, holding a spear in his hands, modestly followed his generals in a black German dress and a hat with a white feather. In honor of the heroes of Azov, poems were recited and cannon volleys thundered. Soldiers dragged Turkish banners across the ground. The ringing of bells mingled with the beat of drums, trumpets hummed and timpani played. Muscovites watched the procession in silence and puzzled - for the first time, the Moscow tsar celebrated a military victory not with prayers led by the patriarch, but with a completely unusual secular holiday. The crowd was especially struck by the fact that the procession was led by Nikita Zotov, imposingly located in the royal carriage, a drunkard and the first teacher of the young Peter. The tsar made him the patriarch of the jester's cathedral, consisting of the persons most trusted and close to the sovereign, with whom Peter loved to shock the public and have fun in a completely obscene and defiant way for that time. The holiday ended in the German Quarter, where all the windows were shattered by artillery fireworks.

The unusual image of the king alarmed the people. Much of his behavior was regarded as blasphemy - he loved foreigners who ate grass called lettuce like cattle, visiting their weddings, christenings and funerals, the sovereign visited Catholic churches and Protestant churches - an unthinkable act for an Orthodox tsar. All this in the eyes of the pious people was regarded as heresy. The sovereign refused to play the role of a demigod on the throne, evaded participation in Orthodox holidays, made a strong friendship with Ivashka Khmelnitsky, openly fornicated with a German woman with his legal wife, parodied and ridiculed religious rites. Probably, Peter was aware that he was challenging the patriarchal society, but he was accustomed from early childhood to follow his essence and believed that the unlimited power of the monarch gives him every right to do so.

The passive murmur of the people of the king bothered the least. Much more important tasks lay ahead. The capture of Azov is only half the battle, the Turks will certainly try to return the fortress. It was necessary not only to defend the conquered territories, but also to begin the struggle for the Kerch Strait, which connects the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov and the Black.

Immediately after the triumph, Peter informed the Boyar Duma that he intended to “fight the sea” with the Ottomans, and since the treasury did not have sufficient funds for this, the sovereign ordered the creation of kumpanstvo - companies that would build the fleet. They united the landowners, the church, the townspeople - mostly merchants. For evading the sovereign's business, the estate of the landowner unsubscribed to the treasury. The merchants were obliged both to finance the royal project and to independently engage in the construction of ships directly - to hire working people, craftsmen, cut down and deliver timber. In a year and a half, fifty-two ships should be launched into the water. The royal family undertook to build ten ships.

But who will manage the fleet? Following the decree, Peter sends sixty stewards to Europe to study maritime affairs, a third of whom bore princely titles. The young offspring of the most noble families of the country had to not only learn to "own the ship" and, upon their return, present the tsar with a certificate of fitness for service, but also to attend a sea battle without fail. Special royal mercy awaited those who additionally mastered shipbuilding. For disobedience to the royal will, the deprivation of all rights, lands and property was envisaged. The elite was shocked. A trip abroad was considered in Russian society almost as a betrayal of the homeland, it was believed that an Orthodox Christian, endowed by God with the true faith, has everything necessary for a righteous and fulfilling life, he does not need to communicate with non-believers, all the more so to learn from them demonic knowledge, which can undermine the purity of the faith. But no one dared to oppose the will of the king. Among the "students" was the only volunteer - Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy, the future count of the empire, who at that time was fifty-two years old. A former supporter of the Miloslavskys, who was in disgrace, he was eager to win the favor of the sovereign.

Peter was in his twenty-fifth year. An energetic statesman woke up in the young king. Decree follows decree. A decision was promptly made to maintain a permanent 5,000-strong garrison in Azov. Three thousand families are resettled on the conquered coast from the Volga cities, twenty thousand soldiers are starting to build a new port - Taganrog. The young king was clearly aware that in order to continue a successful war with Turkey, the country needed effective communications for the transfer, provision of the fleet and ground forces. A network of rivers could become such roads if they were connected by canals. Thirty-five thousand peasants were thrown into the construction of the Volga-Don Canal in the area of ​​​​the greatest convergence of the two rivers - between the tributary of the Volga Kamyshinka and the tributary of the Don Ilovley. There was a rumor among the Orthodox people: you can’t turn the streams in one direction if God has already turned them in the other. Public criticism of the tsar's will was stopped by the whip and exile.

But all this was a preamble to the unfolding vigorous activity of the sovereign: the Boyar Duma received a real shock when Peter announced that he himself would go on a trip abroad in order to set a personal example for his subjects in learning and enlist additional support from the allies in the fight against the "basurman hordes". Never before has a Moscow Orthodox sovereign left the country. The king's decision was so unusual that it did not fit in the minds of his contemporaries.

Chapter 3
Rendezvous with Europe

The idea of ​​the Great Embassy was formed by Peter not only for officially declared reasons and under the influence of a vague understanding of the transformations long overdue in the country. The king was motivated in no small measure by keen curiosity. He heard so much about the prosperity of Western countries, their reasonable state structure and outlandish technical inventions, that he certainly wanted to see everything with his own eyes, especially Holland, which he fell in love with in absentia from the stories of foreigners. It was not just a diplomatic trip with an educational program that was being prepared, but a large-scale campaign to study foreign experience and acquire advanced knowledge, mass recruitment for the Russian service of naval officers who made a career thanks to their own talents, “and not for other reasons”, shipbuilders, various other specialists, both military and civilian, the purchase of weapons, materials for the production of weapons, tools, navigational instruments, ship equipment, books, maps, good-quality cloth ... Together with the sovereign, two hundred and fifty people were preparing to go on a journey.

Charges abroad came to an end. Lefort was giving a farewell dinner when two archers from the Stremy Regiment came to his house and asked for an urgent meeting with the tsar on a matter of national importance. Peter immediately accepted them. The archers informed the sovereign that Colonel Ivan Tsikler was plotting against him among the archers. Enraged, Peter called the guards, ordered the immediate arrest of the attacker, torture and inflict an investigation, in which he himself took part.

Cycler admitted that he had been talking about the assassination attempt on the tsar with the deceitful Alexei Sokovnin and his son-in-law Fyodor Pushkin, who were extremely dissatisfied with the new orders introduced by the sovereign, sending Sokovnin's two sons to study abroad. Alexei Sokovnin, an Old Believer, brother of the famous noblewoman Morozova, took the fate of his offspring in a foreign land as an obvious death. Zikler himself, who defected to Peter's camp during his confrontation with Sophia in 1689, was more guided by personal motives: counting on a swift career for betraying Sophia, the colonel was cruelly deceived in his expectations, harboring anger and resentment. Hoping to avoid death, he also spoke about the affairs of bygone days. During the reign of Sophia, Ivan Miloslavsky and the princess herself incited him and Fyodor Shaklovity to "commit murder on the sovereign." The shadow of Ivan Miloslavsky, who died eleven years ago, surfaced - the most hated enemy of the tsar. In anger, Peter was terrible. He personally developed a procedure for the terrible execution of intruders.

The tsar ordered that the corpse of Ivan Miloslavsky be dug up, delivered on a sleigh pulled by pigs to Preobrazhenskoye and placed in an open coffin under the platform of the erected scaffold. Tsikler and Sokovnin were quartered, Pushkin and two accomplices were simply cut off their heads. The blood of the executed flowed into the coffin on the decayed body of Miloslavsky, uniting the enemies of the sovereign in dishonor. Even death did not save them from the fierce hatred and cruel revenge of the formidable king. The severed heads were hung on stakes fixed in a stone pillar, the chopped bodies were piled at its foot. Exhaling a sickening smell, they lay there for several months. Such horrific pictures served as an eloquent warning to all opponents of the sovereign's will, and there were many of them.

A potential threat to the tsar was represented by the numerous relatives of his wife, Evdokia Lopukhina, who held influential government posts. If Peter had any feelings for her as for the mother of his son, being seriously carried away by Anna Mons, he finally lost them. The already rare meetings of the king and queen ceased long ago. Evdokia, an exemplary product of a musty Russian tower, colorless, inert and ignorant, was unable to understand the interests and aspirations of her husband, did not suit him at all - energetic, impulsive, sensual, passionate and keen on everything new. Her narrow-minded outlook and needs were limited to the interpretation of dreams, endless prayers, soul-saving conversations with the blessed, sauerkraut, baking homemade pies, cereals, jelly ... There was nothing in common between the spouses. Peter considered Evdokia unbearably boring and stupid, from communication with her he experienced nothing but irritation.

Probably, even before leaving abroad, the tsar decided to part with his wife and instructed Tikhon Streshnev to persuade her to voluntarily be tonsured a nun - a common practice of that time to break unsuccessful marriages. In order to protect his throne from possible hostile intrigues of the prolific Lopukhin clan and many others who were dissatisfied with his rule, Peter removed the relatives of his disgusted wife from the court, concentrating all power in the hands of his closest associates during his absence, who more than once proved to him absolute devotion - Lev Naryshkin, Tikhon Streshnev, Boris Golitsyn, Prince Peter Prozorovsky and Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky, a direct descendant of Rurik. Romodanovsky was clothed with the unprecedented title of prince-caesar and remained in the Kremlin for the tsar himself. As head of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz, he performed the functions of the security service and was a very colorful figure. “Looking like a monster, an evil tyrant in disposition and drunk all the days” Fyodor Romodanovsky lived in the luxurious way of a Byzantine nobleman, his retinue consisted of five hundred people. The prince-Caesar revered ancient customs and customs, was known as a hospitable and hospitable owner of the house, kept tame bears in the yard, one of which brought a glass of strong pepper to the arriving guests. The one who refused to drink was beaten with a paw by the bear. The descendant of Rurik was distinguished by extreme honesty, incorruptibility and ruthlessness towards the enemies of the sovereign. Peter himself more than once reproached his vicious watchdog for excessive cruelty.

At the beginning of March 1697, the Grand Embassy set off. A thousand sleighs stretched for two miles. The tsar appointed Lefort and two experienced diplomats, Fyodor Golovin and Prokofy Voznitsyn, as great and plenipotentiary ambassadors, while the sovereign himself wished to remain incognito under the name of constable Pyotr Mikhailov during the journey. Such a modest position allowed the king to avoid official ceremonies he did not like, provided time and opportunity for study, and greater freedom of movement. The embassy included 35 volunteers who, like the tsar, went to Europe to comprehend science. Unlike the stolniks sent abroad earlier, they had a more modest origin, but surpassed them in their desire to learn. The convoy consisted of a rich treasury and substantial food supplies - flour, salmon, caviar, honey, vodka ... Several dozen sleighs were loaded with sable furs intended both for gifts and for sale. The embassy was accompanied by translators, priests, chamberlains, doctors, jewelers, cooks, musicians, pages, jesters... Seventy of the tallest and most stately soldiers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment were selected for protection.

A month later, the impressive embassy cortege reached Riga, the capital of the Swedish province of Livonia. The Russian guests received a solemn but restrained reception. The Swedish governor said he was ill and refused to meet with the high ambassadors. Ice began to drift on the Dvina, Peter involuntarily had to linger in the city. In order not to be idle, he decided to look around Riga. The king was especially interested in the fortress and harbor of the port. Peter unceremoniously examined the ships, asked about the size of the garrison, tried to measure the city rampart and even sketch a drawing of the fortress. Such undisguised curiosity seemed very suspicious to the Swedish sentries, threatening with weapons, they forced the lanky Russian officer to leave. The king regarded the demarche of the guard as a personal insult. Although the sovereign's incognito was outwardly respected, from the very beginning of the journey it was no secret to anyone who was hiding under the name of Peter Mikhailov. When the snow melted and the embassy had to change the sled for wheeled transport, the Muscovites were "offended" by Riga merchants, cunning and respectable. Taking advantage of a favorable situation for themselves, they imposed absolutely predatory terms of a commercial deal.

Unpleasant impressions from Riga dissipated in Courland. Duke Friedrich Casimir Kettler, Lefort's friend in Holland, welcomed the Moscow delegation with open arms. In the port of Libava (Liepaja), Peter first saw the Baltic Sea. Posing as a Moscow privateer, the tsar went around all the taverns, got acquainted with the skippers, generously treated noisy companies of sailors with wine. With one of the captains, Peter Mikhailov became so close that he went with volunteers to Prussia on his ship, leaving the embassy to catch up with his sovereign by land.

The tsar arrived in Koenigsberg, ten days ahead of his embassy, ​​and used the time gained to complete an artillery course under the leadership of the chief engineer of the Prussian fortresses, Lieutenant Colonel von Sternfeld, as he testified in an official document: “Peter Mikhailov in a short time, both in theory and and in practice, amazingly for everyone, he made such progress and acquired such knowledge that everywhere we can recognize and honor as a serviceable, careful, skillful, courageous and fearless firearms master and artist. Peter was very proud of the certificate he received and henceforth considered artillery his military specialty.

Frederick III, Elector of the Duchy of Brandenburg, accepted the Russian mission with brilliance. The culmination of the solemn meeting was an hour and a half fireworks, which created in the dark sky a two-headed eagle with three crowns and the inscription: "Vivat Tsar and Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich!"

At official receptions, the great ambassadors flaunted in brocade caftans adorned with pearls and precious stones, diamonds served as buttons. Next to them, the sovereign of Muscovy, smelling of gunpowder, in the form of a Prussian artilleryman, looked very extravagant, which did not prevent the duke from showing him royal signs of attention and not noticing the wild antics of the distinguished guest who had overdone the Hungarian wine. One day, Peter tore off his wig from the master of ceremonies of the Prussian court, who seemed to him not too quick, and threw it into a corner. On another occasion, I nearly drove a lady of the court to faint. Stopping her with a thunderous cry: “Halt!”, with a careless movement of his hand he picked up the watch hanging on her bodice, glanced at the time, and imperturbably passed by. The humor of the Russian Tsar was also distinguished by originality and Moscow color. When he was told about the widespread execution in Europe by means of the wheel, Peter wished to see this method in action. However, at that time there was no criminal in Brandenburg who deserved such a terrible punishment. The king was surprised at such scrupulousness and in the most innocent way offered to execute one of his retinue. The puzzled and shocked Germans did not understand whether the Moscow sovereign was joking or speaking seriously. However, the biographers of Peter I also did not come to a consensus. Rumors about the inadequate Muscovite tsar of a distant barbarian country quickly spread throughout the city. Fearing for their safety, the townsfolk fled in panic when he appeared on the streets.

The tolerance of Frederick III towards the eccentric and extravagant guest was explained by political motives: the elector developed plans to expand his duchy at the expense of Sweden and Poland, in which Moscow was assigned the role of the main ally. Peter had lengthy conversations with Frederick on political topics, but avoided answering questions that interested the elector in the first place. And there were reasons for that.

From the very beginning of the journey, the tsar kept a vigilant eye on the situation in the Commonwealth, which, after the death of Jan Sobieski, was preparing to choose a new king. Applicants for the vacant crown turned out to be about ten. Serious Polish passions flared up, supporters of various political parties were cut in the Sejm on sabers. As a result of a fierce debate, two candidates remained - Prince Conti, a creature of the French King Louis XIV, and the Saxon Elector Augustus the Strong, behind whom stood the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Leopold I. With the coming to power in Poland of the protege of Versailles, the Commonwealth could withdraw from the Holy League - France in its struggle for European hegemony relied on Turkey. The election of the Polish king became an arena where the interests of many countries intersected. Peter strongly supported Augustus the Strong, who promised to fulfill the former obligations of the Commonwealth. In a letter to the temporary ruler of Poland, Cardinal Radzievsky, the Muscovite tsar threatened to “damage the eternal peace” with Poland if Prince Conti was elected, and to reinforce his words, he ordered a sixty-thousand-strong Russian army to be concentrated on the Polish border.

Therefore, while the Polish question, which was very important for Moscow, was being resolved, Peter did not consider it necessary to bind himself with new military alliances, which in the future might not be in the interests of his country, much less spoil relations with mighty Sweden because of Brandenburg. But he also could not refuse the friendship imposed by Frederick III: Russia badly needed Prussian specialists, free travel and training of its people abroad. Despite his eccentricity and lack of experience in international affairs, the tsar found a reasonable and extraordinary way out of a difficult situation: conclude an agreement on friendship and trade on paper, and agree on military assistance in words. Peter argued his proposal by the fact that the only guarantee of compliance with international agreements, both oral and written, is still only the conscience of sovereigns, and only God can judge them for violating treaties. The elector realized that he could not achieve more and agreed. As time has shown, Peter acted wisely: Augustus the Strong was soon elected to the Polish throne.

Having presented Frederick III with a large ruby ​​as a farewell, the tsar departed for the port of Pillau to go to Holland, the country of his dreams. However, the voyage, exciting for Peter, had to be interrupted due to the appearance of French corsairs in the waters of the Baltic. He had to land on the shore and continue the journey on land. Undoubtedly, this unpleasant incident gave the tsar an occasion to reflect on the development of the Russian military fleet on the way.

The king's incognito journey did not prevent rumors from spreading throughout Europe who was actually hiding under the name of Peter Mikhailov. Passing through the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hannover), Peter made a stop in the village of Koppenbrugge. The tsar settled down in a simple peasant house, where the chamberlain of the Hanoverian court appeared to him with an invitation to dinner at the castle of the local elector. Peter, in a hurry to Holland, at first flatly refused, but the persistent and dexterous chamberlain managed to persuade the Russian tsar to accept the invitation, promising that dinner would be held in a narrow family circle of illustrious persons.

The initiator of the meeting with the Moscow Tsar was Sophia-Charlotte, the daughter of the Elector of Hanover. Having heard about the wild habits of the Moscow sovereign, she was dying of curiosity and longed to get to know him. The Germans perceived distant and mysterious Russia like Siam or Abyssinia, a barbarian country far away at the end of the world. Sophia-Charlotte had a reputation as a highly educated lady, patron of science and art, and was a student of Leibniz himself. Her aged mother Sophia of Hanover, the granddaughter of the English King James I, and her three sons, the eldest of whom in seventeen years will become the English King George I, the founder of the Hanoverian dynasty of British monarchs, attended the high society dinner. Peter's meeting with the family of the Hanoverian elector could have remained out of the sight of historians if Sophia-Charlotte and her mother had not left impartial impressions of his appearance, manners and intellect in private letters.

Accompanied by a small retinue, without attracting the attention of a crowd of onlookers gathered at the castle, the king entered the castle through the back door and was introduced to the owners of the house with all the courtesy that was due to his royal dignity. In the first minutes of their acquaintance, Peter seemed shy to them, covering his face with his hands, probably embarrassed by his tick on his face, but he quickly got used to it. “The king is tall, stately, stately and good-looking, his eyes are full of fire and are in constant motion, like all his members; he has sparse hair, a small mustache, is dressed in a sailor's suit of red cloth, decorated with gold galloons, white stockings and black shoes are on his feet. Peter was seated at the table between the elector's wife and daughter. A conversation ensued. “The king always answered intelligently, to the point and with liveliness, he was quick-witted, cheerful and witty. We soon became friends and sat at the table for a very long time without any boredom and everyone could not talk enough. Having honored us with his presence, His Majesty gave us great pleasure, he is a completely unusual person, good-natured and noble of heart, sensitive to the charms of beauty, with the complete absence of the slightest desire to specially please us.

All those present at the table drank excellent Rhine wine according to Moscow custom - from large glasses, standing to the bottom. When the courtiers entered the dining room to remove the dirty dishes and change the dishes, Peter personally treated each of them to wine, as well as the Italian musicians who delighted his ears during the reception. When asked if he liked music, the tsar answered in the affirmative, but admitted that he did not have a special love for it, since childhood he had only one passion for navigation, he knew how to build ships and proudly let the corns on his hands be touched. Sophia-Charlotte's close attention did not escape the fact that the Moscow sovereign has dirty nails, he does not eat very neatly, uses a fork uncertainly and has no idea about the purpose of napkins. “It’s only a pity that he didn’t get a good upbringing, it would have made him a perfect person, nature didn’t refuse him anything,” the Hanoverian Malvina noted at the end of the report to her correspondent.

The secular evening continued with dancing. The Russian cavaliers mistook ladies' whalebone corsets for the ribs of their partners and loudly exchanged astonished remarks about the stiff bones of the German ladies. Sophia-Charlotte asked the Tsar to show her Russian dances. Peter sent for his musicians and, at the head of the great ambassadors, performed in the dance hall all that he was capable of. The Elector's daughter liked the Moscow Dances very much, she found them better than the Polish ones. “The Russians played a lot, but in the fun they did not forget courtesy and strict decency. Our ball lasted until four in the morning. In parting, the king gave Sophia-Charlotte four sable skins and three pieces of Chinese silk. Guests and hosts parted very pleased with each other.

Having reached the Rhine, Peter again left the Great Embassy, ​​hired several boats and, accompanied by a small retinue, went down the river and canals to the Dutch town of Saardam (Zaandam). The shipyard of the shipbuilder Linst Rogge was located here, the tsar heard about it from the Dutch back in Russia. Walking along the embankment immediately after his arrival, Peter met an old acquaintance - the blacksmith Gerrit Kist, who worked side by side with the tsar at the Voronezh shipyard. The Dutchman was amazed by the incredible meeting with the Russian Tsar in his hometown under such unusual circumstances. They hugged like family. Peter settled in the small house of Kist, renting a closet in the Spartan spirit. And he warned the blacksmith not to reveal his true face to anyone.

Having bought the tools the next day, the tsar hired himself to work at the shipyard of the master Rogge. Dressed in the traditional clothes of a Dutch carpenter - a red velvet jacket, wide canvas pants and a felt hat - he hoped to remain unrecognized and learn everything he wanted to. Knowledge of the Dutch language within the maritime terminology saved him from the constant presence of an interpreter at work. But not only ships interested the king. In his free time, he visited local industries - windmills, oil mills, weaving, rope and canvas manufactories, sawmills, forges, workshops for the manufacture of watches and navigational instruments ... At the paper factory, the sovereign of all Rus' took the form in his hands, scooped up the finished mass from the vat raw materials and from the first time cast a completely exemplary sheet of paper. Everywhere he asked a variety of questions. His rare curiosity was not inferior to fine observation, phenomenal memory and a special gift to grasp the essence of things on the fly. Often Peter asked about things that far exceeded the knowledge of the experts in their field.

The private life of the citizens of Saardam did not remain aloof from his curiosity. Visiting the relatives of the Dutch working in Russia, looking from the street into the windows of the houses shocked by such unceremoniousness of the townsfolk, Peter could not help but notice how their everyday culture is higher, more diverse and richer than the wretched Russian life.

A sensational rumor instantly spread throughout the city, crowds of people gathered at the shipyard to watch how the Russian tsar was waving an ax, did not give him a pass on the streets. Once, in annoyance at the intrusive attention, Peter slapped the man in the street closest to him. Some wit shouted from the crowd: “Bravo! Marzen has been knighted! The nickname "knight" stuck to Marzen beaten by the tsar for life.

The position of the king in Saardam became unbearable. Having bought a skiff on the occasion, he packed his things and set off along the Saan River to Amsterdam, which he sailed to in three hours. The developed water transport network of Holland delighted Peter. His previous ideas about this country were much inferior to what he learned here and saw in reality.

The tsar succeeded everywhere - he studied, learned, paid visits, drank, attended boxing matches, indulged in fornication, marveled at the giant woman shown to him, under whose horizontally outstretched arm he passed without bending, posed for the famous artist Gottfried Kneller, a student of the great Rembrandt. According to numerous testimonies of contemporaries, the portrait of Peter by Kneller is the most reliable, which completely coincides with the description of the appearance of the king, made at the same time by the opera singer Filippo Balatri: “Tsar Peter Alekseevich was tall, rather thin than full; thick, short, dark chestnut hair, large black eyes with long eyelashes, a well-shaped mouth, but the lower lip is slightly spoiled; the facial expression is beautiful, at first sight inspiring respect. With his great height, his legs seemed very thin ... ".

After a month's stay in London, the tsar went to Deptfort, the largest center of British shipbuilding, where he began to study the scientific theory of naval architecture under the guidance of the inspector of the Royal Navy, Anthony Dean, who back in 1666 was the first to calculate the draft of the future ship, which caused considerable surprise to his contemporaries. In Portsmouth, William III arranged for the honored guest a demonstrative naval maneuver of the most powerful and largest ships of the line at that time, armed with 80-100 guns. Peter was so delighted with the well-coordinated actions of the English squadrons that, according to legend, he exclaimed: “If I were not a Russian tsar, I would like to be an English admiral!”

By the end of the English voyage, the treasury of the Grand Embassy was on the verge of exhaustion, and a trip to Vienna and Venice was still planned. To resolve the financial issue, Lord Carmarthen, who, in addition to his numerous virtues, was also a resourceful businessman, offered Peter to sell him the monopoly right to import tobacco into Russia. For the tsar, this was not a simple delicate matter: smoking in his homeland was officially prosecuted not only by law, but also by the Orthodox Church. Shortly before the departure of the Great Embassy, ​​Patriarch Adrian anathematized the merchant, his children and grandchildren for trading in the "devil's potion". And yet Peter, having assumed contractual obligations to remove all restrictions on the tobacco trade in Russia, made a lucrative business deal and received a twelve thousand pounds advance. The money received allowed the tsar to hire forty more specialists, mostly ore craftsmen, the famous shipbuilder Osip Nai and engineer John Perry, who, upon arrival in Russia, led the construction of the Volga-Don Canal. Peter earned five hundred guineas out of pocket money.

A stadtholder is the head of the government of a country or province.

28

Cartridge paper is a rough, thick wrapping paper used to make gunpowder charges.