RUSSIA, ST. PETERSBURG AND PETER THE GREAT By Marlene Treadway

 Russia, the country;  St. Petersburg, the city; and Peter the Great, the Tsar; what an awesome combination!  This report is about the man, the city and the land, but primarily about the man.   It is impossible to understand the country and the city without a study of Peter the Great, who was from the ruling family of the Russian Romanovs.  For four generations, the Romanovs (7) ruled.  The greatest member of this family, Peter Alexeivich, the son of Alexis, declared himself to be one "who does not have to answer for any of his actions to anyone in the world".  Peter tried to change the Kremlin in Moscow; when he could not, he deserted it and built himself a city which was first called Petersburg and later St. Petersburg.  After the communist revolution of l9l7, it became Leningrad, but is now St. Petersburg again.

 Peter the Great (2) officially became the ruler of Russia at the age of 17.  He was not sickly as the Romanov(3) rulers before him, but had a very healthy countenance with a stature of six feet eight and a half inches.  He was an overgrown boy at his coronation, when he put on the ancient shapka and the jewel rimmed cap that had crowned Ivan the Terrible.  Peter did not care for all the pomp of royalty in the Kremlin or the ancient traditions of the tsars.  When the bells chimed out in cadence, he often sprang up violently in a convulsive state with his face twitching and hurried outside the Kremlin.  Fear took over and he probably suffered from panic attacks.

 As a child he was extremely frightened of water but gradually began to sit in boats without trembling and let the boats take him out on the water.  He would sit in a boat until he became calm.  Later, as he grew to manhood, he became obsessed with the sea and seafaring vessels.  He could not wait to get away from the Kremlin and Moscow.  He would hurry back to his small village, friends, and small wooden cottage near the river where his sailboat was moored ad where he could sleep without nightmares.

 He felt torn between being the Tsar of "All of Rus" and just being himself.  Peter’s mother had been raised in a Scottish household and was not of the same superstitious mind of the Russian people.  She understood that music boxes did not operate by witchcraft.  She had Peter educated by the patriarch of the Church who was really a simple-minded old Russian named Zotov, who drank too much.  Peter tired easily of letters and schooling and so Zotov would show him pictures of his Romanov ancestors in victorious battle against pagans.  When that failed to keep his attention, he would take him to sing in the choir.  Notebooks that were found of his schoolwork show he could not spell well and that math bothered him.  He preferred to draw imaginary designs.  He absorbed ancient Russian traditions in his own peculiar way.

 His schooling ended at the age of ten due to an upheaval in the Kremlin after which he taught himself.  He loved being outdoors near the river of his quiet village, wandering restlessly from the river to the homes of foreigners, where he became familiar with musical boxes, striking clocks, porcelain pipes and maps drawn to scale.  He stayed out late at night with a crowd of friends, wore old clothes and drank beer.  He tried to avoid the Kremlin as much as possible.  In his curiosities regarding the arsenal, he found many articles of interest, especially a foreign astrolabe for which he was taught rudimentary mathematics.  He found an English boat in Romanov storage.  He was told about its excellent sailing qualities.  He tried the boat and his passion for boats and the sea began.  Peter began to collect different types of river craft.  He was welcomed by the shipbuilders to use their tools, and at the age of fifteen, he could speak enough Dutch, German, English and Latin to be able to gain knowledge and to be understood in the shipyards.  The river and the lake were a release for him from the hated ceremonies of the Kremlin that he was expected to sit through.  He loved his cabin near the wooded lake overlooking the shipyard where he with his powerful hands built a yacht after the Dutch design.  He built a fort for his friends to play war games and for his own amusement.

 By the age of twenty-two, Peter preferred friends and close associates other than Russians, such as the Scotsman, Patrick Gordon, whom he had high regard and respect for, and Francois Lefort, a Swiss adventurer.  It was Lefort who influenced Peter to extend his travels up into the White Sea area where he could inspect seagoing vessels and make a trial voyage.  He became known to his peers as Bombardier Peter and Skipper Peter because of his great hunger to actually experience artillery and boats.  In the city of Archangel on White Sea, Peter resided for a period of time while shipbuilding.  He was able to investigate European wares on the incoming ships and to order articles and compasses for his own vessels.  He ordered cannons from the Swedes who had excellent iron.

 While living at Archangel he enjoyed his friends, gaming, dancing, eating and drinking.  He also sang in the choir at church.  He could sleep heavily in the arctic nights and never had the convulsions or panic attacks he suffered at the Kremlin.  He was at home with the common people and normal affairs of life more than with getting into arguments with arch priests about the Holy Writ or entertaining ambassadors with flowery compliments.  During these months of isolation, Peter’s eyes were turned toward the West and not to the East.  He refused to return to Moscow to receive dignitaries such as the great Shah of Persia.  He had a new book about the East and looked at maps but did not read it.  At Archangel, Peter could not possibly feel the pull of the continent upon his people and hardly knew the varied peoples who spoke so many different languages and made up the population of Russia.  Another book had been written and dedicated to the Tsar regarding the land beyond the Ural Mountains, the vast country which was referred to in the book as "for the most part unknown".  Peter had no awareness at this time of the persistent migration of his own people away from Moscow into the East.

 Peters next journey would be to the South where he marched to capture Azov from the Tatar-Turks.  This city closed the mouth of the Don river.  For centuries, the people of Russia had been pushing out along the rivers to gain access to the sea.  Peter’s first attempt failed and he came back to Moscow defeated but determined to learn from that mistake and work harder to conquer the Turkish city that held control over the Black Sea and the great river Don.  He did accomplish that victory, which allowed the Don and the Volga rivers to be linked together by a canal so that ships could pass from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea.  Azov became the port of the new colony.

 An expedition was begun to explore the unknown territories to the east with men, sleds, reindeer to pull the sleds, and native peoples to guide the expedition.  The natives chattered about islands off the coast and even a chain of islands which we know as the Aleutians.  There was no knowledge of the continent of the Americas although the American continent had been written and largely drawn upon the maps of  Dutchmen in Amsterdam.  These maps had never penetrated into Siberia or the desolate area of Yakutsk.  Luxurious furs were found and they became the main focus, although some rough maps were made and a cross set up for identification.  The expedition needed to get back to the mainland for supplies so that the long journey was made back to Moscow to report to Tsar Peter with gifts of furs in June of 1700.(4)

 Peter, with the urging of his friend, Lefort agreed to tour Europe.  Before this time no Tsar had ever ventured beyond his frontier but Peter was the man to break the rule.  The only way he would go was in the most inconspicuous manner, hidden under another name as Captain Peter.  Peter would be the attendant of his friends Lefort and Golovin who took the positions of ambassadors at large.  In Europe, he was found to be interesting and it was said that if he had been educated, he would have a fine mind because of his quick understanding and natural wit.  When at ease, he was very interesting company for the German ladies and would visit for hours.  He did not care for European music but loved to see the German ladies dance.  He was eager to learn about everything in Germany from the construction of fortresses to the anatomy classes using cadavers.  He signed his letters "From one who wishes to learn and to share."

 In Amsterdam, he felt at home with the shipbuilding Dutch people and engaged in the building himself.  He questioned experts, with his notebooks in hand, about navigation, naval law, mastering the use of the compass and plane.  He wrote as he spoke bluntly and hurriedly -- not easily understood except to himself.  Peter investigated bridges and attended lectures on mechanics as well as anatomy.  He took drawing lessons and watched portrait painters at work.  He observed saw mills and silk factories.  By instinct, he seemed to feel the need to learn about everything first hand; he wanted to know how they were made and how they worked.  Like most self-taught men, he had an indelible memory.  He filled his notebook with expert ideas of siege warfare before leaving Holland for England.

 Peter was in London, England for a period of three months.  While there he found that Dutch shipwrights were good at their work but only the English could teach him the art of shipbuilding from plans.  He toured London with King William, with whom he felt at ease, and agreed with him that power upon the sea could alter a nation’s destiny.  Peter and his men did not sit well with the polite society of London and left their lodgings torn up and riddled with bullets.  He left a large cut diamond to pay for their damages.  The highlight of his visit was the mock sea battle staged in his honor with real live battle ships maneuvering and firing from broadside.  He never forgot this great spectacle.  Regarding religion, he revealed an interest in the Quakers.  He refused to stay in palaces, preferring a small cottage out of the city, and hated crowds and assemblies.  Galleries of art and men of intellect bored him.  A little knowledge for him was dangerous; after watching a dentist extract teeth with forceps, he carried back to Moscow a bag of surgical instruments and tried to operate on his own people.  What he did in his visit to Europe was to get the sense of the West in thought as well as skills.  He recruited great minds in different professions:  admirals, commanders, pilots, surgeons, cooks, ordinary seaman, mining masters for the mines in the Urals and engineers to construct the Don-Volga Canal.  Nine hundred people were recruited to Russia by Peter the Great.  He had his army patterned after the German army but could not get them drilled into discipline as soon as he wished.

 After Peter had won a battle against the Swedes, he felt his ships could feel their way out through the Neva river, Finnish gulf and the Baltic sea and began to make plans for his city to be built.  He already called the new fort and the stockaded village Petersburg.  It was to be his town.  A wooden cottage was built for him and there was a wooden church called the church of Sts. Peter and Paul.  Peter’s first exploration of the site of Petersburg would have discouraged most men.  Peter took the advice of no one on this project in the marshes of the Neva.  Stones were gathered in massive crates  Peter was happy that he would have a port free of ice six months out of the year and opening into the Baltic on which his fleet could sail.  This was his hope of a haven on the water far from the detested walls of the Kremlin.  Peter called it "my paradise."  Many men built this city, giving their lives in the process.  They died from typhus, starvation and exposure to ice, wind and water.  In l705, Petersburg(6) meant not only access to the sea but a city for the future of Russia.(5)  This became a point of conflict between Peter and his people since no nation until then had tried to thrust its capitol city out into foreign territory.  Many uprisings and wars persisted during the building of Petersburg while 40,000 men labored at the buildings and canals.

 Documents from the west began to be addressed less to Moscow and now to Russia and to Peter as the Great Sovereign and Tsar of Russia.  Moscow was losing its importance to the Tsar.  The new buildings of Petersburg(8) were planned to be like those in the west.  By 1712, many hospitals had been built as well as academies of education for the young.  Petersburg soon had its academy for education and a Marine Academy teaching navigation and naval science to sons of the gentry.  Peter felt he could raise his people to the educational level of the west.  Libraries went up and Peter experimented with a simple Russian alphabet to expedite learning.  The first newspaper was  published in this new type in l7l8.  Certain aids to learning were used to "debarbarize" the Russian people.  Against their will, he was determined, as his mission in life, to reform the country and her people.

 Peter felt good about his accomplishments and after his death was portrayed as a Man of Destiny and the "Great Reformer".  Peter seems to have remained firmly in place among the creators of the Russian nation(5) with  emphasis on his fellowship with ordinary people, his jesting at the "reactionary nobility", his reforms, and his mobilization of the army.  In later years under Communism, his role became that of the soldier who organized a defense of the land.  In his early years, Peter the Great is to be admired not only for his many achievements and reforms but a one of the most honest and unpretentious rulers of Russia.  In many ways, he laid the foundation for Russia to be the beautiful and interesting country it is today.
 
 

Bibliography
 

1.  "Crown of the Russian Empire." http://sunsite.cs.msu.su/heraldry/  (April 27, l998)

2.  Lamb, Harold.  The City and The Tsar.  Garden City, New York:  Doubleday & Company, Inc., l948.

3. "Mikhail Feodorovich." http://www.sptimes.com/Treasures/TC.2.3.1.html  (April 27, l998)

4. "Russia."  http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/commonwealth/Russia.94.jpg (April 27, l998)

5. "Russian History." http://www.bucknell.edu/departments/russian/history.html  (April 27, l998)

6. "Russia-Northwest."  l996.  http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~feefhs/maps/ruse/re-nw.html (April 27, l998)

7. "Russian Royal Family." http://sunsite.cs.msu.su/heraldry/fam.html  (April 27, l998)

8.  "St. Petersburg."  http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/world_cities/leningrad.jpg (April 27, l998)

9. "St. Petersburg."  http://www.lonelyplanet.com.au/dest/eur/graphics/map-stp.htm  (April 27, l998)
 
Other Sources:

"Russia: How Has Change Affected the Former USSR." http://www.learner.org/exhibits/russia/ (May 1, 1998)

Created May 1, 1998