Reinventing Russia Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley


Reinventing Russia

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I'm making my first trip to Russia,

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a country I've been wanting to visit for years.

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Because if you're fascinated by stories of royalty and royal power,

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there's nowhere better than this.

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CHURCH BELL TOLLS

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This is Red Square. It's a vast and diverse place.

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This is the huge, scary-looking fortress of the Kremlin.

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This is an absolutely ginormous department store.

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And over there is the Cathedral of St Basil.

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Red Square is the centre of a country that goes all the way to China.

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Now, how do you rule over a place that enormous and that confusing?

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Well, in Russia, for more than 300 years,

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one family managed to do just that. The Romanov dynasty.

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That's as if, in Britain, the Stuarts had hung onto power

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right into the 20th century.

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Now, I'll be following in the footsteps of the Romanovs,

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the most powerful monarchs in modern European history.

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It's a roll call of extraordinary characters.

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Peter the Great. The visionary who built a navy from nothing...

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Ready for attack!

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..and transformed a country into an empire.

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Catherine the Great, empress of the glittering palaces.

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The minor princess from Germany

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who became the mightiest woman in the world.

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Alexander I, who led his country through its darkest hour.

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SOLDIERS ROAR

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He defeated Napoleon.

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And took the triumphant Russian army all the way to Paris.

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But behind the spectacular facades lie stories of intrigue,

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betrayal, scandal, even murder.

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And, for all their efforts to place themselves

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at the forefront of modern Europe,

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the Romanovs failed to change a system that kept

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millions of their subjects in medieval servitude...

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until it was far too late.

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When their end came, it was astonishingly brutal.

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GUNSHOT

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Slaughtered by the revolution that shook the world.

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To understand the end of the Romanovs,

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you need to understand their whole story -

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of a royal family with unparalleled control over their people.

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And you might ask yourself what you would have done in their shoes

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with such absolute personal power.

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For anyone who grew up during the Cold War,

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it's hard to shake off the image of Russia

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as intimidating and impregnable.

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A bona fide superpower under the iron rule of the Kremlin.

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Images of military might on display in Red Square

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have been seared into our minds.

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Yet the age of the Romanovs began in a power vacuum.

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And in this programme, we'll see how, in little more than a century,

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this dynasty turned around Russia's fortunes.

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Back in 1613, Russia was leaderless.

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There had been years of anarchy since the previous royal dynasty,

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the Ruriks, had collapsed.

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The country was so weakened that the Polish army had marched right in

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and occupied the Kremlin.

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Once the Poles had finally been driven out,

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the great and good of Russia realised that they needed to stop squabbling,

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and unite around a leader.

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What they wanted the Romans had called a Caesar,

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the Germans, a Kaiser, and, in Russian, a tsar.

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They argued for weeks about who it should be.

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But finally they made their choice.

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The only problem was that nobody had asked this prospective tsar

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if he actually wanted the job.

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The high-powered delegation set out from Moscow

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to find their hoped-for leader, and bring him the good news.

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Their number included nobles and leading churchmen,

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the power brokers of Russia, or Muscovy, as it was also known.

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Their journey took them more than 200 miles north,

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across countryside that was still dangerous and largely lawless.

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And this was their destination - the Ipatiev Monastery,

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overlooking the mighty River Volga.

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SHIP'S HORN

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It was still winter and, with no bridge back then,

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the delegation had to cross the ice to get to the monastery.

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Sheltering here was the object of the delegation's quest.

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A 16-year-old boy called Mikhail Romanov.

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But although the Romanovs were a well-known noble family,

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power was the last thing that he wanted.

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It's said that when Mikhail Romanov was offered the crown,

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he burst into tears. He didn't feel equal to accepting it.

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And his mother was furious with the delegation. She said, "Niet."

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"No, you shouldn't have offered my son such a dangerous responsibility."

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But the delegation said, "It's not up to us, it's not up to you.

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"It's God who wants you to do this thing."

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After several hours of deliberation,

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Mikhail and his mother caved in. They accepted.

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Of course, regardless of what God wanted,

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other considerations had played a role in Mikhail's selection.

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Mikhail Romanov came from a well-established noble family.

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The family had long dynastic connections

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with the previous dynasty. His father, Filaret,

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was the nephew of the last wife of Ivan the Terrible.

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During the election of Mikhail, Filaret was in Polish captivity.

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So different groups in Russian society were satisfied with

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Mikhail's position, with his social status.

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And at the same time they thought it would be easy to manipulate him,

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because his father, who was a very influential figure, was not around.

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Under heavy protection,

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Mikhail now travelled to his coronation in Moscow.

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Here, in a lavish ceremony before the massed ranks

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of Russia's nobility and churchmen,

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he was given the all-important divine seal of approval

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at the Kremlin's Cathedral of the Assumption.

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This is the Russian equivalent of Westminster Abbey.

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All the tsars and emperors came here for their coronations.

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Mikhail Romanov was just short of 17

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when he was presented with the crown, the orb and the sceptre,

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presumably to a great big sigh of relief from the Russian people.

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PRIEST LEADS CHURCH CHOIR SINGING

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The coronation conferred absolute power on the Tsar.

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Although the different noble families and the church were keen

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to influence Mikhail, they agreed that a strong leader was essential

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to prevent the kind of chaos from which Russia had just emerged.

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And they were proved right.

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More than half a century of relative stability

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and reconstruction followed

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under Mikhail, and then his successor, his son, Alexis.

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The idea that the tsars ruled as part of a divinely ordered system

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helped justify their immense power.

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I've come to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow to see an icon

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from the reign of Alexis which features the Tsar himself.

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Painted by an influential Russian artist, Simon Ushakov,

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it's called The Tree Of The Muscovite State.

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Philip, this picture reminds me of Jack And The Beanstalk,

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because it's got an enormous tree growing right out of the cathedral,

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that's planted in the middle of the fortress of the Kremlin.

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Yes, and the roots are common.

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You see, there's a common root for both church power and state power.

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They grow together, they act together.

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A very central idea for medieval Russia.

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And here we've got the first Archbishop of Moscow.

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The first Archbishop of Moscow. And the first Prince of Moscow.

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Planting the tree together.

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-I'm more interested in...

-Yes, here's the monarch, Alexis,

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or Alexei in Russian.

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-The Tsarina, his wife.

-And the two little children, look at them.

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Yes, two children.

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Where did power really lie at this point in the 17th century?

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Symbolically, it was hand-in-hand with civil power.

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But in reality, of course the civil power was much stronger,

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which is not depicted here.

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Secretly, he is the most important person in the picture.

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He is the most important.

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Of course, political power belonged to the Tsar.

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'But something else about the painting is very telling.

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'For all its beauty,

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'by Western European standards, it looks pre-Renaissance.

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'Even by the late 17th century,

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'foreign visitors considered Russia to be almost medieval,

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'and not just in its art and its religious piety.'

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Beyond the walls of Moscow lay a vast, sparsely populated,

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backward country.

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Russian territory stretched from the southern Steppes to the Arctic.

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And thousands of miles east into Siberia.

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In the late 17th century,

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Russia was 100 times the area of England and Wales.

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But it had less than twice the population.

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And this overwhelmingly rural country was hugely underdeveloped.

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Apart from churches and fortifications,

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stone buildings were virtually unknown in Russia.

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Peasant huts and clothes barely changed for hundreds of years.

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At the Museum of Wooden Architecture in Kostroma,

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they've preserved some examples.

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I'm modelling a traditional dress called a sarafan.

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While village life looks idyllic on a sunny day,

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for most of the year it was quite the opposite.

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Russia's climate was notoriously harsh.

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Imagine trudging along here through the mud in the wet,

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or the snow in winter.

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But despite the inhospitable terrain,

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the majority of Russians, right into the 19th century,

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had to scratch out a living from the land.

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They also had to cope with the social reality of serfdom.

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This was a practice that was dying out in Western Europe.

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But in 17th-century Russia, it was actually on the rise.

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And if you were somebody's serf,

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you were effectively their property, to be bought or sold.

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Agriculture was the mainstay of Russia's economy.

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And serfdom guaranteed the landowning nobility a captive workforce.

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The peasants couldn't just up and leave,

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in search of better pay or conditions elsewhere.

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Serfdom lasted and increased in the 17th century simply because

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it was found in the interests of both nobles and state to do so.

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The nobles had already established

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that they needed to have control over the movement of the serfs.

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And to some extent it was in the interest of the state as well,

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to keep people in one place, to tax them, to control them,

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and to reward the nobility for their service.

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So serfs were wealth, in a way that they weren't in the West.

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Bodies were wealth.

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But towards the end of the 17th century

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it looked like things might change.

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Russia gained a new tsar.

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Driven by an obsessive desire to modernise the country,

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he was convinced that Russia's future depended on it looking westwards,

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to Europe.

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Hey-hey-hey! Meet Peter the Great,

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or at least the next best thing,

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because this is a super-accurate wax effigy,

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made just after his death

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and using his actual death mask for the face.

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These are Peter's real clothes and that's even his real hair.

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You might be thinking, "It must be larger than life,"

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because his arms are so freakishly long,

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but, no, he was six and a half feet tall.

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ORTHODOX CHORAL SINGING

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I think he looks pretty terrifying

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and in real life he was absolutely terrifying.

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But Peter the Great was Russia's most far-sighted

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and hard-working sovereign.

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Peter's ruthlessness was a result of his traumatic childhood.

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In 1682, his accession to the throne at the age of nine

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was followed by a brief but bloody revolt.

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A faction at court regarded Peter's half-brother Ivan

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as the rightful tsar.

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When rumours spread that Ivan had been killed,

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a mob stormed into the Kremlin

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and they were led by the royal guards themselves.

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To calm the situation,

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Peter's mother walked out onto the palace balcony

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at the top of this staircase.

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She was holding hands with both Peter and Ivan,

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to prove to the mob that they were very much still alive.

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It must have been a terrifying moment for the little boys,

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for Peter and his brother.

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But when the rebels saw that they were still alive,

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everything calmed down.

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It seemed to work.

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But then, a second wave of violence came sweeping through the palace.

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The rebels came rushing up this staircase,

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and when they got to the top

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they seized the family's closest advisors and leading noblemen

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and they threw them down over that balustrade so they fell

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and were impaled upon the spears of the guards below.

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Eventually, the rebels agreed a compromise,

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but not before they'd slaughtered two of Peter's uncles.

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Peter would have to wait for his revenge.

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The revolt left Peter with a loathing of Moscow.

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As soon as he could get away,

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he did.

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This is Lake Pleshcheyevo, 90 miles north of the capital.

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And it's on these waters that the teenage Peter felt truly at home.

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So where did Peter the Great get his very un-Russian passion for sailing?

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Well, he discovered an old boat

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lying around on one of the royal estates near Moscow.

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But in order to learn how to use it,

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he had to come up here to the nice big lake,

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where he could get up some speed.

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And it was on the waters of this lake that a new vision

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of the future of Russia began to take shape in Peter's mind.

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Peter took every opportunity to come up to the lake.

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He employed foreign experts to teach him

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not just how to sail the boats, but how to build them.

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This is the only survivor of Peter the Great's flotilla of little boats

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that he had made here on the shores of Lake Pleshcheyevo.

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He and his friends would go out onto the water

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and amuse themselves with mock sea battles.

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The small ships became known as Peter's "toy navy",

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but his ambition went much further than simply messing about with boats.

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Peter realised that if Russia was to have prosperity, security

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and influence in the wider world, then it needed to be powerful at sea.

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There's a saying that a ruler with an army has one hand,

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but a ruler with a navy has two.

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Whether or not this saying really was coined by Peter the Great,

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there's no question that he believed it.

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European powers like the English and the Dutch

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were making fortunes from maritime trade.

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But, despite its size, Russia was effectively landlocked.

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It had just the one proper seaport, in the far north,

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and that was frozen up for half the year.

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More urgently, Russia's two most threatening neighbours,

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Sweden to the west and Turkey to the south, both had formidable navies.

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Russia needed a fleet of its own.

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It needed maritime expertise.

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It needed a major new seaport

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that could be its gateway to the world.

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Peter the Great made it his mission to get these things for Russia.

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And to fulfil that mission he took an extraordinary step.

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In 1697,

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at the age of 24, Peter left his kingdom in the hands of his advisors

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and set off to spend a gap year in Europe.

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Here he was to study shipbuilding

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and the latest developments in maritime science.

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The journey became known as Peter's Grand Embassy.

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He spent several months in Holland, working in a shipyard.

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HAMMERING AND SAWING

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Then, early in 1698, Peter and his entourage pitched up in London.

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And one of the first places he visited

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was the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.

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Here at the Observatory, Peter the Great was shown around

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by John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal.

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Together, they looked through a telescope at the planet of Venus.

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But this wasn't just sightseeing.

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Peter wanted to check out Britain's first purpose-built

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scientific research facility.

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It's hard to think of a building that could have appealed to Peter more.

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It had the express purpose of using astronomy

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to improve navigation at sea.

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Over the coming months,

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Peter gorged himself on the best of English science and technology.

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He visited the Royal Society, the Royal Mint and the Tower of London,

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Oxford University and the cannon foundry at the Woolwich Arsenal.

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During his time in London,

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Peter the Great stayed just around the bend in the river from Greenwich,

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at Deptford.

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He liked it there, cos it was near the shipyards

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and he was spotted joining in the work.

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It was said that, "The Tsar of Muscovy works with his own hands

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"as hard as any man in the yard."

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But Peter wasn't your regular shipbuilder.

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He was the special guest of King William III,

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who now gave him a special gift.

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It was the ultimate boy's toy,

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a modern, high-speed ship called the Royal Transport.

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One of several English royal yachts, the ship was a fairly naked bribe.

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William saw Russia as a lucrative potential trading partner.

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Peter soon befriended the ship's designer, the Marquess of Carmarthen.

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And this marquess also shared another much-loved hobby of the young Tsar's.

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This man who designed the ship,

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he and Peter became drinking buddies, didn't they?

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I think they really found sort of kindred spirits in each other.

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The became very close and spent a lot of time together

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during Peter's visit and, yes, drinking was a big part of that.

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Well, I think we know what their favourite tipple was.

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-Brandy laced with peppers.

-That's an interesting idea.

-Indeed.

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Let's see what that tastes like.

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Probably fair to say that

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the English couldn't teach the Russians much about drinking.

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-LUCY LAUGHS

-But at the same time,

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Carmarthen did actually introduce Peter to this drink.

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-So this is the special drink of the shipbuilders of Deptford?

-Indeed.

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-And Peter the Great got a taste for it?

-Yes.

-OK.

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Pepper-flavoured brandy.

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Ugh, that's foul.

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That's really not very nice at all.

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-Oh, you... You swallowed that!

-Oh, actually...!

0:25:520:25:55

THEY LAUGH

0:25:550:25:56

That's not as bad as I was expecting.

0:25:560:25:59

When Peter and his friends were in London,

0:26:010:26:03

they were staying in Deptford on the river,

0:26:030:26:06

they got up to some other naughty tricks, didn't they?

0:26:060:26:08

They certainly did, and they were described

0:26:080:26:10

by one of the Sayes Court servants where they were staying

0:26:100:26:14

as being right nasty in their behaviour.

0:26:140:26:16

They basically trashed the place completely.

0:26:160:26:19

They used portraits and paintings as target practice,

0:26:190:26:22

they burned all the chairs as firewood,

0:26:220:26:25

they destroyed the furniture, tore up the beds,

0:26:250:26:28

knocked a hole in the wall

0:26:280:26:30

so Peter could get out to the river easily,

0:26:300:26:33

and they used to race wheelbarrows

0:26:330:26:35

with people inside them through the hedges.

0:26:350:26:38

Is that because they hadn't seen wheelbarrows before?

0:26:380:26:41

That's exactly right, yes.

0:26:410:26:42

These were entirely new to them, so this was seen as a great sport.

0:26:420:26:46

Peter is beginning to sound like he's a complete mass of contradictions.

0:26:460:26:49

-Is that fair?

-I think it is.

0:26:490:26:52

We see on the one hand his scientific interests,

0:26:520:26:55

and alongside that

0:26:550:26:57

he's behaving like a complete lunatic.

0:26:570:26:59

During his year in Europe, Peter not only acquired a royal yacht,

0:27:010:27:06

he also purchased several shiploads of the latest maritime equipment.

0:27:060:27:10

And who knows - maybe a few wheelbarrows

0:27:110:27:14

to remind him of good times in Deptford.

0:27:140:27:16

He hired European shipbuilders

0:27:180:27:20

and sailors to bring their expertise to Russia

0:27:200:27:23

and to teach the skills that

0:27:230:27:25

he and his retinue had learned for themselves in Holland and England.

0:27:250:27:29

Peter also got a feel for life in prosperous, modern European cities.

0:27:310:27:37

He saw how their citizens behaved,

0:27:370:27:40

where they lived, how they dressed.

0:27:400:27:43

The contrast with his superstitious, conservative homeland

0:27:430:27:47

couldn't have been more marked.

0:27:470:27:49

And, as if to underline the point, in August 1698

0:27:510:27:55

he was forced to hurry back to Moscow.

0:27:550:27:58

The palace guards had rebelled again.

0:28:020:28:04

The revolt was quickly crushed

0:28:120:28:15

and this time there were no deals or compromises -

0:28:150:28:18

Peter was merciless in his retribution.

0:28:180:28:22

He had more than a thousand of his guards beheaded or hanged.

0:28:220:28:27

Hundreds more were tortured, flogged and banished.

0:28:270:28:30

The fate of the guards, known in Russian as the Streltsy,

0:28:320:28:35

is depicted in this picture by Vasily Surikov,

0:28:350:28:39

one of the great Russian history painters of the 19th century.

0:28:390:28:43

This is Red Square on the morning of the execution of the Streltsy.

0:28:450:28:50

You know which ones they are, because they have immensely long beards

0:28:500:28:55

and they're in their shirts,

0:28:550:28:56

because their uniforms have been stripped off them.

0:28:560:28:59

And each of them is holding a little candle.

0:29:010:29:04

That's his life that's about to be snuffed out.

0:29:040:29:08

All the rest of the people here,

0:29:080:29:10

and there's a huge mass of humanity, are their families.

0:29:100:29:14

He's got his wife weeping on his lap

0:29:140:29:17

and that must be his little boy who's crying on his knee.

0:29:170:29:22

There's a huge amount of suffering going on.

0:29:220:29:25

You'd think that somebody would take pity, but no.

0:29:250:29:28

Here's the man in charge, Peter the Great,

0:29:280:29:31

and he is implacable, look at him.

0:29:310:29:34

He's saying this lot are absolutely going

0:29:380:29:41

to that gallows in the background.

0:29:410:29:43

And the reason that Peter is so determined

0:29:480:29:51

is that he was once the weeping little boy himself.

0:29:510:29:55

These are the men who murdered Peter's own uncles.

0:29:580:30:02

But the real message of the picture

0:30:050:30:08

is that the Streltsy represent the old Russia.

0:30:080:30:11

They're messy and dirty and superstitious

0:30:110:30:15

and Peter the Great is the wind of change.

0:30:150:30:18

He's going to sweep them all away.

0:30:180:30:21

Peter's next move was to quash any lingering opposition to his rule.

0:30:240:30:28

He was convinced that the rebellion had been orchestrated

0:30:300:30:33

by his half-sister Sophia.

0:30:330:30:35

He didn't execute Sophia,

0:30:400:30:43

but he did what was considered the next best thing.

0:30:430:30:46

He forced her to become a nun...

0:30:470:30:50

..and spend the rest of her life largely in solitary confinement,

0:30:510:30:55

here at the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow.

0:30:550:30:58

But, initially at least, Peter did provide Sophia with some company.

0:31:050:31:10

He strung up the corpses of the Streltsy rebels

0:31:120:31:15

right outside her windows.

0:31:150:31:17

Peter now turned to the Moscow elite.

0:31:200:31:23

These were the same class of people

0:31:230:31:25

who put the Romanovs on the throne nearly 90 years before.

0:31:250:31:28

But Peter considered them to be reactionary and lazy.

0:31:290:31:33

It was time they caught up with the present day.

0:31:330:31:37

Peter decided that the best way to make them behave

0:31:370:31:40

like modern Europeans was to make them look like modern Europeans.

0:31:400:31:44

This is rather good, isn't it?

0:31:460:31:48

A bit tsar-ish, a bit furry, a bit velvety too.

0:31:480:31:52

Very nice.

0:31:520:31:53

To see just how revolutionary this was,

0:31:580:32:01

I've come to the famous Mosfilm Studios in Moscow.

0:32:010:32:04

Many a historical epic has been filmed here.

0:32:070:32:11

And, while I admire the vast costume department,

0:32:110:32:14

our translator, Misha, has volunteered

0:32:140:32:16

to model some traditional Russian clothes,

0:32:160:32:20

to show what Peter's new rules on dress actually meant.

0:32:200:32:24

Misha, you've been quite a long time in there - are you ready?

0:32:240:32:28

-I think I am.

-Let's have a look, then.

0:32:280:32:31

Oh, look at you! Come out.

0:32:310:32:33

SHE CHUCKLES

0:32:330:32:35

-You look like a lovely little tsar.

-Well, I am.

0:32:350:32:38

You're dressed for the 17th century,

0:32:380:32:40

-you're warm for the Moscow winters, I guess.

-Absolutely.

0:32:400:32:43

And, um, is it practical? Can you move about in this one?

0:32:430:32:46

Of course it's practical, because this is how people were dressed.

0:32:460:32:49

-Yes.

-It also is a little bit not really European.

0:32:490:32:54

-Let's see your boots.

-Maybe somewhat Oriental.

-Sexy.

0:32:540:32:58

-Oh, are they?

-Very nice, yes.

-Thank you.

0:32:580:33:01

Yes, you do have a touch of the Orient about you, looking at you.

0:33:010:33:04

Oh, I would say it's old Russian style...

0:33:040:33:06

-Old Russian style, yes.

-..rather than Oriental.

0:33:060:33:08

It could have some influence of the Orient,

0:33:080:33:11

just like a lot of old Russian architecture, for example, does.

0:33:110:33:15

-Yeah.

-So the clothing also may reflect that.

-Yes, yes.

0:33:150:33:18

So along comes Peter the Great at the end of the 17th century

0:33:180:33:20

and he doesn't want to see his subjects dressed like this any more,

0:33:200:33:23

-he wants to see them as Europeans.

-Absolutely.

0:33:230:33:26

And the first thing to go, I'm sorry to say, is...

0:33:260:33:29

-Don't!

-..the beard!

-Now, don't,

0:33:290:33:31

because the beard for every old Russian...

0:33:310:33:34

-Very important?

-..is a sacred thing.

-Right, yeah.

0:33:340:33:37

It's a very religious thing.

0:33:370:33:39

-Yes.

-And the people in those days

0:33:390:33:42

said that a man without a beard is naked.

0:33:420:33:45

But Peter the Great, he'd been to Europe,

0:33:450:33:47

he'd seen all of these clean-shaven people

0:33:470:33:49

and he thought it was very important that his subjects should lose

0:33:490:33:52

the beards, so there's stories of him ripping them out by the roots.

0:33:520:33:55

-Is this possible?

-Well, you can try, of course, but he wouldn't...

0:33:550:33:58

That's going to hurt you.

0:33:580:34:00

He wouldn't rip them off, but he cut them with an axe,

0:34:000:34:02

that's what the legend says.

0:34:020:34:04

Now, I actually know the secret of getting your beard off you.

0:34:040:34:08

Are you ready for this, Misha?

0:34:080:34:09

-I don't know.

-Come on, take it like a man!

-I am afraid!

0:34:090:34:14

Whee!

0:34:140:34:15

Argh!

0:34:150:34:17

HE GROANS You're laughing?

0:34:170:34:20

I am laughing, I've still got my moustache, it's not that bad yet.

0:34:200:34:23

-No, you haven't!

-Oh, no!

0:34:230:34:25

Now, we've Europeanised your facial hair.

0:34:270:34:30

Peter the Great would also have wanted to change your clothes, wouldn't he?

0:34:300:34:33

Yeah, he didn't stop with the beards just - he went the full way.

0:34:330:34:38

Go on, back into your cubicle.

0:34:380:34:39

Ta-dum!

0:34:440:34:46

Very good, fantastic!

0:34:460:34:48

Oh, fantastic!

0:34:490:34:52

So here you are, all European-ed up.

0:34:520:34:54

Now, it strikes me that your shoes are better for dancing,

0:34:540:34:57

but not so good for walking across a snowy plain.

0:34:570:35:01

Absolutely right. For snow, this is horrible.

0:35:010:35:05

I would freeze my feet off.

0:35:050:35:07

And how are you feeling about it as a Russian nobleman?

0:35:070:35:10

I, for one, am extremely unhappy,

0:35:100:35:12

-because I was used to my warm, good Russian clothes...

-Yes.

0:35:120:35:16

-..where I can wander around.

-In the snow.

0:35:160:35:18

In the snow, without doing a single thing,

0:35:180:35:21

just direct my hundreds of thousands of serfs

0:35:210:35:24

-and do nothing.

-Are you feeling a bit draughty in the chin department?

0:35:240:35:28

Absolutely naked, Lucy.

0:35:280:35:30

And what can you do about this as an early-18th-century nobleman?

0:35:300:35:35

Well, the thing is that the noblemen had really no choice.

0:35:350:35:39

The clergy and the people in the fields, the peasants,

0:35:390:35:42

as they were called at the time, they continued having beards.

0:35:420:35:46

They could actually pay for their beards

0:35:460:35:49

and there is a little token here

0:35:490:35:52

and it shows that I have paid... or whoever...paid a beard tax.

0:35:520:35:58

Once you wear it around your neck to show that you have paid for it,

0:35:580:36:02

you can have your proud Russian beard.

0:36:020:36:06

A tiny little beard on it, look at that.

0:36:060:36:08

I think that there's something that I owe you,

0:36:100:36:12

as you're clearly a beard taxpayer.

0:36:120:36:14

-You can have your beard back.

-Oh, thank you!

0:36:170:36:20

-Thank you so much.

-Enjoy your facial hair.

0:36:200:36:23

Do svidaniya.

0:36:230:36:25

And all this applied to the ladies too.

0:36:350:36:37

Although they're said to have enjoyed

0:36:380:36:40

wearing their elegant European dresses rather more than the men did.

0:36:400:36:44

Peter's assault on the traditions of old Moscow left the capital reeling.

0:36:480:36:54

But the Tsar was already planning what was to be his boldest move yet.

0:36:540:36:59

In 1703, Peter packed up and left Moscow once again.

0:37:010:37:05

-ANNOUNCER:

-'Dear passengers, please prepare your tickets to be checked

0:37:090:37:13

'and listen to the information announcements.'

0:37:130:37:16

Peter was leading a military expedition west,

0:37:230:37:26

towards the Gulf of Finland, the gateway to the Baltic Sea.

0:37:260:37:30

On the high-speed train, it takes me less than four hours.

0:37:330:37:37

On horseback, though, it took Peter weeks.

0:37:370:37:40

He was venturing into barely chartered territory,

0:37:450:37:49

swamplands with just a few isolated fishing settlements.

0:37:490:37:53

Most dangerously of all, this was land claimed by Sweden,

0:37:570:38:00

the most powerful country in the Baltic region.

0:38:000:38:03

It was when Peter reached the banks of the Neva River

0:38:070:38:10

that the objective of the exercise became clear.

0:38:100:38:13

Peter had found his gateway to the sea,

0:38:180:38:22

the ground zero of a new maritime Russia.

0:38:220:38:26

Legend has it that this is pretty much the exact spot

0:38:280:38:31

where Peter the Great got off his horse

0:38:310:38:34

and declared, "Here will be a city."

0:38:340:38:37

Luckily, there was even an eagle hovering over his head as he spoke

0:38:370:38:42

to make it even more like an epic Bible story.

0:38:420:38:45

And Peter did have Pharaoh-like powers over his subjects.

0:38:450:38:50

He was able to bend his serfs, his nobles and even nature to his will.

0:38:500:38:56

So, with frightening speed,

0:38:560:38:58

what had been a mosquito-ridden marshland over there

0:38:580:39:02

was turned into this great city.

0:39:020:39:05

ORTHODOX CHORAL SINGING

0:39:080:39:10

Peter christened his city St Petersburg

0:39:160:39:20

and it would become the home of the Romanov dynasty,

0:39:200:39:23

eclipsing Moscow for more than two centuries.

0:39:230:39:26

The first building Peter constructed was the Peter and Paul Fortress.

0:39:290:39:33

St Petersburg began as a military base,

0:39:350:39:38

because Peter had declared war on Sweden.

0:39:380:39:41

The timing seemed right.

0:39:430:39:45

Sweden had a new and teenage king, Charles XII,

0:39:470:39:51

and Peter hoped to take advantage of Charles's inexperience

0:39:510:39:55

to establish Russia as a Baltic power.

0:39:550:39:57

I think there was the thought

0:40:010:40:03

that the young Charles XII might prove an easier target

0:40:030:40:07

than his more celebrated ancestors had done,

0:40:070:40:10

but it was still quite a risky project to take on.

0:40:100:40:13

There was no sense that Sweden was in any sense a declining power

0:40:130:40:16

and, of course, behind Sweden -

0:40:160:40:18

this was the crucial Swedish advantage -

0:40:180:40:21

lay the diplomatic power of Louis XIV,

0:40:210:40:23

the greatest international power of all.

0:40:230:40:26

The Swedes were French clients in diplomacy,

0:40:260:40:29

so it was certainly risky to try anything on.

0:40:290:40:31

War with Sweden gave Peter the excuse

0:40:340:40:37

to fulfil perhaps the longest-held of all his dreams.

0:40:370:40:40

With its easy access to the Baltic Sea,

0:40:420:40:44

St Petersburg became the base for Peter's next grand project...

0:40:440:40:48

..the building of a navy.

0:40:490:40:51

Hello! Are you Captain Vladimir?

0:40:560:40:59

-Hello. Welcome on board Shtandart.

-Ah, thank you!

-May I help you in?

0:40:590:41:03

A fine ship, the Shtandart.

0:41:030:41:06

Thank you very much.

0:41:060:41:08

-Please come on board.

-Thank you.

0:41:080:41:10

Let's have a look. Guns, cannons, ropes.

0:41:100:41:13

This is a replica of Peter the Great's flagship frigate,

0:41:180:41:22

his pride and joy,

0:41:220:41:25

the Shtandart.

0:41:250:41:26

Peter sailed in the 1703 original himself.

0:41:280:41:32

It was modelled on the Royal Transport,

0:41:320:41:34

the English ship he was given by William III.

0:41:340:41:37

Stand by for departure.

0:41:390:41:41

The Shtandart was the biggest of ten ships

0:41:450:41:48

that Peter managed to build in just five months.

0:41:480:41:51

As the war with Sweden escalated,

0:41:540:41:56

the fleet had to be constructed at breakneck speed.

0:41:560:42:00

She's brave!

0:42:010:42:03

Oh!

0:42:030:42:04

SHE GASPS What's the word for "fantastic"?

0:42:060:42:09

-Fantastic.

-Fantastic!

0:42:090:42:11

Now Peter's time in the shipyards of Amsterdam and London really paid off.

0:42:210:42:25

He set his imported Dutch and English experts to work,

0:42:260:42:30

alongside Russians who'd learned shipbuilding

0:42:300:42:33

during the Grand Embassy.

0:42:330:42:34

Above all, it was probably Peter's own hands-on involvement

0:42:380:42:43

that ensured the Shtandart was completed so quickly.

0:42:430:42:47

-Midships now.

-Yes, Captain Vladimir.

0:42:470:42:49

Peter's new and untested navy

0:42:530:42:55

would be like David taking on the Swedish Goliath.

0:42:550:42:58

The Shtandart had to be more powerful

0:42:590:43:02

and more manoeuvrable than anything the Swedes could muster.

0:43:020:43:06

Captain Vladimir, in 1703, when the Shtandart was completed,

0:43:110:43:16

was she a very state-of-the-art vessel?

0:43:160:43:18

For that time, the steering wheel

0:43:180:43:21

was a kind of technological innovation, very advanced.

0:43:210:43:24

The steering wheel came on the stage in 1700, 1701.

0:43:240:43:27

Oh! Not very long before...

0:43:270:43:28

In 1703, the Russian fleet was equipped with a steering wheel,

0:43:280:43:32

which made ships very manoeuvrable

0:43:320:43:35

and very well controlled, so that was something very special,

0:43:350:43:39

and artillery, the cannons were very powerful. That was six-pounders

0:43:390:43:43

-and, for a ship of that size, that is quite powerful cannons.

-Yes.

0:43:430:43:47

What was it like, then, when Peter the Great and his crew were sailing?

0:43:480:43:52

Who would be here? What would be happening?

0:43:520:43:54

150 people, 28 cannons, four persons per cannon,

0:43:540:44:00

so they would be standing by next to the cannons,

0:44:000:44:03

and the sailors, they would have to operate all sails at once,

0:44:030:44:06

so in battle, during the manoeuvres, the sailors would be standing by

0:44:060:44:11

on lines for bracing the yards, for hoisting sails, for shaking sails.

0:44:110:44:15

'Peter was gambling that his new ships and their crews

0:44:180:44:22

'would give the Swedes a nasty surprise, and they did.'

0:44:220:44:25

Ready for attack!

0:44:250:44:26

The Shtandart soon saw action,

0:44:290:44:31

exchanging fire with Swedish warships

0:44:310:44:34

while defending Kronstadt... CANNONS BOOM

0:44:340:44:37

..the Russian naval base in the Gulf of Finland.

0:44:370:44:41

Over the next six years,

0:44:410:44:42

in what became known as the Great Northern War,

0:44:420:44:46

Peter used sea and land forces

0:44:460:44:47

to consolidate his position in the Baltic region.

0:44:470:44:51

On several occasions, he led his own men into battle.

0:44:510:44:55

Do you admire him?

0:44:590:45:00

He's my hero, and that is because he was thinking

0:45:000:45:03

more about the country, not about himself.

0:45:030:45:07

His own wealth was not that important.

0:45:070:45:11

His life has a really clear target, goal and mission.

0:45:110:45:16

The Great Northern War dragged on for two decades

0:45:180:45:23

and in the early years Peter was sorely tested.

0:45:230:45:26

Charles XII of Sweden may have been young,

0:45:270:45:31

but he proved to be a formidable military commander.

0:45:310:45:34

Charles was preoccupied with war.

0:45:360:45:38

War was his main passion.

0:45:380:45:41

Peter was also very interested in war

0:45:410:45:43

and there is an argument that all reforms initiated by Peter

0:45:430:45:47

were actually dictated by his interest in war,

0:45:470:45:51

so we have two figures who had a very strong interest in war,

0:45:510:45:55

a very deep sense of involvement in international affairs,

0:45:550:45:59

so the conflict was unavoidable.

0:45:590:46:02

Despite the length of the war, Peter's decisive battle with Charles

0:46:070:46:12

came as early as 1709,

0:46:120:46:15

and it wasn't at sea,

0:46:150:46:17

it was hundreds of miles inland, at Poltava in the Ukraine.

0:46:170:46:21

The viciousness of the battle is captured

0:46:250:46:28

in this 18th-century mural in St Petersburg.

0:46:280:46:31

As you get closer, you realise that it's a mosaic.

0:46:320:46:36

It was painstakingly assembled from thousands of tiny pieces

0:46:370:46:41

of stained glass by an artist and scientist called Mikhail Lomonosov.

0:46:410:46:47

Here is Peter the Great with his very distinctive mullet haircut,

0:46:530:46:57

and he's got his sword out, ready to cut the heads off some Swedes,

0:46:570:47:01

and he's leading the troops in person, as he did in 1709.

0:47:010:47:07

The leader at the other side

0:47:070:47:10

is King Charles XII of Sweden up there. He's riding in a sedan chair,

0:47:100:47:15

because he'd hurt his foot before the battle.

0:47:150:47:18

You might also notice that he's much, much, much smaller

0:47:180:47:21

than Peter the Great in this image.

0:47:210:47:23

And in this little scene a blood-thirsty Russian,

0:47:270:47:30

showing his white teeth,

0:47:300:47:32

is about to skewer this poor Swede with his sword.

0:47:320:47:35

It was a decisive victory for the Russians,

0:47:370:47:39

but not just because of their bravery.

0:47:390:47:42

They also completely outnumbered the Swedes.

0:47:420:47:45

SHOUTING AND GUNFIRE

0:47:450:47:48

Poltava was a pivotal battle for Peter the Great,

0:47:530:47:57

because it allowed Russia to overtake Sweden

0:47:570:48:00

to become the dominant power in Baltic Europe.

0:48:000:48:03

The security of St Petersburg was now assured.

0:48:070:48:10

And in 1712, just three years after his victory at Poltava,

0:48:120:48:17

Peter made St Petersburg the new capital of Russia.

0:48:170:48:21

The city had grown rapidly in its first decade.

0:48:250:48:29

Large numbers of nobles and wealthy citizens

0:48:290:48:32

had relocated there from Moscow,

0:48:320:48:35

not out of choice - Peter had demanded it.

0:48:350:48:37

With its canals and stone buildings, resembling Venice or Amsterdam,

0:48:420:48:49

St Petersburg presented foreign visitors with Peter's vision

0:48:490:48:53

of a modern, Europeanised Russia,

0:48:530:48:56

one full of thriving commerce and rational order.

0:48:560:49:00

But the great irony was that the city only existed

0:49:050:49:08

because of Peter's autocratic and despotic powers

0:49:080:49:13

and because of the medieval institution of serfdom,

0:49:130:49:16

which he actually reinforced.

0:49:160:49:19

Thousands of serfs and forced labourers perished

0:49:230:49:27

while constructing his new capital.

0:49:270:49:29

It's famously said, of course,

0:49:310:49:32

that St Petersburg was a city built on human bones

0:49:320:49:36

and there's no doubt that it was an extraordinary business

0:49:360:49:39

to get it off the ground, because most of the ground

0:49:390:49:41

was totally unsuitable for building on it.

0:49:410:49:44

It's a swamp. The climate is very severe, the ground is very damp,

0:49:440:49:50

so a vast effort had to be put in by the state,

0:49:500:49:53

by the troops and by the state peasantry

0:49:530:49:56

in order to achieve what Peter wanted to achieve.

0:49:560:50:00

St Petersburg was built at enormous human cost,

0:50:010:50:04

so much so that it's almost obscene to discuss

0:50:040:50:07

whether it was worth it or not. We don't know how many people died.

0:50:070:50:11

It could have been up to 100,000.

0:50:110:50:13

What we do know is that every year 40,000 peasants were conscripted

0:50:130:50:18

to work on St Petersburg.

0:50:180:50:19

Now, some of them may not have arrived.

0:50:190:50:21

They may have fled before they got there,

0:50:210:50:23

they may have fled into the forests once they're in St Petersburg,

0:50:230:50:26

but the population of the city itself rose very slowly,

0:50:260:50:29

so I think we have to assume that many of those peasants died.

0:50:290:50:33

Peter's ruthlessness didn't stop at the palace gates.

0:50:380:50:42

When he got bored of his first wife, Evdokiya,

0:50:450:50:48

he packed her off to the convent in Moscow.

0:50:480:50:51

With her love of hard drinking and dwarf entertainers,

0:50:570:51:01

Evdokiya's replacement, Catherine,

0:51:010:51:03

was far more to Peter's taste.

0:51:030:51:06

Peter's eldest son, and his putative successor, Alexei,

0:51:100:51:14

presented a more intractable problem.

0:51:140:51:17

Now in his 20s, Alexei seemed incapable of

0:51:190:51:23

and uninterested in following in his father's footsteps.

0:51:230:51:27

Peter was willing to give Alexei one last chance.

0:51:350:51:39

He wrote him a letter full of admonitions

0:51:390:51:41

telling Alexei to get his act together

0:51:410:51:44

and if Alexei failed, well, then Peter had a threat to make -

0:51:440:51:48

"I will cut you off like a gangrenous member,

0:51:480:51:52

"for if I have not spared myself in the service of our country,

0:51:520:51:57

"why should I spare you?"

0:51:570:51:59

In 1716, poor old Alexei fled Russia for Vienna.

0:52:060:52:11

Peter was furious. He suspected a conspiracy.

0:52:120:52:17

He knew that elements of the nobility

0:52:170:52:20

resented the way he'd unilaterally declared war on Sweden

0:52:200:52:24

and moved the court to St Petersburg.

0:52:240:52:27

Might they now be rallying around his son?

0:52:270:52:30

Peter enticed Alexei back to St Petersburg.

0:52:320:52:35

He promised him clemency.

0:52:350:52:37

But then he had him locked up.

0:52:390:52:42

Here at the fortress, Alexei was interrogated under torture.

0:52:440:52:49

He was whipped, and when his back was all covered in blood

0:52:490:52:52

he admitted, as anybody would do,

0:52:520:52:54

that he HAD conspired and plotted against his father.

0:52:540:52:58

A court sentenced poor Alexei to execution,

0:52:580:53:02

but before this could happen he was discovered mysteriously dead.

0:53:020:53:07

Some people think that this was the effects of the torture,

0:53:070:53:11

others, that he'd been poisoned,

0:53:110:53:12

in order to spare Peter the Great the humiliation

0:53:120:53:16

of having to publicly execute his own son.

0:53:160:53:19

Every single day at noon, a gun fires from the Peter and Paul Fortress.

0:53:310:53:36

This tradition stretches right back to the early days of St Petersburg,

0:53:370:53:41

when cannon shots served as a warning of floods

0:53:410:53:44

or marked important state occasions.

0:53:440:53:46

In 1725, Peter the Great heard the sound for the last time.

0:53:490:53:53

Odin, dva, tri, chetyre, pyat', ogon'!

0:53:530:53:56

LOUD BANG

0:53:560:53:59

He took ill and died on February 8th.

0:54:050:54:10

An autopsy reveals that Peter had gangrene at the bladder.

0:54:100:54:14

He was just 52.

0:54:160:54:18

Russia had lost more than a tsar.

0:54:180:54:21

Just three years earlier, on the back of his Baltic conquests,

0:54:210:54:25

Peter had been proclaimed Emperor.

0:54:250:54:27

The Russian Empire would now last as long as the Romanov dynasty itself.

0:54:290:54:34

TRAIN HORN BLARES

0:54:390:54:41

In little more than a century of Romanov rule,

0:54:440:54:47

Russia had undergone an extraordinary transformation.

0:54:470:54:50

Mikhail I had inherited a war-torn backwater,

0:54:510:54:56

but he and his son Alexis used their absolute power

0:54:560:55:00

to bring stability and continuity.

0:55:000:55:03

But Russia would have remained obscure and backward

0:55:060:55:10

if Peter the Great hadn't developed a boundless vision

0:55:100:55:14

and then let nothing stand in his way.

0:55:140:55:17

He gave his country a navy,

0:55:210:55:24

a new capital, an empire,

0:55:240:55:27

and, above all, a future.

0:55:270:55:30

Peter reinvented Russia, and that's why they call him Peter the Great.

0:55:360:55:42

Half a century after Peter's death,

0:55:520:55:55

this statue was erected to him in St Petersburg.

0:55:550:55:58

It was designed by a French sculptor,

0:56:040:56:06

but the face was done by his 18-year-old female assistant...

0:56:060:56:10

..who modelled it on Peter's own real-life death mask.

0:56:120:56:16

The enormous granite boulder on which the Bronze Horseman sits

0:56:210:56:26

is said to be the largest stone ever moved by human hands.

0:56:260:56:31

It's hard not to think of all the broken backs and crushed limbs

0:56:310:56:35

involved in transporting it, but then, perhaps that's appropriate.

0:56:350:56:41

For all of Peter the Great's tremendous achievements,

0:56:410:56:44

I think it's hard to warm to him.

0:56:440:56:47

He may have dragged Russia kicking and screaming into the modern world,

0:56:470:56:52

but he did so with ruthlessness and sometimes with downright cruelty.

0:56:520:56:58

It's hard to think of another sovereign who worked so hard

0:56:580:57:01

for his people, yet who treated them with so little compassion.

0:57:010:57:05

Nevertheless, Peter changed Russia for ever.

0:57:090:57:12

He set the benchmark against which

0:57:130:57:16

all future Romanov rulers had to be measured.

0:57:160:57:19

But one of them would unashamedly claim Peter's mantle.

0:57:240:57:28

She was the woman who erected this monument to him.

0:57:280:57:32

THEY CHEER

0:57:330:57:36

Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great.

0:57:370:57:42

But if you look at their names on the base of the monument,

0:57:430:57:46

you might think that Catherine's

0:57:460:57:48

is in a slightly bigger font than Peter's.

0:57:480:57:51

Does this mean that she was even greater?

0:57:510:57:54

MUSIC: 1812 Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

0:57:560:57:59

Next time, we meet Catherine the Great,

0:57:590:58:02

the small-time German princess

0:58:020:58:04

who becomes a big-time Russian empress.

0:58:040:58:07

We'll explore a golden age of imperial architecture and culture.

0:58:100:58:15

And we'll see how everything that the Romanovs have achieved

0:58:170:58:21

ends up hanging in the balance, when Napoleon invades Russia.

0:58:210:58:25

THEY ROAR

0:58:250:58:28

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