Original subtitles

[Music]

I'm making my first trip to Russia a

country I've been wanting to visit for

years because if you're fascinated by

stories of royalty and royal power

there's nowhere better than this this is

Red Square

it's a vast and diverse place this is

the huge scary-looking fortress with the

Kremlin this is an absolutely ginormous

department store and over there is the

Cathedral of st. basil Red Square is the

center of a country that goes all the

way to China now how do you rule over a

place that's that enormous and that

confusing well in Russia for more than

300 years one family managed to do just

that

the Vermont dynasty that's as if in

Britain the Stuart's had hung on to

power right into the 20th century

now I'll be following in the footsteps

of the Vimanas the most powerful

monarchs in modern European history it's

a roll call of extraordinary characters

Peter the Great the visionary who built

a navy from nothing ready for attack and

transformed a country into an empire

Catherine the Great impressive the

glittering palaces

the minor princess from Germany who

became the mightiest woman in the world

Alexander the first who led his country

through its darkest hour he defeated

Napoleon and took the triumphant Russian

army all the way to Paris but behind the

spectacular facades life stories of

intrigue betrayal scandal even murder

[Music]

and for all their efforts to place

themselves at the forefront of modern

Europe the Romanovs failed to change a

system that kept millions of their

subjects in medieval servitude until it

was far too late

when their end came it was astonishingly

brutal slaughtered by the revolution

that shook the world to understand the

end of the Vimanas you need to

understand their whole story of a royal

family with unparalleled control over

their people and you might ask yourself

what you would have done in their shoes

with such absolute personal power

[Music]

[Applause]

for anyone who grew up during the Cold

War it's hard to shake off the image of

Russia as intimidating and impregnable a

bona fide East superpower

under the iron rule of the Kremlin

[Music]

images of military might on display in

Red Square have been seared into our

minds

[Music]

yet the age of the Romanoff's began in a

power vacuum and in this program we'll

see how in little more than a century

this dynasty turned around

Russia's fortunes

[Music]

back in 1613 Russia was leaderless

there'd been years of Anarchy since the

previous royal dynasty the viryx /

collapsed the country was so weakened

that the Polish army had marched right

in and occupied the Kremlin once the

poles had finally been driven out the

great and good of Russia realized that

they needed to stop squabbling and unite

around a leader what they wanted the

Romans had called a Caesar

the Germans are Kaiser and in Russian

Azov they argued for weeks about who it

should be

but finally they made their choice the

only problem was that nobody had asked

this perspectives our if he actually

wanted the job

a high-powered delegation set out from

Moscow to find their hoped-for leader

and bring him the good news their number

included nobles and leading churchmen

the power brokers of Russia or Muscovy

as it was also named their journey took

them more than 200 miles north across

countryside that was still dangerous and

largely lawless

[Music]

and this was their destination the a

party of monastery overlooking the

mighty river Volga

[Music]

it was still winter and with no bridge

back then the delegation had to cross

the ice to get to the monastery

sheltering here was the object of the

delegations quest a 16 year old boy

called mikail

Ramallah but although the vermin offs

were a well-known noble family power was

the last thing that he wanted

[Music]

it said that when trick like Lamar Knopf

was offered the crown he burst into

tears he didn't feel equal to accepting

it and his mother was furious with the

delegation she said yes no you shouldn't

have offered my son such a dangerous

responsibility but the delegation said

it's not up to us it's not up to you

it's God who wants you to do this thing

after several hours of deliberation

Mikael and his mother caved in they

accepted

of course regardless of what God wanted

other considerations had played a role

in mikail selection Mikhail Romanov came

from a well-established noble family the

family had long dynastic connections

with the previous dynasty his father

Filaret was the nephew of the last wife

of Ivan the Terrible during the election

of Mikhail Filaret was in Polish

captivity so different groups in Russian

society were satisfied with Mikhail's

position with his social status and at

the same time they thought it would be

easy to manipulate him because his

father who was a very influential figure

was not around under heavy protection

mikhail now traveled to his coronation

in moscow here in a lavish ceremony

before the massed ranks of russia's

nobility and churchmen he was given the

all-important divine seal of approval

the Kremlin's Cathedral of the

Assumption this is the Russian

equivalent of Westminster Abbey all the

czars and emperors came here for their

combinations Mikhail Romanov was just

short of seventeen when he was presented

with the crown the orb and the scepter

presumably so a great big sigh of relief

in the Russian people

[Applause]

the coronation conferred absolute power

on the Sun the different noble families

and the church were keen to influence

mikail

they agreed that a strong leader was

essential to prevent the kind of chaos

from which Russia had just emerged more

than half a century of relative

stability and reconstruction followed

under Mikhail and then his successor his

son Alexis the idea that the Tsar's

world as part of a divinely ordered

system helps justify their immense power

I've come to the Tretyakov gallery in

Moscow to see an icon from the reign of

Alexis which features the dark himself

painted by an influential Russian artist

C Mon yushik ah've it's called the tree

at the muscovite state they Philip this

picture reminds me of Jack and the

Beanstalk enormous tree growing right

out of the Cathedral that's planted in

the middle as the fortress as a Kremlin

yes and the roots are coma you see this

one this common root for both church

power and State Bar they grow together

they act together a very central idea

for medieval Russia and here we've got

the first Archbishop of na state first

and the first principal planting the

tree together I'm more interested in who

yes demonic Alexis or Alec he in Russian

and as the reason his wife yes two

children

where did power really light at this

point in the 17th century symbolically

it was hand

in hand with the civil power but in

reality of course this civil power was

much stronger which was not depicted

here secretly he's the most important

person you think is important of course

the political power belonged to the Tsar

but something else about the painting

he's very telling for all its beauty by

Western European standards it looks

pre-renaissance even by the late 17th

century foreign visitors considered

Russia to be almost medieval and not

just in its art in its religious piety

beyond the walls of Moscow lay a vast

sparsely populated backward country

Russian territory stretched from the

southern steps to the Arctic

and thousands of miles east into Siberia

[Music]

in the late 17th century Russia was a

hundred times the area of England and

Wales but it had less than twice the

population

and this overwhelmingly rural country

was hugely underdeveloped apart from

churches and fortifications stone

buildings were virtually unknown in

Russia peasant Hut's and clothes barely

changed for hundreds of years at the

Museum of wood and architecture in

kostroma they've preserved some examples

I'm modeling a traditional dress called

a sour fun wild village life looks

idyllic on a sunny day for most of the

year it was quite the opposite

[Music]

Russia's climate was notoriously harsh

imagine trudging along here through the

mud in the wet all the snow in winter

but despite the inhospitable terrain the

majority of Russians right into the 19th

century had to scratch out a living from

the land they also had to cope with the

social reality of serfdom this is a

practice that was dying out in Western

Europe but in 17th century Russia it was

actually on the rise and if he was

somebody's serf you were effectively

their property to be bought or sold

agriculture was the mainstay of Russia's

economy

and serfdom guaranteed the landowning

nobility a captive workforce the

peasants couldn't just up and leave in

search of better pay or conditions

elsewhere serfdom lasted and increased

in the 17th century simply because it

was found in the interests of both

nobles and state to do so the nobles had

already established that they needed to

have control over the movement of the

serfs and to some extent it was in the

interest of the state as well to keep

people in one place to tax them to

control them and to reward the nobility

for their service

so serfs were wealth in a way that they

weren't in the West bodies were wealth

but towards the end of the 17th century

it looks like things might change Russia

gained a new Tsar driven by an obsessive

desire to modernize the country he was

convinced that Russia's future depended

on it looking westwards to Europe hey me

Peters are great or at least the next

best thing because this is a super

accurate wax effigy made just after his

death and using his actual death mask

for the face

these are Peters real clothes and that's

even his real hair you might be thinking

it must be larger than life because his

arms are so freakishly long but no he

was six and a half feet tall I think he

looks pretty terrifying and in real life

he was absolutely terrifying

but Peter the Great was Russia's most

farsighted and hardworking sovereign

Peter's ruthlessness was a result of his

traumatic childhood in 1682

his accession to the throne at the age

of nine was followed by a brief but

bloody revolt

a faction at court regarded Peters

half-brother Ivan as the rightful czar

when we must spread the Ivan had been

killed a mob stormed into the Kremlin

and they were led by the Royal Guards

themselves to calm the situation Peter's

mother walked out onto the palace

balcony at the top of this staircase she

was holding hands with both Peter and

Ivan to prove to them all that they were

very much still alive

[Music]

it must have been a terrifying moment

for the little boys for Peter and his

brother but when the rebels saw that

they were still alive everything calmed

down it seemed to work but then a second

wave of violence came sweeping through

the palace the rebels came rushing out

this sir case when they got to the top

they seized the families closest

advisors and leading noblemen and they

threw them down over that balustrade so

they fell and were impaled upon the

spears at the guards below

eventually the rebels agreed a

compromise but not before they'd

slaughtered two of Peters uncle's Peter

was have to wait his revenge the revolts

left Peter with a loathing of Moscow as

soon as he could get away he did

[Music]

this is Lake plush Ava 90 miles north of

the capital

and it's all these waters that the

teenage Peter felt truly at home

[Music]

so where did Peter the Great get his

very own Russian passion for sailing

well he discovered an old boat lying

around on one of the Royal estates near

Moscow but in order to learn how to use

it he had to come up here to the nice

big lake where he who get up some speed

and it was on the waters at this lake

that a new vision of the future of

Russia began to take shape in Peters

mind

Peter took every opportunity to come up

to the lake

[Music]

he employed foreign experts to teach him

not just how to sail the boats but how

to build them this is the only survivor

of peter the great's flotilla of little

boats that he had made here on the

shores of lake cliche ville he and his

friends would go out onto the water and

amuse themselves with mock sea vessels

the small ships became known as Peters

toy Navy but his ambition went much

further than simply messing about with

boats

[Music]

Peter realized that if Russia was to

have prosperity security and influence

in the wider world and he needed to be

powerful at sea

there's a saying that a ruler with an

army has one hand but a ruler with a

Navy has to whether or not this saying

really was coined by Peter the Great

there is no question that he believed it

European powers like the English and the

Dutch were making fortunes from maritime

trade but despite its size Russia was

effectively landlocked it had just the

one proper seaport in the far north and

that was frozen up for half the year

more urgently Russia's two most

threatening neighbours Sweden to the

west and Turkey to the south

both had formidable navies

[Music]

Russia needed a fleet of its own

it needed maritime expertise

it needed a major new seaport that could

be its gateway to the world Peter the

Great made it his mission to get these

things from Russia

and to fulfill that mission he took an

extraordinary step in 1697 at the age of

24 Peter left his kingdom in the hands

of his advisers and set off suspend a

gap year in Europe here he was to study

shipbuilding and the latest developments

in maritime science the journey became

known as Peters grand embassy he spent

several months in Holland working in a

shipyard

[Music]

then early in 1698 Peter and his

entourage pitched up in London and one

of the first places he visited with the

Royal Observatory at Greenwich here at

the observatory Peter the Great was

shown around by John Flamsteed the first

astronomer royal together they looked

for a telescope but the planet of Venus

but this wasn't just sight singing Peter

wanted to check out Britain's first

purpose-built scientific research

facility it's hard to think of a

building that could have appealed to

Peter more it had the express purpose of

using astronomy to improve navigation at

sea

[Music]

over the coming months Peter gorged

himself on the best of English science

and technology he visited the Royal

Society the Royal Mint in the Tower of

London Oxford University and the cannon

foundry at the Woollett char señal

[Music]

during his time in London Peter the

Great stays just around the bend in the

river from Greenwich at Deptford he

liked it there because it was near the

shipyards and he was spotted joining in

the work it was said that the Tsar of

Muscovy works with his own hands as hard

as any man in the yard but Peter wasn't

your regular ship builder he was the

special guest of King William the third

who now gave him a special gift it was

the ultimate boys toy a modern high

speed ship called the royal transport

[Music]

one of several English royal yachts the

ship was a fairly naked bribe

Willie muscle Russia is a lucrative

potential trading partner

[Music]

Peter soon befriended the ship's

designer the Marquess of Kemal van and

this Marcus also shared another

much-loved hobby of the young czars this

man who designed the ship he and Peter

became drinking buddies didn't they

I think they've really found some

kindred spirits in each other they

became very close and spent a lot of

time together during Peters visit and

yes drinking was a big part of that well

I think we know what their favourite

tipple was brandy laced with peppers

that's an interesting idea let's see

what that tastes like probably fair to

say that the English couldn't teach the

Russians much about drinking but at the

same time you'd come Aslan did actually

introduce Peter to this drink so this is

the special drink of the shipbuilders of

Deptford indeed and Peter the Great got

a taste for it yes okay pepper flavored

brandy oh that's foul that's really not

very nice tool

ouu they went Peter and his friends were

in London they were staying in Deptford

on the river they got up to some other

naughty tricks didn't they they

certainly did and they were described by

one of the sails court servants as where

they were staying as being right nasty

in their behavior they basically trashed

the place completely they use the

portraits and paintings as target

practice they burnt all the chairs as

firewood they destroyed the furniture

tore up the beds knocked a hole in the

wall so that Peter could get out to the

get out to the river easily and they

used to went race wheelbarrows with

people inside them through the hedges

it's that because they hadn't seen

wheelbarrows right yes these were

entirely new to Peter is beginning to

sound like he's a complete mass of

contradictions is that fair I think it

is we see on the one hand

his scientific interests and alongside

that he's behaving like a complete

lunatic

during his year in Europe Peter not only

acquired a royal yacht he also purchased

several shiploads of the latest maritime

equipment and who knows maybe a few

wheelbarrows to remind him of good times

in Deptford

he hired European shipbuilders and

sailors to bring their expertise to

Russia and to teach the skills that he

and his retinue had learned for

themselves in Holland and England Peter

also got a feel for life in prosperous

modern European cities he saw how their

citizens behaved where they lived how

they dressed the contrast with his

superstitious conservative homeland

couldn't have been more marked and as if

to underline the point in August 16 98

he was forced to hurry back to Moscow

the palace guards had rebelled again

the revolt was quickly crushed and this

time there were no deals or compromises

Peter was merciless in his retribution

he had more than a thousand of his

guards beheaded or hanged hundreds more

were tortured flogged and banished the

fate of the guards known and Russian as

the Streltsy is depicted in this picture

by Vasily surah kahf one of the great

Russian history painters of the 19th

century this is Red Square on the

morning of the execution of the Streltsy

you know which ones they are because

they have immensely long beards and

they're in their the shirts because

their uniforms have been stripped off

them and each of them is holding a

little candle that's his life that's

about to be snuffed out all the rest of

the people here and there's a huge mass

of humanity as their families he's got

his wife weeping on his lap and that

must be his little boy who's crying on

his knee there's a huge amount of

suffering going on you'd think that

somebody would take pity but no here's

the man in charge Peter the Great and he

is implacable look at him

he's saying this lot are absolutely

going to that gallows in the background

and the reason that Peter is so

determined is that he was once the

weeping little boy himself these are the

men who murdered pieces own uncles

[Music]

but the real message of the picture is

that the Streltsy represent the old

Russia they're messy and dirty and

superstitious and Peter the Great is the

wind of change he's going to sweep them

all away

Peter's next move was to quash any

lingering opposition to his rule he was

convinced that the rebellion had been

orchestrated by his half-sister Sofia

he didn't execute Sofia but he did what

was considered the next best thing he

forced her to become a nun and spend the

rest of her life largely in solitary

confinement here at the novodevichy

convent in Moscow but initially at least

Peter did provide Sofia with some

company he strung up the corpses of the

Streltsy rebels right outside her

windows

Peter now turned to the Moscow elites

these were the same class of people who

put the Romanoff's on the flow nearly 90

years before but Peter considered them

to be reactionary and lazy it was time

they caught up with the present day

Peter decided that the best way to make

them behave like modern Europeans was to

make them look like modern Europeans

good isn't it it's Irish bit furry but

velvety - very nice to see just how

revolutionary this was I've come to the

famous mosfilm studios in Moscow many a

historical epic has been filmed here and

while I admire the vast costume

department our translator Misha has

volunteered to model some traditional

Russian clothes to show what Peter's new

rules on dress actually meant Misha

you've been quite a long time in there

are you ready oh look at you come out

you look like a lovely little Tsar well

you're dressed for the 17th century

you're warm for the Moscow winters I

guess and is it practical can you move a

bath in this one well of course it's

practical because this is how people

were dressed yes and it also is a little

bit not really European let's see your

bits may be somewhat oriental sexy yes

you do have a touch that the audience

about you I would say oh I would say

it's old Russians old Russian style yes

oriental it would have some influence of

the Orient just like a lot of old

Russian architecture for example does

yeah so the clothing also may reflect

that yes yes so along comes Peter the

Great at the end of the 17th century and

he doesn't want to see his subjects just

like this anymore he wants to see them

as Europeans absolu

and the first thing to go I'm sorry to

say is don't because the beer every old

Russian sacred thing it's a very

religious thing and the people in those

days said that the man without the beard

is naked but Peter the Great he'd been

to Europe he'd seen all of these

clean-shaven people and he thought it

was very important that his subjects

should lose the beard so there's stories

of him ripping them out by the roots is

this possible well you can try of course

but he wouldn't just get hurt you

he wouldn't rip them off but he cut them

with the next that's what the legend

says now I actually did the secret of

getting your beard off you are you ready

for this Misha I don't know come on take

it I am afraid now we've Europeanized

your facial hair Peter the Great would

also have wanted to change your clothes

wouldn't he yeah he didn't stop with the

beards just he run the full way go on

like it's your cubicle

Oh fantastic

so here you are all Europeans up now it

strikes me that your shoes are better

for dancing but not so good for walking

across a snowy plain absolutely right

for snow this is horrible

I would freeze my feet off and how you

feeling about it is a Russian nobleman I

for one am extremely unhappy because I

was used to my warm good Russian clothes

yes where I can wander around in the

snow in the snow without doing a single

thing just direct my hundreds of

thousands of serfs and do nothing and

are you feeling a bit drafty in the

Chindi purposely naked Lucy what what

can you do about this is a early 18th

century nobleman well the thing is that

the nobleman had really no choice the

clergy and the people in the fields the

peasants as they were called at the time

they continued having beards they could

actually pay for their beards and there

is a little token here and it shows that

I have paid or whoever paid a beard tax

and once you wear it around your neck to

show that you have paid for it you can

have your proud Russian beard tiny

little beard on it look at that

I think that's there's something that's

I owe you as you're clearly a beard

taxpayer you can have your beard back oh

thank you thank you so much enjoy your

facial hair

dosvedanya

[Music]

and all this applied to the ladies -

well though they're said to have enjoyed

wearing their elegant European dresses

far more than the men did

[Music]

Peters assault on the traditions of old

Moscow left the capital reeling but the

Tsar was already planning what was to be

his boldest move yet in 1703 Peter

packed up and left Moscow once again

dear passengers please prepare your

tickets to be checked and listen to the

information announcements

[Music]

Peter was leading a military expedition

west towards the Gulf of Finland the

Gateway to the Baltic Sea

on the high-speeds trade and it takes me

less than four hours on horseback though

it took Peter weeks

he was venturing into barely chartered

territory swamplands were just a few

isolated fishing settlements most

dangerously of all this was land claimed

by Sweden the most powerful country in

the Baltic region it was when Peter

reached the banks of the neva river that

the objective of the exercise became

clear Peter had found his gateway to the

sea the ground zero of a new maritime

Russia legend has it that this is pretty

much the exact spot where Peter the

Great got off his horse and declared

here will be a city luckily there was

even an eagle hovering over his head as

he spoke to make it even more like an

epic Bible story and Peter did have

Pharoah like powers over his subjects he

was able to bend his serfs

his nobles and even nature to his will

and so with frightening speed what had

been a mosquito ridden marshland over

there was turned into this great city

[Music]

Peter christened his city st. Petersburg

and it would become the home of the

Romanov dynasty eclipsing Moscow for

more than two centuries the first

building Peter constructed was the Peter

and Paul Fortress st. Petersburg began

as a military base because Peter had

declared war on Sweden the timing seemed

right Sweden had a new and teenage King

Charles the 12th and Peter hopes to take

advantage of Charles's inexperience to

establish Russia as a Baltic power I

think there was the thought that the

young Charles the 12th might prove an

easier target

then his more celebrated ancestors had

done but it was still quite a risky

project to take on there was no sense

that Sweden was in any sense of

declining power and of course behind

Sweden this was the crucial Swedish

advantage lay the diplomatic power of

louis xiv

the greatest international power of all

the Swedes were French clients in

diplomacy so it was certainly risky to

try anything on

[Music]

war with Sweden gave Peter the excuse to

fulfill perhaps the longest held of all

his dreams with it's easy access to the

Baltic Sea st. Petersburg became the

base for Peters next grand project the

building of a navy hello are you captain

Vladimir hello welcome on under ah thank

you a fine ship the standard please come

on Bertha let's have a look

guns can swoops

this is a replica of piece of The Grapes

flagship frigate his pride and joy the

standards

Peter sailed in the 1703 original

himself it was modeled on the royal

transport the English ship he was given

by William the third

standby for departure

[Music]

the standard was the biggest of ten

ships the PETA managed to build in just

five months

as the war with Sweden escalated the

fleet had to be constructed at breakneck

speed

[Music]

what's the word for fantastic first

fantastic

now Peters time in the shipyards of

Amsterdam and London really paid off he

set his imported Dutch and English

experts to work alongside Russians who'd

learnt shipbuilding during the grand

embassy

above all it was probably Peters own

hands-on involvement that ensured the

standard was completed so quickly it's

now

yes captain Vladimir Peters new and

untested Navy would be like David taking

on the Swedish Goliath the standard had

been more powerful and more maneuverable

than anything the Swedes could muster

captain Vladimir in 1703 when the

standard was completed was she a very

state-of-the-art vessel for that time

the steering wheel was the kind of

technological innovation very advanced

the steering milk come on the stage in

1717 zero one and a 1303 the Russian

fleet was equipped with steering there

which make ships very maneuverable and

very well controlled so that was

something very special and artillery the

cannons were very powerful that was six

pounders and for the ship of that size

that is quite powerful

yes what was it like then when Peter the

Great and his crew was sailing who would

be here what would be happening 150

people 28 cannons four-person air cannon

so they would be standing by next to the

cannons yes and the sailors they would

have to create all sails at once so in

battle during the maneuvers to say

sailors would be standing by on lines

for bracing the yards for hoisting sails

forsaking sails

Peter was gambling that his new ships

and their crews would get the Swedes and

Nazi supplies and they did the standard

soon saw action exchanging fire with

Swedish warships while defending

Kronstadt the Russian naval base in the

Gulf of Finland over the next six years

in what became known as the great

northern war Peter used sea and land

forces to consolidate his position in

the Baltic region and on several

occasions he led his own men into battle

you admire him he's my hero and that is

because he was thinking more about the

country and about himself his own wealth

was not that important his life has a

really clear target Golan

the great northern war dragged on for

two decades and in the early earth peter

was sorely tested Charles the 12th of

Sweden may have been young but he proved

to be a formidable military commander

Charles was preoccupied with war war was

his main passion

Peter was also very interested in war

and there is an argument that all

reforms initiated by Peter were actually

dictated by his interest in war so we

have two figures who had very strong

interest in war very deep sense of

involvement in international affairs so

the conflict was unavoidable

despite the length of the war Peters

decisive battle with Charles came as

early as 1709 and it wasn't as see it

was hundreds of miles inland at Poltava

in the ukraine the viciousness of the

battle is captured in this 18th century

mural in Saint Petersburg as you get

closer you realized that it's a mosaic

it was painstakingly assembled from

thousands of tiny pieces of stained

glass by an artist and scientist called

Mikhail Lomonosov

here is Peter the Great

with his very distinctive mullet haircut

and he's got his sword out ready to cut

the heads off some Swedes and he's

leading the troops in person as he did

in 1709 the leader at the other side is

King Charles the 12th of Sweden up there

he's writing in a sedan chair because

he'd hurt his foot before the battle you

might also notice that he's much much

much smaller than Peter the Great in

this image and in this little scene a

bloodthirsty Russian showing his white

teeth is about to skewer this poor Swede

with his sword it was a decisive victory

for the Russians but not just because of

their bravery they also completely

outnumbered the Swedes

[Applause]

[Applause]

Poltava was a pivotal battle for PETA's

our great because it allowed Russia to

overtake Sweden to become the dominant

power in Baltic Europe

the security of st. Petersburg was now

assured and in 1712 just three years

after his victory at Poltava Peter made

st. Petersburg the new capital of Russia

[Music]

the city had grown rapidly in its first

decade large numbers of nobles and

wealthy citizens had relocated there for

Moscow not out of choice Peter had

demanded it with its canals and stone

buildings resembling Venice or Amsterdam

st. Petersburg presented foreign

visitors with Peter's vision of a modern

European eyes drush ax1 full of fiving

Commerce and rational order but the

great irony was that the city only

existed because of Peters autocratic and

despotic powers and because of the

medieval institution of serfdom which he

actually reinforced

thousands of serfs and forced laborers

perished while constructing his new

capital it famously said of course this

in Petersburg was a city built on human

bones

and there's no doubt that it was an

extraordinary business to get it off the

ground because most of the ground was

totally unsuitable for building on it

it's a swamp the the climate is very

severe the ground is very damp so a vast

effort had to be put in by the state by

the troops and by the state peasantry in

order to achieve what Peter wanted to

achieve in Petersburg was built of

enormous human cost so much so that it's

almost obscene to discuss whether it was

worth it or not we don't know how many

people died it could have been up to a

hundred thousand what we do know is that

every year forty thousand peasants were

conscripted to work on st. Petersburg

now some of them may not have arrived

they may have fled before they got there

they have may have fled into the forest

once they're in st. Petersburg but the

population of the city itself rose very

slowly so I think we have to assume that

many of those peasants died Peters

ruthlessness didn't stop at the palace

gates

when he got bored of his first wife f

dukhia he packed her off to the convent

in Moscow with a love of hard drinking

and dwarf entertainers F do Kia's

replacement Catherine was far more to

Peter's taste Peters eldest son and his

putative successor Alexei presented a

more intractable problem now in his

twenties Alexei seemed incapable of and

uninterested in following in his

father's footsteps

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Peter was willing to give Alexey one

last chance

he wrote him a letter full of

admonitions telling Alexi to get his

acts together and if Alexi failed

well then Peter had a threat to make I

will cut you off like a gangrenous

member for if I have not spared myself

in the service of our country why should

I spare you in 1716 pull wolde Alexi

fled Russia for Vienna

Peter was furious he suspected a

conspiracy

he knew that elements of the nobility

resented the way he'd unilaterally

declared war on Sweden and moved the

court to st. Petersburg might they now

be rallying around his son Peter enticed

Alexi back to st. Petersburg he promised

him clemency but then he had him locked

up here at the fortress Alexei was

interrogated under torture he was

whipped and when his back was all

covered in blood he admitted as anybody

would do that he had conspired and

plotted against his father a court

sentenced poor Alexei to execution but

before this could happen he was

discovered mysteriously dead some people

think that this was

the effects of the torture others that

he'd been poisoned in order to spare

Peter the Great the humiliation of

having to publicly execute his own son

every single day at noon a gun fires

from the Peter and Paul Fortress this

tradition stretches right back to the

early days of st. Petersburg when cannon

shots served as a warning of floods or

marked important state occasions in 1725

Peter the Great heard the sound last

time

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he took ill and died on February the 8th

an autopsy reveals that Peter had

gangrene at the bladder

he was just 52 Russia had lost more than

as are just three years earlier on the

back of his Baltic conquests Peter had

been proclaimed Emperor the Russian

Empire would now last as long as the

vermin of dynasty itself

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in little more than a century of Romanov

rule Russia had undergone an

extraordinary transformation

mikail the first had inherited a

war-torn backwater but he and his son

Alexis used their absolute power to

bring stability and continuity

but Russia would have remained obscure

and backward if peter the great's hadn't

developed a boundless vision and then

let nothing stand in his way

he gave his country and Navy a new

capital an empire and above all a future

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Peter reinvented Russia and that's why

they call him Peter the Great

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half a century after Peter's death this

statue was erected to him in st.

Petersburg it was designed by a French

sculptor but the face was done by his

eighteen year old female assistant who

modeled it on Peters own real-life death

mask

the enormous granite boulder on which

the bronze horseman sits is said to be

the largest stone ever moved by human

hands it's hard not to think of all the

broken backs and crushed limbs involved

in transporting it but then perhaps

that's appropriate for all of Peter the

Great's tremendous achievements I think

it's hard to warm to him he may have

derived Russia kicking and screaming

into the modern world but he did so with

ruthlessness and sometimes with

downright cruelty it's hard to think of

another sovereign who worked so hard for

his people

yet who treated them with so little

compassion

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nevertheless Peter changed Russia

forever

and he set the benchmark against which

all future were Manav rulers had to be

measured

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but one of them would unashamedly claim

Peters mantle she was the woman who

erected this monument to him Katherine

the second also known as Catherine the

Great but if you look at their names on

the base of the monument you might think

that Katherine's is in a slightly bigger

font than Peters does this mean that she

was even greater next time we meet

Catherine the Great the small kind

Ehrman princess who becomes a big-time

Russian Empress

we'll explore a Golden Age of Imperial

architecture and culture and we'll see

how everything that the Romano's have

achieved ends up hanging in the balance

when Napoleon invades Russia

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and part two of empire of the Czar's is

here on bbc4 at the same time next

wednesday next tonight after the queen's

castle as we get a glimpse behind the

scenes

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you