Russia, St. Petersburg And Peter the Great

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Russia, St. Petersburg And Peter the Great

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

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

As a child he was extremely frightened of water but gradually began to sit in boats without trembling and let the boats take him out on the water. He would sit in a boat until he became calm. Later, as ...

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...ny, Inc., l948.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Sources:

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

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