Peter the Great became the czar of Russia when he was only 17. The people considered him a savage, rough man. He punched or kicked his subjects when they didn’t do as he pleased. He drank, his clothes were patched, darned, and dirty, and he once made a man eat an entire tortoise just for his fun! But he also was quite wise. He traveled to Europe to see how the West did things. He hired himself out to ports and workshops. Peter even saw how the Westerners shaved their beards and when he returned to Russia, he ordered all his courtiers to shave theirs! If he saw a man with a beard, he would begin to hack it off! The men of that age believed that you needed a beard to go to heaven and so they kept their shaven beard hair so that they could have it buried with them! Peter wanted warships like the Europeans. He had over 800 built, but he didn’t have a port, so they couldn’t go anywhere! He decided that he wanted the Baltic shores. That was owned by Sweden, and Peter wasn’t afraid of Sweden since their king was a 19 year old boy, Charles XII. The Russians had to trudge through the snow to get to the battlefield. They declared war and it began in 1700. Peter’s army had a rough start. The cannons got ruined on the cold, hard trip, and sometimes when they fired the cannonballs just rolled out of the barrel and plopped onto the ground! Other times the entire cannon would explode, killing the operators! Finally the Swedes marched the Russians into the north of Russia. The Swedes weren’t used to the extremely cold weather, colder than anyone could remember, and their clothes weren’t adequate. But the Russians had been expecting the cold. They had fur coats, hats, and boots, and were armed for the Russian weather. The Swedish had to find shelter for the winter, and the only city near was a tiny, walled town with only one small door into the city. It took three whole days to get the huge army to file into the one small door, while thousands died and thousands more lost noses, ears, fingers, and toes due to frostbite. Finally the Swedes couldn’t stand it anymore after Charles XII died from a bullet wound and surrendered. Meanwhile, in 1702, Peter built his great new capital city, St. Petersburg, after his patron saint, St. Peter. When he began, he used peasants and paid them so little that they had to steal or beg to get enough food. It was in a mosquito-y, sloshy, muddy swamp with no trees, so that they had to be dragged. There were no wheelbarrows for his workers, and they carried bricks in the laps of their shirts. His palace was a three room hut with no stove and painted to look like brick. A man described it as a dump, and ten years later the same man said it was a praiseworthy, glorious city. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long for Peter, because the same year it was finished, 1724, Peter was on a ship in icy waters. A ship near them began to sink, and Peter leaped out of his ship to help drag the sailors ashore. After saving many people, he caught a fever from the cold water. Peter the Great died a hero in 1724.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)