[Dragaera] Peter the Great WAS:Re: Unstoppable Force vs Immovable Object

[Louis Eastman]

Oh, no doubt in my mind that he reformed my family's motherland into
a great and powerful empire.

But he was a drunk, sir. He enjoyed his partying and carousing. And his
prostitutes.
http://www.amazingben.com/arf0075.html
http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/peter_alexis/

Some quotes I really enjoyed from the second, by Voltaire:

Before promulgating his ecclesiastical laws, he created one of his court
jesters pope and celebrated the Festival of the Conclave. The jester, whose
name was Zotov [later a camel-rider in the Most Drunken Synod. -HH], was
eighty-four years old. The tsar conceived the idea of marrying him to a
widow as old as himself, and of solemnly celebrating the nuptials. The
guests were invited by *four stammerers*; some decrepit old men escorted the
bride, while *four of the fattest men in Russia* served as runners. The band
was on a cart drawn by bears goaded with steel points, which, by their
roaring, provided a bass worthy of the tunes being played on the wagon. The
bride and groom were blessed in the cathedral by a blind and deaf
priest *wearing
spectacles*. The procession, the wedding ceremony, the nuptial feast,
the *disrobing
of the bridal couple*, and the ritual of putting them to bed were all
equally appropriate to the buffoonery of the entertainment.

And he did all of this repeatedly. Not to mention the story where he was
drunk and apparently fell in the Baltic. He also would
randomly crash noble's parties and not let anyone leave until they drank a
great deal.

On 11/6/06, Martin Wohlert <martin_wohlert at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> "Louis Eastman" <almagaiz at gmail.com> wrote:
> >I would bet my soul that wasn't true for Peter the Great. In my mind I
> see
> >him
> >getting drunk and roaring for prostitutes.
>
> The guy who started the reforms of Russia into a more Western nation?
> While that may be true in your mind, I doubt it's true elsewhere. ;)
> While he did outlaw the Boyars from having beards, and tortured
> his son, I don't see him as a roaring drunk.
>
> For more information about him going incognito, read up on his "Grand
> Embassy":
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Embassy_of_Peter_I
>
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