Peter the Great

Peter the Great (1672–1725), Peter I, was Tsar of Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of All Russia from 1721 until his death. Crowned as a boy, he took full control of the government in the 1690s. The turning point of his life was the Grand Embassy of 1697–1698, when he traveled through Western Europe, studying shipbuilding first-hand in the dockyards of the Netherlands and England. Returning home, he set out to modernize Russia: he built its first regular navy, reorganized the army, introduced the Table of Ranks to reward merit in state service, reformed the calendar and the alphabet, and founded schools of mathematics and navigation. In 1703 he founded Saint Petersburg, which became the capital, and victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War gave Russia access to the Baltic Sea. His reforms made Russia a major European power.