PETER THE GREAT

The Moscow-born landlubber had developed into a real sailor to whom the smell of the sea was as necessary as water is to a fish. Peter always said that sea-air and constant hard physical labor helped to keep him in good health in spite of his over-indulgent way of living. It was probably because of this that he had an insatiable sailor appetite. According to his contemporaries, he was always hungry and whenever he went visiting he was ready to sit down to a meal, whether he had already dined or not. He used to get up at five in the morning and lunch between eleven and twelve, after which he retired for a short sleep. Even when he was guest at a banquet he would observe this rule, and return after his sleep ready to start the meal all over again.

Because political quarrels during this childhood and youth had kept him from the strait-laced functions of the Court, Peter surrounded himself with a motley group of unconventional youngsters, the consequence of which was that when he grew up he could not tolerate ceremonial functions. During solemn ceremonies of state this otherwise masterful and self-willed monarch would become awkward and confused; when Peter had to dress up in all his ceremonial finery and stand by the throne in the presence of the Court to listen to a newly-accredited ambassador's wordy peroration, he would breathe heavily, grow red in the face and perspire freely. In his private life Peter lived simply and frugally, and the monarch who was considered by the rest of Europe to be most powerful and the richest in the world used to walk about in worn-out shoes and in stockings that had often darned by his wife or daughters.

When he was at home he would hold a reception as soon as he had got out of bed, dressed in a very old dressing gown made from nankeen and would then put on a plain, thick, serge caftan which he seldom changed. He rarely wore a hat in summer, and used to go out either in a gig drawn by two miserable horses, or in such a shabby cabriolet that a foreign observer declared that a Muscovite tradesman would have thought twice about using it. To the end of his life, Peter retained the habits of previous generations, disliked large, lofty rooms, and during his travels abroad avoided living in sumptuous palaces. Bred on the vast plains of Russia, Peter found in Germany that the narrow river valleys surrounded by mountains oppressed him. At St. Petersburg he built himself some small summer and winter residences with tiny rooms.