Peter the Great's First Navy: Building Russia's Azov Fleet

The Azov Campaigns: Peter the Great's First War

Before the Great Northern War and the founding of Saint Petersburg, Peter the Great proved himself on the battlefield in the 1695 and 1696 Azov campaigns against the Ottoman Empire. This episode follows the young tsar's first military adventure—his humiliating failure, his crash course in modern siege warfare, and the triumphant capture of the fortress of Azov. We explore the role of foreign engineers like Franz Lefort and Patrick Gordon, the construction of Russia's first real navy at Voronezh, and how these victories gave Peter the confidence and political capital to pursue his sweeping reforms. The Azov campaigns also set off a chain reaction: the Grand Embassy to Europe, the Streltsy Uprising, and Russia's emergence as a naval power. Along the way, we meet the Don Cossacks, the Ottoman serasker, and the galley fleet that Peter built from scratch. A pivotal moment in the life of a tsar who would remake his nation. #PeterTheGreat #AzovCampaigns #GreatNorthernWar #OttomanEmpire #FranzLefort #PatrickGordon #DonCossacks #TsardomOfRussia #SiegeOfAzov #Voronezh #Navy #Streltsy #GrandEmbassy #17thCentury #EasternEurope #MilitaryHistory #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]

Peter the Great's Ambassadors: Russia's First Foreign Service

In 1697, Peter the Great sent a bizarre diplomatic mission westward: the Grand Embassy. Ostensibly a goodwill tour, it was actually a spy mission, a recruitment drive, and a crash course in Western technology. Peter traveled incognito as 'Peter Mikhailov,' a carpenter. The embassy failed to build an anti-Ottoman coalition—but transformed Peter's vision of Europe. We dive into the negotiations with the Dutch Republic, England, and the Holy Roman Empire; the recruitment of hundreds of engineers, shipbuilders, and officers; and the diplomatic blunders that nearly derailed everything. Along the way, we meet the enigmatic Franz Lefort, the embassy's ostensible leader, and see how Peter's first taste of Europe shaped his domestic reforms. #GrandEmbassy #PeterTheGreat #RussianHistory #Diplomacy #FranzLefort #PeterMikhailov #DutchRepublic #HolyRomanEmpire #GreatNorthernWar #Baltic #Shipbuilding #EuropeanTravel #17thCentury #EasternEurope #Tsardom #History #FexingoHistory #RussianEmpire Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]

Peter the Great's Shoe Factory: The Moscow Ordnance Court

In 1705, Peter the Great ordered a revolutionary shoe factory built in Moscow—the Ordnance Court (Pushkarsky Prikaz) transformed into a mass-production workshop. Thousands of pairs of boots for the army, standardised lasts, imported leather, and Dutch master craftsmen. But the experiment failed: Russian leather was too thick, lasts didn't fit peasant feet, and the cost nearly bankrupted the treasury. Lucas and Luna explore Peter's obsession with military logistics, the resistance of boyar suppliers, and the hidden story of how Russia tried to shoe its way into modernity. They also touch on the parallel effort to produce muskets at Tula and the thousands of foreign specialists Peter hired—and sometimes drove away. A microcosm of Peter's reform: visionary, rushed, and caught between Europe and Russia. #PeterTheGreat #OrdnanceCourt #PushkarskyPrikaz #RussianArmy #ShoeFactory #MilitaryLogistics #MoscowHistory #TulaArmsWorks #DutchCraftsmen #BoyarOpposition #18thCentury #Reform #EasternEurope #FexingoHistory #History #RussianHistory #ImperialRussia #IndustrialHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]

How Peter the Great Forced Russia’s Nobles to the West

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore Peter the Great’s controversial Grand Embassy of 1697–1698—the tsar’s incognito journey through Europe—but from a fresh angle: the coercive education and travel mandates he imposed on the Russian aristocracy afterward. They discuss the 1696 decree forcing young noblemen to study navigation and shipbuilding in European ports, the creation of the Navigation School in Moscow’s Sukharev Tower, the harsh penalties for returning without skills (including confiscation of estates), and the story of Prince Boris Kurakin, who became one of Russia’s first Western-trained diplomats. The episode also covers the unintended consequences: nobles who fled abroad, the clash between old Muscovite traditions and new Western fashions, and how Peter’s compulsory study trips laid the groundwork for the Table of Ranks. A nuanced look at modernization through forced education and the birth of a service elite. #PeterTheGreat #GrandEmbassy #VelikoyePosolstvo #NavigationSchool #SukharevTower #RussianHistory #CoerciveEducation #BorisKurakin #TableOfRanks #Modernization #Tsar #ForeignTravel #ServiceElite #18thCentury #EasternEurope #FexingoHistory #History #RussianNobility Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]

Peter the Great's Beard Tax: Shaving Russia Into Europe

In 1698, Tsar Peter the Great returned from his Grand Embassy in the West determined to transform Russia into a modern European power. One of his most visible and strange reforms was the beard tax. Lucas and Luna explore how Peter used scissors and silver tokens to impose cultural change on a reluctant nobility. From the borodovaya poval — the beard shaving — to the borodovyy znak, a special coin exempting wearers from shaving, they trace the symbolic battle between Russian tradition and Western fashion. The episode covers the role of the staroveri (Old Believers) who saw beards as sacred, the violent enforcement by Peter's own hands, and the complex class distinctions that allowed peasants to keep their beards while nobles had to pay up. This is a microhistory of how a ruler tried to engineer a cultural revolution one chin at a time. A tale of scissors, silver, and identity in early modern Russia. #PeterTheGreat #BeardTax #BorodovayaPoval #BorodovyyZnak #RussianHistory #Staroveri #OldBelievers #CulturalRevolution #Westernization #1698 #GrandEmbassy #Moscow #RussianNobility #Boyar #Dvorianstvo #EasternEurope #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]