(Continued from No.44)
Peter the Great
Peter the Great was a giant on a bronze horse. Before Peter, Old Rus was a densely bearded country. Everyone, from the first boyar down to the last stable lad, was long-bearded.
One of the noble aliens, who was invited to Russia as a skillful carpenter but eventually became a historian, thus describes the Rus of those days:
":This vast land," the foreign carpenter hewed away, "is thickly grown with beard all over. One cannot see the heads for the beards. Russians think with their beards, drink tea with their beards, eats cranberries with their beards, and with beards again embrace and kiss their wives."
An Italian writer resident on Capri assures us that Russia is a provincial state. What abysmal delusion! "Russia is quite simply a bearded state."
Peter the Great decided to weed the country and ordered the Germans to invent to that end a suitable machine. The Germans, without much ado, invented scissors and razor, which made a revolution in the laws of physics and chemistry.
For the first time Moscow streets heard the subsequently famous four-word formula: "Haircutting, shaving, blood-letting."
Those reluctant to have their hair cut and beard shaved, were subjected to blood-letting.
Horror gripped the boyars who, from the child, had been used to wearing long gray beards. Some of them fled to their remote estates, to save their beards; others resorted to various subterfuges.
They would report to the czar clean-shaven.
But back home, they grew long beards and stroked them smugly, glad that they had duped young Peter. Thus they did daily.
But fooling watchful Peter was no easy matter. Rogues were exposed and severely punished:
When all the beards had been cut off, it emerged that under the beards, the highest officials wore wide, long-skirted kaftans.
The skirt-problems of the boyar kaftans were likewise settled by means of scissors.
When all were beardless and skirtless, Peter said: "Now, set to! Enough of heel-kicking and making neighbors laugh. We'd better start kicking the neighbors and making them cry."
The boyars sighed, but there was nothing they could do. So they started learning to beat their neighbors, to humor Peter.
Peter's First Victory
Peter scored his first victory over Turks. That astonished both the victors and the vanquished in equal measure. "Are we really beaten?" wondered the Turks. "Impossible! Must be a miscarriage of justice."
"You are, you are!" testified the nations of Europe and Asia in concert. "We saw you run off."
The Turks went on with their witness interrogation: "Perhaps we were running behind, and the Russians before us?"
But the nations stuck to their guns and testified:
"No, you were running ahead, while the Russians in hot pursuit pummeled you on the back. Why don't you check it, there are probably bruises there still."
The Turks looked at each other's backs and had to admit: "Indeed, there are bruises:"
Crestfallen, they hung their Turkish heads over their Turkish swords, then they themselves sank onto Turkish rugs and started drinking Turkish coffee to drown their sorrows. The Russians could not quite believe that they had won, either, and tentatively questioned the eyewitnesses: "Were we running before the Turks or behind?" The eyewitnesses reassured them:
"Don't you doubt it, chaps. You were chasing the Turks and giving them a good hiding into the bargain."
After the first victory, there was a second, and a third, a fourth, and all the others.
The war ended in taking Azov away from the Turks. Azov, now, soon learned to speak and write in Russian.
In the fullness of time, he shed any Turkishness he'd ever had and started contributing to satire columns in Russian newspapers signing his pieces with his full name - Vl. Azov.
Peter was very proud of defeating the Turks and taking Azov away from them.
War against the Swedes
Why we had to fight the Swedes is unknown. Historians in similar cases tend to conceal the real reason.
Sweden at the time had Charles XII for king.
"You may be number twelve and all, but I'll beat you all the same," said Peter.
Charles was a member of the Runners Sect. All his life he ran to or from someone.
He ran to Mazepa in Poltava, but the Vorskla and Russian soldiers made a dismal impression on him, so he ran away from Poltava to the Tartars.
There, he did not like Tartar koumiss and ran off to the Sultan.
Apprised of the fact that the Sultan had many wives, Charles XII hastened to run away home, to escape the temptation, for at home he had no wives at all.
From Sweden he ran away to the Poles, from whom he again ran away somewhere.
Death, that had been close on Charles' heels all the while, barely managed to catch up with him in some battle or other, and it jumped at the chance.
Peter, meanwhile, stayed put all the time and did honest work - building, planing, sawing, trimming.
As a result, it was Peter who won.
The Battle of Poltava
The East was colored by new dawn, the cannons thund'ring on the hills. And purple smoke rose heavenward to meet the rosy rays of morn.
The cannons were not thundering of their own free will. Every time they were charged from the breech end and forced to fire on the Swedes.
The Swedes also fired but very inexpertly. One of Charles XII's runs left him with an injured foot so that he could not walk. At the start of the battle, Peter ordered his troops to win, and the troops did not dare disobey him.
As for Charles XII, the idea did not occur to him, and his troops were at a loss what to do - score a victory or suffer a defeat. After brief vacillation, the Swedes settled for the lesser of two evils - defeat:
The Swedes' defeat was greatly facilitated by the presence among them of the Ukrainian hetman Mazepa.
The hetman was a man of considerable learning and to his dying day preserved a strong attachment to marriage.
In the art of marriage Mazepa was without equal, but as an army commander he was just no good. He infected the entire Swedish army with his lack of fighting skill, and the army collapsed under the onslaught of Peter's forces.
The Swedes fled. Those who felt too lazy to do so, however, surrendered to Peter. Charles and Mazepa were not of the lazy lot, and ran away.
After the Battle of Poltava, the Swedes lost heart. And they have not found it to this day.
As for the Russians, they held their heads high under the guidance of Peter.
Proudly did the troops return to St. Petersburg to the sounds of a brass band.
The Carpenter Czar
Peter the Great frequently traveled abroad.
Constantly preoccupied with matters of state, he once boxed an honest Dutchman's ears in Saardam.
The townspeople still take pride in that historic box on the ear and act high and mighty before residents of all other Dutch cities. "We're not just any Tom, Dick and Harry," Saardamers would declare haughtily. "Peter the Great himself selected the ear of one of our burghers for a box."
Having made Saardamers happy, Peter left for Amsterdam, where he started taking carpentry lessons.
As he was polishing a log, he would think:
"This is how I'll work on my boyars to teach them manners." Later Peter had to admit that polishing a log was a lot easier than polishing a boyar mind.
Nevertheless, Peter's toil-hardened royal hands never let go of the ax and the plane as long as he lived.
And to his dying day he remained a great carpenter czar:
Peter died from a bad cold he had caught while rescuing drowning soldiers.
The great seafarer did not drown himself in that rescue operation. It was not till 200 years later that sculptor Bernshtam drowned him with his monument on Senate Square:
Old Rus made tremendous progress pushed forward by the mighty hand of the brilliant giant.
But: not everything has been accomplished. Peter found Rus bearded and left it disheveled.
(To be continued)