The Presidential Library reveals unknown facts about Peter I’s life

Today the Presidential Library’s electronic collections contain more than a million depository items. They are unique publications, archival documents, official biographies of prominent statesmen, including decrees, letters and notes of Peter I. This year marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of the first Russian emperor. There are also funny episodes among the memories of him.

Bread and radish are sweeter than luxury meals

“When Peter arrived in the capital of France, Paris, during his trip abroad, the chambers of the deceased queen were prepared for him, and a table was set for 60 people in the dining room, - historian Iosif Senigov reported in the book Tsar, Worker and Teacher (1915) - Peter did not like all this richness and splendor; he asked for bread and radishes, he was eating, tasting wine, drinking beer and went out, ordering him to go to another place; where is faster. We arrived at the house of a noble person; a servant came forward with a candle. Peter took a candle, examined the bedroom and was again dissatisfied with the front bed: he ordered to put his camp bed in a small room and lay down to sleep there.

How the tsar earned his shoes

“Peter I, the builder of all good things in Russia”, according to the memoirist Jakob von Stehlin in his book “Genuine Anecdotes about Peter the Great” (1793), visited all the factories, including Miller’s iron factory. On that trip, the emperor “besides his State affairs, set time for himself not only to carefully examine everything and learn everything, but also to work himself when cooking and forging iron in order to learn how to forge strips”. And as a result, “he forged 18 pounds of iron with his own hands, and branded each strip with his brand: moreover, the court junkers and boyars who were with him had to carry coals, put them in the furnace, blow with furs and send other work with His Majesty”. After that, Peter asked the owner of the plant, Werner Miller, “how much does the master get for forging a pood of flat iron? One altyn, answered Miller. Well, the Tsar continued, so I deserved 18 altyns, and I have the right to demand them from you. Miller went to the money box and brought 18 chervonets with the words - such an employee as Your Majesty cannot be paid less for a pood. To which the tsar replied: “Take your gold pieces; I worked no better than other craftsmen, pay Me what you usually pay other craftsmen, then I will buy new shoes that have been trampled again; took 18 altyns, went to the ranks and actually bought new shoes with them, which He often showed in meetings while on his feet, and, moreover, he usually used to say: I worked them out with corn myself.