picked of their silk handkerchiefs. In time, Peter made arrangements for a professional theatrical company to come from Hamburg, but it never arrived. For two or three years, a small, wretched theater existed in St. Petersburg on the banks of the Moika Canal, doing bad imitations of French plays and poor translations of German farces. But with the Tsar uninterested, his subjects also showed little interest. Like Peter himself, they preferred more popular spectacles, such as juggling and rope dancing. A special favorite of the Tsar's was the celebrated German strongman Samson, who arrived in Russia in 1719. Irritated by those, especially among the clergy, who said that Samson performed his feats by magic, witchcraft or trickery rather than by strength, the Tsar stood beside Samson and called some of the principal clergymen upon the stage to witness the performance at close range. Samson lay down across two chairs supported only under his head and feet; Peter placed an anvil on his chest, and then broke several large pieces of iron upon the anvil with a sledgehammer. Samson next placed a stick between his teeth, which the Tsar tried with both hands to pull out; he failed not only to move the stick but even to move Samson from his place. The strongman's power, Peter triumphantly announced to everyone present, lay solely in his sheer physical strength.
On his second visit to the West in 1716-1717, Peter went earnestly and regularly to see scientific collections and public and private collections of paintings, and brought many paintings home with him. Hoping that one day not all the paintings in Russia would be the work of foreigners, Peter sent a number of young Russian artists to Holland and Italy to study. The Tsar was even prouder of his new scientific collections. In 1717, he had purchased the entire collection of the celebrated Dutch anatomist Professor Ruysch, whose lecture hall and dissecting room the Tsar often had visited on his first trip twenty years before. The collection, which had been forty years in forming, came with an illustrated catalog titled
Academy of Science, which Peter established in a large stone building on Vasilevsky Island across from the Admiralty. It was his custom to go to the museum at dawn two or three times a week to study the exhibits before he went to the Admiralty. He enjoyed being there so much that on one occasion he decided to hold an audience with the Austrian ambassador in the museum. The Chancellor asked whether the Summer Palace would not be more appropriate. 'The ambassador is accredited to me, not to one of my palaces,' Peter replied, and he received the ambassador at the museum at five a.m. on a subsequent morning.
At Peter's insistence, the museum was open to the public and guides were provided to explain the exhibits. When Yaguzhinsky suggested that a rouble be charged for admission to defray expenses, Peter objected that this would keep people away. Instead, he said that the museum should not only be free, but that people should be tempted to come by offering in the Tsar's name a dish of coffee or a glass of wine as refreshment. These expenses were paid from Peter's pocket.
To the collections purchased abroad were added curios such as elephants' teeth found near Voronezh which Peter speculated were relics of the passage of Alexander the Great, and antiquities found among the ruins of a pagan temple near the Caspian Sea—images, vessels and several parchments in an unknown language. Similarly, while digging for gold near Samarkand, prospectors had found a number of ancient brass figures, which were sent to Prince Gagarin, the Governor of Siberia, and by him to the Tsar. They included brass idols, minotaurs, oxen, geese, deformed old men and young women. The mouths of the idols were hinged so that they could move; Peter, ever wary of religious superstitions, speculated that 'it is likely the priests made use of this to impose on the people by speaking through them.'
Peter also attempted to broaden the knowledge of his subjects through the use of books and libraries. The Tsar himself had collected books all his life, and especially on his visits to Germany, France, Holland and other countries in the West. His personal library included works on a wide range of subjects, including military and naval affairs, science, history, medicine, law and religion. Peter's books were first kept in the Summer Palace; then, as their number grew, they were moved to the Winter Palace, Peterhof and other sites. After his death, his library became the nucleus of the library of the Russian Academy of Science. In 1722, Peter sent orders to the principal ancient monasteries of Russia to make a search for old manuscripts, chronicles and books, and to send those that were found to Moscow, whence they were forwarded to Peter's private study in St. Petersburg. Upon the Emperor's death, most of these invaluable documents also were transferred to the library of the Academy of Science.
Peter had admired the zoo in Paris and on his return from France immediately established a menagerie in St. Petersburg. Apes and monkeys, lions and leopards and even an elephant from India were installed, but all had difficulty surviving the frigid months of winter. Although Peter had a special house built for the elephant, with fires burning night and day to warm the beast, it lived only a few years. A different kind of exhibition was that displayed by the colony of Samoyeds, a tribe of savage Laplanders from the Arctic coast, who came every winter, bringing their reindeer and dogs, to camp on the ice in the Neva. There, inside an enclosure, they lived in a model of one of their native villages, accepting the alms-giving of a curious crowd. The Russians did not go too close, however, as the Samoyeds were reputed to 'bite strangers on the face and ears.'
The new collections and the buildings that housed them were products of Peter's insatiable curiosity and his desire to teach his subjects what he had learned. Every journey in Russia and, even more so, every journey abroad resulted in the acquisition of more oddities, instruments, books, models, paintings and animals. On arriving in even a small town when traveling, Peter always asked to see whatever was remarkable or different in that place. When told that there was nothing unusual, he replied, 'Who knows? If it not be so for you, perhaps it will be for me. Let me see everything.'
One of the most extraordinary of these acquisitions was the Great Globe of Gottorp. While traveling in Schleswig in the duchy of Gottorp in 1713, Peter had discovered this remarkable scientific and mechanical device. It was a huge, hollow globe, eleven and a half feet in diameter, made in 1664 for the ruling Duke of Holstein. The external surface was a globular map of the earth, while on the inside was a chart of the heavens. Viewers could climb inside by ascending several steps, then sit at a round table circled by benches for ten or twelve people. A winch could be turned which would make the heavens revolve around the audience. Naturally, Peter was intrigued and delighted by the globe, and when the administrator for the young Duke Charles Frederick offered it as a gift in the name of the state, Peter accepted with joy, declaring that the people of Holstein could not have made a more acceptable present. Menshikov, commanding the Russian army in Germany, was ordered to take personal charge of packaging and shipping the globe. Special permission was obtained from the Swedes for its unhindered passage by ship up the Baltic to Reval. In the winter of 1715, the enormous sphere was transported by sledges and rollers over the snows to St. Petersburg. Because the globe was so large and Peter would not risk it being dismantled, in many places the road had to be widened, branches lopped off or even whole trees felled so that the globe could pass. When it arrived, Peter placed it in the house he had built for the now deceased elephant, and he went to look at it for several hours every day.
Peter's most important and lasting contribution to intellectual activity in Russia was his foundation of the Academy of Science.* The project had been suggested by Leibniz, who had already founded the Prussian Academy of Science in Berlin, but who died in 1716 before Peter was ready to act. The Tsar's interest was further stimulated by his own election to the French Academy after his visit to Paris. His letter accepting this honor shines with almost childish delight: 'We are very delighted that you have honored Us in this way, and we would like to assure you that we shall accept the position you have given Us with great pleasure, and that it is our fervent wish to apply Ourself assiduously in order to contribute as much as possible to science and therefore to demonstrate that we are a worthy member of your association.' As an initial contribution, the new member forwarded a new map of the Caspian Sea. He signed his letter 'Affectionately yours, Peter I.'
On January 28, 1724, a year before his death, the Tsar issued the decree founding the Russian Academy. Typically, it also contained an explanation
so that Russians would understand what it was that was being founded:
Usually two kinds of institutions are used in organizing arts and sciences. One is known as a University, the other as an Academy of arts and sciences. A University is an association of learned individuals who teach young people. ... An Academy, on the other hand, is an association of learned and skilled people who do research and inventions.
In this case, however—so the decree continued—because learned men were rare in Russia, Academicians would teach as well as do research. An annual grant of 25,000 roubles, drawn from the customs tolls at the Baltic ports, was assigned to support the institution.
Peter died before the Academy began to function, but in
