What defines Peter the Great's early life?
But often that's frozen.
That's frozen for six months or whatever. It doesn't have a port on the Black Sea. No. And it doesn't have a port on the Baltic.
No.
Because the Black Sea is an Ottoman lake and the Baltic is essentially a Swedish lake at this point.
That's right. So... A way to think of Russia is as quite effectively a landlocked and isolated country. When people go to Russia, they say, you're European ambassadors and whatnot. They say it is like going a little bit backwards in time. Even the way in which people talk about the Tsar, he's a magnificent figure. He is the father of the Russian family.
His noblemen prostrate themselves in front of the Tsar. They use this sort of language, I'm your humble slave, I'm but a lowly worm, all of this sort of thing. If you talk to the Tsar, you have to use his full official title at all times, and you can never repeat what the Tsar has said to you. There is this sort of pervasive culture of conservatism and deference, I guess.
And nowhere is that more pronounced, of course, than the Kremlin itself. So again, as with Moscow, I think we should give a sort of portrait of the Kremlin so people who are not familiar with it can get a sense of what it's like. The word means a citadel. It's a citadel within the city. It is cut off from the rest of the city by a moat and by huge walls.
And at the centre of the Kremlin, where a lot of the dramas of Peter's life will play out, there is Cathedral Square, and there are three cathedrals. If you've ever been, I have been, and it's an amazing, amazing place to visit.
There's these medieval cathedrals and there's a palace called the Palace of Facets, which still stands, with a grand staircase running down the outside, which is called the Red Staircase. And there's going to be some very exciting action to come.
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