7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7it conform to European usage with regard to the year.
Peter simplified the alphabet, unified the currency, and
introduced universal taxation. He encouraged the rise of
private industry and the expansion of trade. Peter was the
first ruler of Russia to sponsor education on secular lines
and to bring an element of state control into that field.
Various secular schools were opened and the children of
soldiers, officials, and churchmen were admitted to them.
The translation of books from western European lan-
guages was actively promoted. Peter built Russia’s first
modern hospitals and medical schools. He also began con-
struction of the city of St. Petersburg in 1703 and
established it as the new capital of Russia in 1712.
Peter had a son, the tsarevich Alexis, by his discarded
wife Eudoxia. Although Alexis was his natural heir, the
two were not close, and Alexis did not agree with Peter’s
policies. Peter, meanwhile, had formed a lasting liaison
with a peasant woman, the future empress Catherine I,
who bore him other children and whom he married in 1712.
In 1718 Alexis was tried on charges of high treason and
condemned to death. He died in prison before the formal
execution of the sentence.
In the autumn of 1724, seeing some soldiers in danger
of drowning in the Gulf of Finland, Peter characteristi-
cally plunged himself into the icy water to help them.
Catching a chill, he became seriously ill in the winter but
even so continued to work. He died early in the following
year, leaving an empire that stretched from Arkhangelsk
(Archangel) on the White Sea to Mazanderan on the
Caspian and from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
Although he had in 1722 issued a decree reserving to him-
self the right to nominate his successor, he did not in fact
nominate anyone. His widow Catherine, whom he had
crowned as empress in 1724, succeeded him to the tempo-
rary exclusion of his grandson, the future Peter II.