How Did Peter The Great Strengthen Russia

Peter the great believed that Russia was falling behind other European powers and sought to strengthen Russia with his roforms he plans. He was afraid Russia had worse education, a worse economy, and was behind culturally. Peter’s biggest idea and one of his greatest accomplishments was the founding of St. Petersburg, that was designed to be a beautiful city with western looking influence to show Europe the power of Russia and also enabled much easier trade with Europe from Russia. This new city was made the capital and compared to the old capital (Moscow) it was much easier to interact with the rest of the world from. St. Petersburg also had a port that had access to Helsinki, German ports, Dutch cities, and also London which is a major world

Peter the great was known for doing a massive overhaul of Russia with reforms in basically everything; religion, military, education, agriculture, culture and tradition. He believed in royal absolutism and because of this he took over the church by making a government department in charge of everything. Peter was in charge of the churches power and the clergy controlled people’s daily lives in name of the state and Peter the great. Peter also made the upper classmen of Russia dress in a western style and groom themselves like westerners by shaving their mustaches and beards. With this push in culture, religion, and education he was challenging Russia and their stereotypically conservative ways. With Russia being so large his reforms were very slowly implemented with many Russian citizens not getting the message right away. The youth of Russia enthusiastically accepted his new western influenced reforms in name of Peter the great and were excited about the changes, but the older traditionalists that were quite common in Russia did not. Many of these traditionalists were older upperclassmen who cared more for religion and tradition that the words of Peter the great. To them Peter was trying to change all of Russia’s traditions and beliefs and they felt threatened by it. Many Russian men held great pride in their beards and to many it was a religious symbol as well; this is just one example of a reform that many Russian traditionalists opposed. Peter made sure that people followed his reforms and his agenda for Russia by making decrees to follow such as cultural decrees that taxed people who did not conform to the new ways like a decree that taxed upperclassmen who did not dress in a European style. There were some revolts and some violence caused by these oppositions but Peter eventually stopped all of them and overall his reforms in Russia were a