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Three centuries without Peter the Great, the mirror in which Putin looks: "He has no other history to talk about than the Russian Empire"
But, above all, it shifted the center of power in northern Europe from Stockholm to St. Petersburg and turned Russia into an empire, with its tsar, Peter the Great, becoming its first emperor.
BBC12y
Catherine the Great (1729 – 1796)
In 1762 Catherine's husband became Tsar Peter III but he was soon ... Westernisation begun by Peter the Great. During her reign she extended the Russian empire southwards and westwards, adding ...