Peter the Great

Peter the Great was the 5th tsar of the Romanov dynasty. By taking control over the Baltic Sea, he turned Russia into one of the strongest states in Europe. At the time, he even joined delegations he sent to the Netherlands and England himself. He actively pursued the adoption of European knowledge concerning fields such as shipbuilding and navigation to westernize Russia. After the Russian victory in the Great Northern War at the beginning of the 18th century, he changed the country's name to Russian Empire and made himself its first emperor. He had the Empire's capital Saint Petersburg built with strong Western European cultural influences.