Peter the Great.

Peter the Great Peter the Great, tsar and later emperor of Russia is coupled to the Westernization of Russia and its rise as a great power. Peter was born in Moscow through the second marriage of his father, Alexis I. Alexis I. ruled Russia from 1645 to 1676, and in his first marriage had produced 13 children, but only two had survived him. After his wife died in 1669 Alexis married Natalia Naryshkin in 1671, and the next year Peter …

…military match to Western standards of appearance, ordering them to cut their beards and wear Western-style garments. With the beginning of the new century, Peter changed the old Russian calendar to the Julian calendar used in the West; therefore, from then on years were to be counted from the birth of Christ, not the creation of the world, and they were to begin the year on the first of January, not the first of September.