The article "Peter the Great's Carousel" was published recently. In it, we looked at the chronology of events in the life of Peter under a somewhat unusual look. However, I have omitted some of the nuances. In particular, how did Peter's conquests begin? Of course, everyone will say that from the Azov campaigns, but for what?
What prompted him to take such sudden and decisive actions? The fact is that two years before the first campaign, Peter visits Arkhangelsk. Wikipedia reports this sparingly, as if by the way, and says that then Peter first saw the sea … the sea … And that's all. Strange, apparently this event should cause the reader to associate with a romantic-minded young man who was so fired up by what he saw that he immediately decided to open new ports on new seas.
If you believe in this, then you will never be a ruler. Romantics don't stay there for long.
In fact, it is enough to study what exactly Arkhangelsk was like then. The chronicles tell of a large port city, where ships came from all possible directions. There were merchants from Persia, India, China and naturally Europe. Which should suggest that at least this port freely performed its functions and was easily accessible to caravans of any civilizations. No one needed to cut any windows to Europe, on the contrary, Arkhangelsk was the very window through which trade with half the world went.
What did Peter see there?
Let's remember one more moment - in the same year, the Queen of Sweden, Ulrika Eleanor, dies. What’s wrong with that?
Promotional video:
I'll give you a reason to think about an unexpected thought.
It began to get colder
Remember my previous articles on the chronology of the collision of the earth with an asteroid, one of which was the flood. So, just at this moment, the second part of the accretion disk of the collapsed asteroid approached the earth, and mixing with the atmosphere, the dust lowered the overall temperature on the earth. Ice caps began to form, including in Antarctica. Which, in turn, began to take water from the world's oceans.
This is exactly what Peter saw - the freezing and retreat of the waters
Somehow supernaturally, he realized what this would lead to and began frantically looking for places for similar ports south of Arkhangelsk. And first of all I chose Taganrog-Azovya
Apparently no one except him understood this, so Peter took his army (it was then divided into two parts - most of it belonged to his co-ruler, brother Ivan 5), and rushed to Azov.
The forces that he had at that time - 30 thousand archers, were not enough to take the city and Peter returned to Moscow in order to take the entire Russian army, but apparently his brother did not want to share it. Chronologically, it turns out that Peter eliminated his brother Ivan. Perhaps not himself, perhaps not on purpose, there may have been a quarrel, but I am sure that this is what happened. This is evidenced by the subsequent riots of the Streltsy, but no matter what the task was completed - Russia managed to get two new ports - Petersburg and Taganrog.