What kind of decrees did Peter I issue! Then have a "look dashing and silly", so as not to confuse the authorities; then “do not look greedily at the ladies' charms, so as not to be impudent, otherwise, for example, do not pay the foresters“salaries”, because they have a“position of thieves”. The subjects were already used to it, but nevertheless the tsar's decree on dwarfs puzzled many in earnest.
"Karl male and female … having gathered everyone, send them from Moscow to St. Petersburg …" - read that decree of August 19, 1710. Moreover, the little people were to be delivered with "swords and harnesses" in "camisoles with braids", and the "girl sex" in "German dress". So Peter decided to "breed" the dwarf breed in Russia. What came of this - a story ahead …
Tsar's favorite Yakim Volkov
When Peter was nine years old, his older brother Fyodor gave him the clowns Cricket and Komar, which the tall prince barely reached the thigh. One of them became famous for the fact that during the Streletsky revolt of 1682, he pointed out to the rebels the secret refuge of Uncle Peter, which doomed him to death. The other, Yakim Volkov, nicknamed Komar, on the contrary, saved the life of the future Petrine associate Andrei Matveyev.
The young monarch - and Peter at the age of 10 was already a tsar - loved Yakima very much, never parted with him and diligently modeled for him a miniature world in the image and likeness of the ordinary world. He thought out scenarios of palace ceremonies and outfits for his dwarfs himself. Even as an adult, Peter did not give up this business. For example, in the amusing Kozhukhov maneuvers of 1694, a company of 25 little people marched in uniforms more elegant than those of ordinary soldiers. And at Anna Ioannovna's wedding feast, to the great delight of the guests, half-naked dwarfs jumped out of the cake and performed a minuet on the table.
The autocrat was already 38 years old when he decided to start breeding the Lilliputian breed in Russia. Here came the same, unexpected for many, royal decree: “Karl, male and female … having gathered everyone, to send from Moscow to St. Petersburg this August 25th day, and on that vacation, in those houses in which those Karls live, to make a dress for them, Karl, by that day: for the male sex, elegant, colored caftans and camisoles, with gold trimmings and gilded copper buttons, and swords, and shoulder straps, and hats; both stockings and shoes are German; on the female sex the top and underwear German dress, and fantasies, and any decent kind dress … . The tsar started all this for the sake of marrying his favorite Yakim Volkov to Praskovya Fedorovna, the beloved dwarf of the queen.
In those days, if a dwarf was born in a serf family, his chances of getting to the masters were very high. Little people, according to the European fashion of that time, were present in almost every rich house, so soon 72 people of midget height were brought to St. Petersburg, and rehearsals of this, without exaggeration, grandiose wedding of the century began. And to begin with, two dwarf best men rode around St. Petersburg in a carriage with a team of ponies, in colorful ribbons, and invited guests to the celebration …
Promotional video:
Dwarf wedding
The bride, however, was older than the groom, but quite a proportionate physique, except that the head is too big, not in height - this is if you believe the words of the Danish ambassador Yust Yul, who, it seems, felt no less enthusiasm for what was happening than Peter himself. Anyway, the Dane described that wedding in every detail.
So, on the appointed day, the king walked in front of everyone with a groom dressed to smithereens. Next came the little wedding marshal with a baton in his hand, eight dwarf best men and a bride. Thirty-five couples marched solemnly behind her hand in hand. In the front ranks, those who, like the groom, looked like quite okay two-year-olds with "proportionate members." Taller carls followed, comparable to four-year-old children (like a bride), and the procession was closed by not so folding couples - some, due to the strong curvature of their legs, could hardly walk …
In the church in front of the altar, Yakim confirmed that he wanted to marry Praskovya "and no other." The bride, an experienced joker and a well-known joker at the court, when the priest asked whether she wanted to marry Yakim Volkov and whether she had already promised to someone else, boldly replied: "That would be a piece!" Her words were drowned in bursts of laughter, and exuberant fun began …
The wedding was played in Menshikov's house on Vasilievsky Island. The Karls were sitting at low tables specially made for them; the groom and the bride in places of honor - under silk canopies; and the best men walked among the tables, treating the guests. “Big-grown”, that is, standard people - Russian and foreign ministers, as well as princes and boyars, were positioned so that “it was more convenient to see the bustle of dwarfs” who “danced the“Russian”very merrily. “What jumps, antics and grimaces were here, you cannot imagine! exclaimed the Danish envoy. - All the guests, especially the tsar, could not have enough fun and, looking at the distortion and antics of these 72 freaks, laughed until they fell. Some had short legs and a high hump, the other had a large belly, the third had crooked and twisted legs, like a badger dog, or a huge head,or crooked mouth and long ears …”The Dane described the festive fun in such details. Other foreigners, apparently, also enjoyed the spectacle and did not see anything barbaric in it. After all, carls and jesters have long amused guests in all European courtyards, in fact, from them this fashion came to Russia. Only one fact surprised the Europeans. This is when the Karls "drained their cups to the bottom, like the tallest people", but just that … It is not surprising that, drunk, the jesters and crackers roamed in earnest - "grabbed each other by the hair, cursed" and awarded "weighty slaps "…Only one fact surprised the Europeans. This is when the Karls "drained their cups to the bottom, like the tallest people", but just that … It is not surprising that, drunk, the jesters and crackers roamed in earnest - "grabbed each other by the hair, cursed" and awarded "weighty slaps "…Only one fact surprised the Europeans. This is when the Karls "drained their cups to the bottom, like the tallest people", but just that … It is not surprising that, drunk, the jesters and crackers roamed in earnest - "grabbed each other by the hair, cursed" and awarded "weighty slaps "…
After the wedding, Peter took the newlyweds to the royal chambers and made sure that they were put in the same bed … After the honeymoon, the couple lived peacefully and in abundance in a house on the corner of Bolshoy Levshinsky and Shtatniy (now Kropotkinsky) lanes in Moscow …
New eccentricities
And the tsar was already running around with a new idea - breeding giants in the Russian Empire. The object of the next experiment was the Frenchman, giant and strongman Nicolas Bourgeois. Having met him in 1717 at the fair of the city of Calais, Peter was indescribable delight from a person taller than himself - 2 meters 27 centimeters tall! Having decided to "breed" a new breed of gnodey, no longer for fun, like dwarfs, but for the service as grenadiers, the tsar moved the Frenchman to St. Petersburg. He assigned him to ride on the heels of the carriage as a bodyguard, and soon he married the tallest chukhonka (Finnish in our opinion) that he could find …
But in vain did Peter wait for both the giant and the Lilliputian offspring: neither Nicolas nor Yakim had children, neither from their wives, nor on the side. Dwarf Praskovya died before her spouse, and the widower Yakim Volkov increasingly became familiar with "Ivashka Khmelnitsky" (addicted to drunkenness) and "Eremka" (indulged in debauchery). He did not survive his wife for long …
In 1724, Nicolas Bourgeois also died, apparently from a stroke. According to his wife, “he became weak in nature and said about himself that he was ill, only walked around, and did not lie down, and had little appetite,” and before his death, “he was paralyzed” … Peter decided to immortalize the giant: his corpse was dissected, his bones were boiled, fastened into a skeleton and put on public display in the Kunstkamera with the signature: "Strong man."
And for the deceased Yakim, Peter was grieving in earnest, because the dwarf was with him both in trouble and in battle for more than three decades: he accompanied the king abroad, lived with him in bivouacs, never betrayed him and always supported him with a good joke …
The Tsar arranged a magnificent funeral for Yakim. For the funeral, they found the shortest priest and the singing boys. The coffin was carried by ponies, led by dwarfs in black robes … "Hardly," wrote a foreigner who was a witness to what was happening in St. Petersburg, "somewhere in another state, except Russia, you can see such a strange procession!" Apparently, in Europe, dwarfs were still considered a kind of entertaining attribute of aristocrats, and it was impossible for a foreigner to understand that Peter was saying goodbye to his heartfelt friend, in Russian …
Magazine: Mysteries of History №43. Author: Lyudmila Makarova
