I saw most of what was an interesting history of Russia last night on the History Channel.  Seeing how I had never really learned how it developed into such a vast empire, it was some “good learnin'”.In the shows discussion of Peter the Great, it mentioned how he was a personally-imposing figure, standing about six and a half feet tall.  He apparently hung out with some international crowds and learned how they did things so well - the British and their shipmaking, for example.  He wanted a city at which he could build a navy to help provide Russia with superiority at sea.  He decided on the area of what eventually became St. Petersburg (although he first had to kick the Dutch or whomever was there out first with his military).  The story of St. Petersburg's creation around 1700 was interesting.  Peter had thousands of peasants work on it, some of which included moving earth with their bare hands and carrying it in their shirts to transport it.  While St. Petersburg eventually became quite the grand city, it did so at a great expense; some 25,000 are said to have died in the city's creation.  Despite this less than humane picture the show gave of Peter, one thing it mentioned was interesting.  He died around 1726 from pneumonia after jumping in and rescuing a man from the ocean.  I thought that contrasted quite a bit from the implications of those many others that died during his reign.