Peter launched an assault on the
coasts of Sweden, even raiding
Stockholm, itself, persisting un-
til the new king sued for peace,
agreeing a treaty at Nystadt. On
4 September 1721, five days after
the peace had been signed, a eu-
phoric Peter disembarked at the
Peter and Paul Fortress, prayed
in church, reported to Prince-
Caesar Ivan Romodanovsky and then,
mounting a dais, toasted the weep-
ing and cheering crowd, who were
offered pails of free alcohol as
cannon fired salvoes... This was
the start of two months of party-
ing. At the wild wedding of the
new prince-pope, 'Peter-Prick'
Buturlin, to the young widow of
the old one, toasts were drunk
out of giant goblets shaped like
male and female genitalia, the
groom was tipped into a vat of
beer and their wedding night was
spent in an al fresco bed on Sen-
ate Square.
Like you, like anyone, I should
be vaguely curious to know if
our potentate-in-waiting has tak-
en the necessary preparations for
palliating his mob in its obscure
appetites. Although, in a show of
fellow-feeling, he may feign their
anguish for the surreal, it is on-
ly fair to ask, before perfecting
that elevation by the ballot, that
his hideousness has cowed every ri-
val into conceding by emulation,
how many virgins he is willing to
march to the precipice of his pyr-
amid, and beyond, to that impotent
thrill he'd pay anything to exalt.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
The Romanovs
1613 - 1918
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016©
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