About the book: year / From a generally accepted point of view, the characteristics of Peter’s activities are as follows: Peter founded the regular army, navy and other state institutions of the Russian Empire. The rapid rise of Russia captured the imagination of contemporaries and descendants. It is usually explained primarily by the impact of the military victories of the army and navy created by Peter. Indeed, war accompanied Peter's foreign policy for many years. Of the 35 years of Peter's reign, the state of complete peace lasted only about a year. We would like to show that the “reforms” of Peter I were an empty declaration that had no real political, economic and social basis, and therefore were doomed to failure. Those of them that led to at least some positive result for Russia originate in pre-Petrine times. Before Peter’s accession, Russia was not at all fenced off from the rest of Europe by some kind of “iron curtain,” as they sometimes try to imagine. European innovations penetrated into Rus' slowly and were applied on a limited scale. But we see the same picture of the gradual, evolutionary spread of all kinds of innovations in many Western European countries. Also, we will try to demonstrate the harmful impact of the reign of Peter I on Russian statehood, culture and religion, and prove that Russia, under Peter, and especially after him, progressively developed not thanks to, but in spite of Peter’s “acts”».