PETER THE GREAT IN HOLLAND
The practical ambition of Peter the Great has probably never been surpassed by any sovereign in history. He began empire building with his travels in 1697. It was an unparalleled step for a young sovereign of twenty-five to take: to withdraw from his kingdom and journey abroad in order to learn the art of government. He was deeply interested in all branches of engineering, especially ship-building, which he first studied in Holland, working as an ordinary laborer in a dockyard. In 1698 Peter went to England to pursue his studies in the theory and practice of ship construction, which he did by visiting the dockyards of Woolwich, Chatham, and Deptford.
Eastern Russia.—Chief towns: Astrakhan, Kazan, Samara, Saratoff.
This part of the country is more elevated, but less effectively drained; and vast forests stretch from the upper Volga to the Urals.
The peoples are of Turkish origin and include the Tartars of Kazan; the Nogai Tartars of the Crimea in the south, and the Kirgiz on the Caspian. The Bashkirs, Chuvash, and others, in the Ural and Volga, are Tartarized Finns. The Kalmucks may be taken as the purest type of the Mongols; they are short, swarthy, broad-shouldered horsemen, black-haired and black-eyed, the eyes slanting down toward the flat nose.
South Russia.—Along the Black Sea. Chief towns: Odessa, Nikolayeff, Kisheneff.
This is chiefly the steppe-region, a belt more than two hundred miles wide along the littoral of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, and extends east through the region of the lower Volga and Ural till it meets the steppes of central Asia.
Here are gently undulating plains, clothed with rich grass and coated with a thick layer of fertile black earth.