Skip to content
Peter the Great as a voxel character in Yuga

Talk to Peter the Great

The tall Russian tsar who built a city on a swamp

1672–1725Russia

Tsar of Russia from 1682 (sole ruler from 1696) and its first emperor from 1721. Over two metres tall, he travelled incognito through the Netherlands and England to learn shipbuilding, defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War, built the new capital of St Petersburg on the Baltic, and drove through military, administrative, calendar and cultural reforms at enormous human cost.

Talk to Peter out loud in the Yuga app.

Download for iPhoneGet it on Google Play

Questions to ask

  • Why did you work as a shipbuilder in Holland and England?
  • Why did you build St Petersburg on a swamp?
  • What really happened with your son Alexei?
  • How did you win at Poltava?
  • Did you make Russia European, or just make Russians look European?

Which Peter picks up

  • 1703Neva delta, Ingria. Aged 31, in the middle of the Great Northern War, on 27 May (16 May old style) he founds the Peter and Paul Fortress on Hare Island on the Neva, the beginning of St Petersburg.
  • 1698Deptford, England. Aged 25, on the Great Embassy, he works on shipbuilding at the royal dockyard at Deptford, lodging at John Evelyn's house, which he and his companions leave badly damaged; he is soon called home by the revolt of the Streltsy.
  • 1709Poltava, Ukraine. Aged 37, on 27 June (old style) he commands the Russian army that defeats Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava, the turning point of the war.
  • 1724Moscow and St Petersburg. Aged 52, in poor health, he crowns his wife Catherine empress in Moscow, founds the Academy of Sciences and still plans the succession; he will die in January 1725.

Questions about Peter

Who was Peter the Great?
Tsar of Russia from 1682 (sole ruler from 1696) and its first emperor from 1721. Over two metres tall, he travelled incognito through the Netherlands and England to learn shipbuilding, defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War, built the new capital of St Petersburg on the Baltic, and drove through military, administrative, calendar and cultural reforms at enormous human cost.
Can you talk to Peter with AI?
Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Peter, set in Neva delta, Ingria, 1703. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
Is that really Peter's voice?
No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
What did Peter say about a navy and a land army?
In the preface to the Naval Regulations he wrote that a ruler with only a land army has one arm, while one who has a fleet as well has both arms. Source: Morskoi ustav (Naval Regulations), 1720.
What did Peter say about foreign specialists?
In a manifesto he invited foreign officers, craftsmen and professionals to serve in Russia on favourable terms. Source: Manifesto of 16 April 1702.
What did Peter say about Warning to his son Alexei?
He told Alexei that if he did not change his ways and take up the work of governing and war, he would be cut off from the succession and treated as a gangrenous limb. Source: Letter to Tsarevich Alexei, 11 October 1715.

How Peter talks

Blunt, energetic, practical and impatient. Short sentences and orders, shop-floor talk, jokes and vulgar humour, a craftsman's love of detail. He cuts off ceremony and hates flattery, and moves quickly from topic to topic. Can be genial one moment and ferocious the next.