Peter the Great's Grand Embassy: Riga to Moscow

The embassy left Moscow on 9–10 March 1697, Old Style, and its first foreign stop was Swedish Riga. Peter wanted to examine the fortifications, but the Swedish commander, Erik Dahlbergh, pretended not to recognise him and refused. Peter wrote home that the town was well fortified but unfinished, and that visitors were kept out with guards. Three years later he would cite this inhospitable reception as one of the reasons for starting the Great Northern War against Sweden.

Location precision: The sources name no building for the refused inspection; the pin marks Riga Castle as the centre of Swedish power in the town.

Peter reached Königsberg on 7 May 1697 after a five-day sea voyage on the ship St George. Arriving incognito, he was lodged in a private house on the Kneiphof, the island district, rather than in the castle. From 22 June, in nearby Pillau, he studied artillery under the Prussian lieutenant-colonel Steitner von Sternfeld, who gave "Pyotr Mikhailov" a certificate as a master gunner. An English account says he was apprenticed to an artillery engineer for two months.

Location precision: The house is not identified; the pin marks the Kneiphof island, now in Kaliningrad.

From Sunday 18 August 1697 (Gregorian) Peter spent eight days in this small wooden house, built in 1632 as a labourer's home. He rented it from the smith Gerrit Kist, who had once worked in Muscovy, and called himself Pyotr Mikhailov, supposedly a sergeant. His real identity came out within days. Russian sources date the move to Zaandam to 8 August, the same day in the Old Style calendar. Since 1823 a stone hall has sheltered the house, which now holds a small historical exhibition.

Visitor guidance: A small museum with an exhibition about the tsar's stay.

Having left Zaandam, Peter went to Amsterdam, where the mayor Nicolaas Witsen arranged work for him at the shipyard of the Dutch East India Company. He spent four months as an apprentice on Oostenburg island, helping build an East Indiaman named Peter and Paul, laid down specially for him. A Russian source says it was launched on 16 November 1697, Old Style. Peter concluded that Dutch carpenters worked too much by eye and lacked accurate construction drawings.

Location precision: The yard's exact berths are not given in the sources; the pin marks Oostenburg island.

Peter crossed to England and, according to English sources, arrived on 11 January 1698, Old Style. His party landed at the York House Watergate, an ornate riverside gateway built in 1626 for the Duke of Buckingham. The entourage was remarkable: four chamberlains, three interpreters, two clocksmiths, a cook, a priest, six trumpeters, 70 soldiers as tall as their monarch, four dwarves and a monkey.

On 9 February (Old Style) the tsar and his court moved into Sayes Court, next to the dockyard at Deptford; William III lent them the house, subleased from John Benbow. Peter visited the yard incognito to learn shipbuilding. The household was less careful: Christopher Wren's repair bill came to £305 9s 6d, including £3 for "wheelbarrows broke by the Czar", 300 window panes were broken and John Evelyn's prized garden was ruined. The dockyard site, Convoys Wharf, is now being redeveloped.

On the way home the embassy held fruitless talks in Vienna with the Austrian foreign minister and the Venetian ambassador, trying to prevent Austria's separate peace with Turkey. Russian sources record Peter's farewell meeting with Emperor Leopold I on 14 July 1698 (Old Style). A planned visit to Venice was cancelled when news arrived of the Streltsy uprising in Moscow, and Peter hurried home.

Location precision: The sources do not say where the talks took place; the pin marks the Hofburg, the imperial palace.

At Rava-Ruska Peter met Augustus II of Poland-Lithuania and negotiated with him. A Russian source dates the meeting to 30 July 1698 (Old Style) and says it lasted three days. A personal friendship grew, and with it the idea of an alliance against Sweden, which would fight Peter three years after the Riga snub. Peter reached Moscow on 25 August 1698.

Location precision: The sources name only the town; the pin marks Rava-Ruska's centre.