 Before we get into the video today, I just want to give a quick shout out to one of our sponsors, Gnostic TV. Gnostic TV is ancient wisdom reimagined. This is a Netflix for those who are spiritually curious and want a place to go where there is no censorship. I personally am doing a whole series on Gnostic TV called The Esoteric Explorer where I am providing exclusive content to Gnostic. Gnostic TV is a host to all sorts of different content creators, many of whom are your old favorites. If you would like to check out Gnostic TV, there is a link down in the description box below. If there was ever a time that I wanted a copyright to a song. It's for this episode like legit, this story is the Game of Thrones. We are taught that Peter was one of the greatest rulers in all of Russian history. He was not only responsible for strengthening the Russian Navy, but he brought Russia from the old world into a more modern country. But Peter was a monarch who ruled with absolute authority. He held all the power. So many times in history, we are taught to venerate these people like Peter, like Alexander the Great, like Catherine the Great. But how did they become so great? Yes, of course, they made their country stronger. They expanded the borders of their territory, but at what cost? Usually that cost came from the people. Now, I thought that this episode of Peter the Great would be one little episode in our series on the Anastasia Romanov conspiracy. But if you know me, you know that I get petty in my research and I went down a huge, huge rabbit hole with one character in particular in this story. And so we are going to be dividing the Peter the Great episode into two episodes. It's worthy, y'all. It's worthy of two episodes. Because let me tell you, I have said it so many times before that if I had to live during these time periods, I would rather just be a peasant because y'all, these people, these families are killing each other. They're they're rioting against each other. They're chopping each other's heads off, y'all. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like as always. Such such a big, wonderful, huge thank you to all of our patrons and our producers here on Esoteric Atlanta. If you would like to join our patron and our producer community in order to support this channel, there is a link down in the description box below. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. My name is Bryce. And today on Mystery Monday, we got a few mysteries. My friend, was Peter the Great so great? And was Sophia his sister actually the inspiration for one of the characters in Game of Thrones? I mean, I kid you not, you guys, it's like I'm psychic or something because as I was studying Peter the Great, I kept thinking, holy shit, like this is literally the Game of Thrones. I so wish I could play their theme song as background music to put you in the mood for this family's drama. And then, and then I got to one little section of Peter's life with his regent, his sister and learned that the character of Cersei in Game of Thrones was actually inspired by Sophia. So when I tell you we have got drama to talk about petty, petty drama. We got some petty drama to talk about y'all. So let's go ahead and get into it. The man known as Peter the Great was born June 9th 1672 in Moscow, Russia to Tsar Alexis the first of Russia and his second wife Natalia. Alexis was the son of Michael of Russia. And if you joined us last week, Michael was the first ever Roman off. So this means that Peter the Great was the grandson of Michael. And as always guys, any videos referenced in this episode will be down in the description box below under show notes. Now, as I said, Peter was the first son of Alexis the first and his second wife Natalia, but he was the 14th child of Alexis. Alexis had been previously married to a woman named Maria and Alexis and Maria had 13 children. Maria had passed away shortly after the birth of her 13th and final child. Now, at this point, Peter, who was born a very, very healthy, healthy young little lad was not really thought to be the one that was going to inherit the throne, at least not for a while because Alexis and Maria had had five sons. Now, with that being said, only three made it past infant C and one died at the age of 15. So that left two heirs, two male heirs to the throne of Russia that were in line before Peter. Now, even though the seat of power was in Moscow at the Kremlin at this time, Peter actually grew up out in the country. His father did absolutely ensure that Peter had the finest of education, sending tutors out to the country estate to privatize his education. Now, Peter's mother Natalia, her mom, Peter's grandma on his mama's side was from Scotland and because of this Natalia had a very Western approach to her cultural life and this rubbed off on Peter as most of you probably know that if you I mean for me when I think about Peter the great from school, the one thing or the two things I remember about him was that he was really responsible for like the Navy and he was also really big into bringing Western influences into the country of Russia. Well, this again comes from his mom. In fact, I found this so freaking interesting. You guys, you guys, you guys, you all get this. I would have died. I would have literally died if I lived in Russia during this time because before Natalia had married his father, Alexis, the Tsar, the King's of Kings. It seems that music and dancing were illegal in Russia and Natalia herself though was quite a fan of music and dancing. So she kind of introduced this scandalous world of the orchestra to her husband, Alexis. And because of this, this is what we think of Russia today. We often think about like the Russian Ballet. You know, Russia is kind of known for its arts. Well, it started here with Alexis. He was the one through the influence of a Second Life Natalia that brought this into the culture of Russia. Now remember, Russia is very Orthodox in its religion and so I have a feeling that kind of had something to do with them not being culturally accepting of, you know, that rock and roll, even though rock and roll wasn't a thing back then. That's just kind of what I think of like, obviously like they had this perception of the orchestra of classical music and classical ballet as being like sex, drag and rock and roll baby, you don't, you don't want to play that violin. Oh, don't get me. Don't get me with those trumpets with that with that with that piano, you know, but but Natalia was the one that was like, you know what Lexi, let's live a little like, let's your hair down boo. Let's like enjoy the music. Let's dance a little bit of light in the mood, get us in the mood, you know, so, so that was the first, the first indication we have this Western influence coming into Russia was not really through Peter, but through his mama through the baby mama. She's the one that was like, here we go. Let's rock and roll. But seeing that this was his mother, obviously he was heavily influenced by hair. I think we're all heavily influenced by our parents, but I especially think little boys do become heavily influenced by their mothers. Now again, Alexi had lots of kids with his first wife, but a lot of them were very, very sick. A lot of them carried a blood conditions, which is interesting because we see this happening again in the early 1900s with another Alexi as we will get to with the Anastasia conspiracy. But this blood disorder that a lot of Maria's kids carried came from a form of scurvy and I'm not quite sure how this worked because scurvy typically is when you're missing like vitamin C and it's really common for people who've been out to the ocean for a long time and all the things I read and listen to about this condition for Maria's children, it was more of a hereditary form of scurvy, which really made me think of inbreeding, which we know royal families are famous for inbreeding. So the fact that Peter was born strong and healthy gave Alexis hope, even though Peter really wasn't expected to inherit the throne. It was like alas. I think just for Alexis's own ego, he was like, yes, I now have a strong son because these other sons they are so strong. So it seemed pretty clear that Alexis, Alexi, you'll hear me go back and forth with the names. Alexis the first, Alexi for short. He kind of maybe even favored Peter, which could could have inspired some family drama and some family tension, but nonetheless, Alexi, Alexis the first of Russia died on the 8th of September 1676. At this point, Peter, his youngest son with his second wife was not even four years old. Now, Alexis was not expected to die that early. It seems that he got really sick on a hunting expedition and got home and his health just rapidly deteriorated. At this point, his son, Theodore was the oldest son, an heir apparent to the throne of Russia. Theodore was the oldest remaining son of his first wife, Maria. Now, Theodore had this blood disorder that I spoke previously about that comes from scurvy, which I think again is just another, another thing, another thing pointing to and breeding, but what do I know? And for Theodore, his, his body was just always sick. He was always sick. It really truly, truly all jokes aside, reminded me a lot of, of Nicholas the second and Alexandra and the late 1800s, early 1900s with their son, Alexi and his hemophilia. They were very, very cautious with Theodore. He had some accidents as a child, which really hurt his body and because of the blood condition that he carried, his body had a very hard time recovering from, from the accidents and, and all honesty, a lot of the boyers, a lot of the aristocrats really thought that there was a chance that Theodore was, was not, was, was not going to outlive his father. It was expected that Theodore would probably pass away before his father passed away. But because his father got sick and died earlier than expected, Theodore was the next era parent. Now there was a younger brother that Theodore had a kid named Ivan and Ivan is definitely going to come into play into this story. Ivan, who will eventually turn into Ivan the fifth. Ivan basically, I mean, we, I have a quote here of what they said about Ivan. They would say that Ivan was infirmed in the body and the mind. So basically Ivan was dumb. He was dumb as rocks and also apparently carried some of this blood disorder. So that's the difference between Theodore and Ivan. The two full brothers of the first wife, Maria Theodore mentally is, is competent. And in fact, in the short time of Theodore's reign, he's going to do a lot of really good for Russia whereas Ivan, on the other hand, is just not okay. Now, while Alexei was on his deathbed few days, he took from getting sick and dying on his deathbed. We start to see tensions between the families of both the wives. Now, again, the first wife, Maria has passed away. She died in childbirth, but her family, her brothers, her uncles, their boyers, they're all aristocrats. And so they're, they're puppeting their nephews, especially to try to maintain power over Russia. Whereas we also see the family of his second wife, Natalia, Natalia herself is still alive, is now also trying to puppet Peter for more control and power of Russia because Theodore and Ivan are not the healthiest of people. Again, Theodore was not expected to live that long and Ivan was just dumb. A lot of his boyers that were siding with Natalia, with the second wife's family, try to convince Alexis, Alexei, on his deathbed to go ahead and make Peter his heir apparent. At the same time, we have other boyers who are associated with Maria's family trying to convince Alexis that that's not how things are done. We don't do shit that way. Your first born, we rule by divine right and your first born son, he's the heir apparent and if he dies, it goes to the next son, to the next son, to the next son. Same thing that's done with royal families to this day and because we got two boys in front of Peter, if you were to put the crown on Peter's head, it is going to cause an uprising in Russia. Bro, come on, Alexis. Da, do the right thing. This is how it's always been done. On top of that, we have Alexis's daughter, one of his daughters, Sophia, who we're going to talk more about the Cersei of this family who is the daughter of Maria, the first wife, really leaning in with her dad, telling her dad, papa, daddy, you can't crown Peter. You're going to die. You're going to crown Peter and you're going to leave us, your children here to pick up the pieces when there are revolts because you broke the order of succession. And so finally, Alexis, he's on his deathbed. He's like, I don't have time for this drama. I'm going to a better place. Theodore, you're going to be the czar. You're going to be the kiniest of kings. We'll go down the line. Best of luck to you, bro. So Theodore was crowned. Theodore, the third of Russia on June the 9th of 1661 on his little brother Peter's birthday, which put that my notes like that kind of sucks. You know, like Peter's not that old at this point. He's a little kid. It's like kind of rained on his parade a little bit to have your older brother crowned the kiniest of kings, the czar on your birthday. But Theodore apparently was so sick at the time of his crowning. I was about to say his inauguration, not his inauguration at his coronation, that they had to carry him in. So, you know, y'all know, y'all know the gossip mill was starting amongst the aristocrats. I don't think the peasants could give a shit. The peasants were just trying to live their lives. This is drama for the aristocrats. They were gossiping and a gossiping this like young lad who is now supposed to be our czar is being carried in to be coronated because he is so freaking sick. Now, most of these people that I've researched for this Romanov series, I don't like. But you know who I do like? I like Theodore. I really like this kid. Theodore for the short time that he was made the czar before his young death. He did a lot for Russia. He actually built Moscow to be a stable city. At this point, Moscow was very susceptible to fires and they would have these fires which would destroy and devastate the city. Quite periodically. And so Theodore decided that he was going to change the structure of the buildings in order to prevent fires from destroying buildings, which really did help the people of Moscow or of Russia in general. In fact, out of all of these rulers, I really feel like Theodore did stuff for the people in sincerity. Whereas a lot of these rulers did stuff for the people just to look like they were doing stuff for the people. But I really feel like he was sincere in wanting to serve the people of Russia, his people in the best way he could. In fact, he had this big, big old book burning, which I thought usually I'm against book burning. But what the books he were burning? These were the books of noble bloodlines. These books showed rank of the Boyers. So it was like a genealogy for the Boyers to see who had the most privilege. And at this time, the person who had the most privilege had the most rights to rule the country and Theodore was like, Yo bro, this don't make sense. Your birth privilege does not mean that you were going to provide my people with a good government. He valued good government and hardworking people over bloodlines. How cool is that? Why can't we call it Theodore the Great? Instead of Peter the Great, because Peter the Great won that great, you guys. Because he literally seemed to be very concerned. Now, Theodore did get married. He actually married a woman of his choice. It was not the woman that the Boyers wanted him to choose, but he was like, fuck that. I'm the czar. I'm the king. I'm going to marry who I want to marry. He truly loved his wife. Unfortunately, she did die after childbirth. They did have a son. If that son had lived, then we would not be in the mess that we're about to get into, but that son actually passed away six days after his mother died. Now, unlike Theodore's other full-blooded siblings, Theodore actually liked Peter. He treated Peter like his full-blooded brother. You know, in my eyes, half-siblings are, I don't really even like the term half-siblings. If you share a parent with somebody, that's your fucking sibling. I don't, you know, that's your brother, right? If I don't have any half-siblings, but if I did, I would consider them to be my siblings. My boyfriend has two sisters that are actually his half-sisters, and he never refers to them as half-sisters. They are his sisters. And it was kind of the same situation. My boyfriend and Peter, because his sisters, their mother actually passed away, and then their father met my boyfriend's mother and then he was born after they got married. And so it was the same thing, and they were all raised in the same household. There was no going to different parents' houses. So, you know, I really respect Theodore for being like, Peter's my brother. He's just as much as a brother to me as Ivan or Sophia or any of the other kids. Like, he's my brother. And he actually really liked his stepmother, Natalia, which was very, very strange, because a lot of the kids, the other kids did not like Natalia. And it was more, from what I see, it was more like it wasn't like, oh my God, she's our stepmother, gross. It was more that their families were feuding for power. And so the kids just kind of came collateral damage, listening to their uncles and their elders talk shit about the other person, but Theodore actually liked Natalia. And he, he sought advice from Natalia. He honored her as his stepmother. And so, again, I just really liked this kid. It's a shame that he died as early as he did. Theodore died on the 27th of April, 1682. He was only 20 years old. After his death, the boyers, the aristocrats, scheduled this like emergency meeting, like emergency, emergency, what the hell are we going to do? Because the next in line was Ivan. Now, Ivan, again, was dumb. He was just dumb. And he was not healthy himself. There was something wrong with him. And enough so where the boyers were like, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. The last time this happened, the last time this happened, we ended up in a time period called the times of trouble. It was bad. And so we need to like figure this out because we cannot give the throne to Ivan. We just cannot do that. And so they're having this emergency meeting where they decide they are going to make Peter. They're going to skip over Ivan and put the crown on Peter. Now, Peter at this point is only like nine, ten years old. He cannot rule. And so they decided that Natalia, his mother is going to rule as his regent. A regent is basically an advisor who rules in place of the child and helps the child learn how to rule until the child comes of age and then takes that role from the regent. Usually it is a parent or an uncle. It's usually a trusted family member who loves the child and will look out for the child's best interests. So that all gets settled or so we think. Here we enter stage left again. Sophia cue the Game of Thrones theme song. So who is Sophia? Princess Sophia, the daughter of Maria and Alexi, the first wife, one of the daughters of Maria and Alexi. Sophia was born on the 17th of September 1657. And this is fucking wild y'all. So good God at this point in time. I shit you not. The princesses, the daughters and there are a lot of them. The daughters of the Tsar were basically held prisoners within their own castle. This is because there were no man in all of Russia and all the land. There were no men that were of higher ranking or equal ranking to the princesses. So therefore they were not allowed to get married or have boyfriends. Now you might be asking, well, why can't they just marry a fellow prince in a neighboring country like all the other Western European monarchy were like pawning their daughters off. Their daughters were political pawns to create treaties with these countries. No, my friends. My friends know because they were Russian Orthodox. So not only were they the highest ranking of all the bloodlines and all the land of Russia. But they had the right religion. How many times have we heard that like they were God's favorite and because they were God's favorite, they couldn't be boinking no prince over in Western Europe because that would not be favorable to God because they were God's favorite. They were the chosen divine right bloodline. So these freaking women were kept as basically basically prisoners in their own castles. Even if they left the castle grounds to go about the town, they had to be covered in sheets so no one could see them. I cannot imagine the trauma that would have caused. Now they did receive an education up to the age of 10. So they basically learned how to read and write. That was it. And the rest of their lives were spent in worship. Now Sophia, Sophia, she was like, fuck that. I'm not even though I'm allowed to get married. I can't show my face in public. I want to make something of my life and I have dreams of potentially becoming the Tsarina in my own right. Sophia really wanted to rule in her own right. However, that just wasn't done in this time because, you know, at this time in Russian history, women were like second class citizens and so she was very clever though and how she tried to work her way into becoming some sort of a powerful authority figure in Russia. She was greatly inspired by Elizabeth I. She was aware of these other women in other countries, other royal women who were taking on the role of being the ruler through their own right. Like their own, they were the daughters of kings and they took that crown and so she was going to try to scheme some way to be able to do this for herself. So when she was a daughter, this started at a very, very young age. Again, I don't know if she was just a raging psychopath or if she was ambitious or a little bit of both. I don't know, but girl was ruthless. And so at a very young age, she went to her father, Alexi, and at the age of 10, when she was supposed to be done with her education, she begged her daddy to allow her to continue her studies with her brothers. And he said, of course, yes, she was probably a daddy's girl. He's like, listen, listen, boo. You don't have much of a life in front of you. So if you want to make something of yourself academically to entertain yourself as you live out your days, that's totally fine. So Sophia had the same education as all of her brothers, including Peter the Great. So this made her a competitor when it came to understanding policies and politics. Also, Sophia was a little bit bloodthirsty herself and she didn't mind cutting a few heads off. And so if you don't mind cutting a few heads off, you're in the perfect place to become a ruler. So it is stated that Sophia did did try to talk her father, Alexis, on his deathbed out of even having Peter in the line of succession. Anyway, like she she wanted him to amsgrade off of the will. Basically, she's trying to write her little half brother off of the will. But Alexi was like your two little brothers, your full brothers there in front of Peter. We're going to keep Peter in the line of succession. Just help your brothers be there to support your brothers. And once Theodore became the czar, it is said that she heavily advised Theodore. And when Theodore started to get sicker and sicker and sicker, more and more of the the voyors or the aristocrats came in and kind of nudged Sophia out. So Sophia played this part smart. Instead of throwing a temper tantrum and being like, how dare you? How dare you? Do you know who I am? You know, instead of being a Karen, she goes, okay, I'm a woman. They don't think women are smart enough to be able to rule. So so what I'm going to do is I'm going to make friends and alliances with all these other voyors in case I need their help later. And boy did that work in her favor because after Theodore died, Theodore the third died and Ivan was supposed to come up. But the boy or said, no, screw that. We're going to put Peter on on the throne. She was able to pull in those favors and those favors turned into the Moscow uprising of 1862. This also reminds me of the show's pretty little liar and gossip girl because being a female and I don't mean to offend any women watching. I'm a woman myself. Being a female. We're good at manipulating and we're good at gossip. So Sophia when she saw that her little half brother was going to be Zard, his mama Natalia was going to be the Regent pushing her and her family to the side. She decided to start rumors. She started spreading rumors with all the voyors who she had befriended informed alliances with and then have them spread these rumors around the town and basically she started she started to spread the rumor that Natalia, her stepmother had actually poisoned Theodore and that's why he died and had tried to strangle Ivan. She spread these rumors so much that there was a freaking revolt. People got so mad at Natalia and her family because they thought here comes this other family trying to come in and usurp the rightful family who's should be in charge and taking care of us and it got messy y'all. It got messy. So so much messies that they actually went in went into the palace where Peter was living and killed Peter's two uncles, his mother's brothers, like in front of him. So even though Peter himself turns into a freaking maniac, megalomaniac psychopath, I do have to point out that was some crazy, crazy childhood trauma. Don't forget the person causing this is not just some random woman, but his literal sister, his literal sister. It got so bad in the town that the peasants got involved. You know, who doesn't like a good riot? You know, he doesn't like a good riot. They were like, we don't even know why we're rioting, but we're going to go loot, we're going to go loot and steal shit. I mean, that's what happened until I'm pointing to living in Atlanta, like right outside. That's what happened in 2020. People are like, you know what, we're going to go loot Chanel. Let's loot Chanel and steal some Chanel purses. So it was total mayhem. It was total chaos. And so the boyers had to be like, let's halt this for a second. Let's refigure this out. So at that point, they decided that Ivan and Peter were going to co rule together. They're going to be like the wolf pack of Zars and Sophia was going to be their Regent. Now I need to back up for a little bit because originally Sophia's proposal to the boyers was that her and Ivan would be co rulers together. But the boyers said, no, we're not going to do that because silly woman. You silly, silly woman. You can't co rule, but we'll let you be Regent. Now both Ivan and Peter the great were well underage at this point. And so a Regent was absolutely necessary. And now Sophia instead of being a co ruler with Ivan literally kind of screwed the boyers up because as the acting Regent of two minor boys, she has complete authority in Russia for all intent and purposes. She is the Zarina or shall we say it in a better way for all intent and purposes. She's the fucking czar. And in fact, there was a very famous portrait made of her at this time that showed her as such what Sophia was Regent. She lived in the Kremlin in Moscow with her brother Ivan sending her half brother Peter away to live at the country estate. I have the kids like 10 at this point. What little boy doesn't want to go live out in the country. So at this point, Sophia kind of outwits herself in some ways because being a rambunctious little boy living out in the country with his mother and basic exile, even though he's one of the czars, he ends up creating this little pack of friends. And I think that this even though even though Peter ends up becoming a bit of a psychopath later on, I think this is absolutely adorable. He ends up creating this like pack of friends, these guys, these boys, little boys, and they would spend their days playing war like a lot of boys do. And over time, this group of friends, these group of little boys became very loyal to Peter as friends kind of makes me think of the hangover in the wolf pack and like they're going to do anything for each other as friends. And because they've spent their childhood playing war together, they inadvertently got a military education and they understood each other in battle. This is going to bite Sophia and the ass later on. Now, even though Peter was living out in the booties and exile with his mother, whenever there was like a foreign assembly or foreign council, he would by law have to be taken into Moscow to sit on the throne with Ivan and they had a throne created for the boys, two thrones together with a window in the back where somebody could whisper in the window telling these little boys what to say to these foreign people. Kind of cracks me up. I'm sure their feet didn't even touch the ground. They were both so young. I'm sure they were just kind of swinging their legs, probably bored out of their mind, wanted to go back outside and play. But instead they've got to talk to these grown ass men coming in from other countries who are trying to do business with Russia and they've got an adult sitting in the back whispering in their ear what to say because these little boys don't know shit about foreign policy or business trading. I just the whole scene kind of cracks me up. It's like a comedy of errors. Now Sophia was supposed to act as Regent until Peter came of age. Peter was about five years younger than Ivan and Ivan being mentally impaired. That's just kind of the deal that the boy or stroke with a stroke with her is that she would say Regent until Peter was of age. Now we've got two males on the throne, two Roman off males. So what what to do as my teacher in India would say what to do what to do? Who's going to take the throne after they're they're gone? How is this going to happen? They're both going to have children. How is this this power going to be passed down? Basically it came down to who had the first male heir. So we've got the same situation basically with Ivan Peter that we had with Maria and Natalia, the mothers who've got now two lines. And so as soon as Ivan became of marriage age, Sophia quickly had him married to try to see if he could have an heir to secure her family's reign over Russia. Well, same thing with Peter. As soon as Peter was not even marrying age, he was like 17, his mother Natalia said, Oh yeah, I'm going to marry my son off too. So now we have a baby race going on between Ivan and Peter. Whoever can produce the first male heir, who can help the heir, is going to basically hold control over the throne. Now subsequently, Ivan only had daughters and Peter ended up having one son that survived to adulthood, who then had another son who became Peter II, who then married Catherine the Great, which we're going to talk about after we're done with Peter the Great. But that's neither here nor there for this story. So there is all this fraction and competition still going on between both these families of these reigning czars. I say competition lightly, but y'all, they were like killing each other on June 9th of 1689, Peter comes of age. And as the contract stated with the boyers, Sophia now needs to step down at this point again, Sophia has ruled Russia as a dictator. She's Regent, but not really Regent. She is literally the person. She is the monarchy. She is the czarist of czar. She's the kiniest of kings. And now just overnight by one birthday, she's supposed to hand over all of her power to her brothers. I guess you guys kind of see where this is going. She's not going to do that. There is no way in hell that this woman is going to hand over everything that she has worked so hard to get. But the heat is on because literally the boyers are like, you need to step down. Like they're they're both of age now. You need to step down. And she's like, I'm not going to happen. And so she tries to pull the same stunt that she pulled in the Moscow Revolt of 1682. She decides that she's going to start rumors. So she's tries to start these rumors that Peter's family, Natalia's family are planning assassination attempts on her and Ivan. She spreads these rumors, spreads these rumors, and then she tries to convince people that in order to stop the assassination of herself and her little brother Ivan, Peter, her half-brother and his mother and her family need to be assassinated. Meanwhile, there has been no assassination attempts made on Sophie and Ivan. She has made this whole shit up just like she made the shit up before. She's doing everything she can to control her power, but it's starting to get a little bit out of hand and people are starting to get kind of annoyed. Like, yo, girl, you need to step down. Your brothers are in charge. So they actually send people to Peter to his court to bring him into hiding. Like he needs military protection because they've realized now that there's no a set. There's no threat against Sophia and Ivan. There's no threat. She's made it up in order to generate aggression towards Peter and his family. Like this is what narcissists do all the time, right? They play the victim, play the victim, play the victim in order to get the person who's actually the victim taken out. At this point, Peter, who is rightfully of age and is now the czar, is fed up with his sister. And so he writes a letter while he's being protected by the military. He writes a letter to his cozar, his brother, Ivan. Basically, he's like, bro, our sister is out of control. We've got to stop this. We cannot allow her to continue doing this to continue causing this drama. This is pure petty drama. It's got to stop. He then I'm paraphrasing this guys. You can go and read the letter. It's written a whole lot more eloquently than the way that I'm delivering it. I'm just trying to deliver this and more of a modern twist because history is fun, you guys. And if we can look at it through modern eyes, we can see the drama and the juiciness of these stories. He goes on in his letter to basically call Ivan a pussy and for lack of a better word, he's like, we're two men and we're letting our sister boss us around. Literally Ivan. We're in charge. Yo, bro, Ivan, look me in the eyes, my friend. Look me in the eyes. You and me, we're the czar. We, we are in power. We're it. We're the czar. She's not the czar anymore. She's just pretending like she's the czar. But literally you and me, we're the czar. We're letting our sister boss us around and control this country. How weak do we look as men? Now again, remember guys, this is the 1600s. Basically, he's like, we look like pussies compared to the rest of the world. They're going to come and they're going to invade because we look like chumps. She's supposed to be hidden away in the castle with no one even looking at her and she's literally ruling all of Russia. Around this time, all of Peter's playmates that he had as a child, remember those boys, those boys that used to play war with him. They start to garner more, build an army and garner all of these armies for Peter to challenge Sophia. So Sophia is sitting in Moscow going, oh God, my little brother has grown up. He's not going to, I can't boss him around. My plan didn't work. He's not assassinated. How easy would that have been for Sophia if they just assassinated Peter and his family if they had believed her cocked up story? So she all of a sudden realizes that this is not going to be an easy transition. So she decides that instead of manipulating the boyers, she's going to try to manipulate Peter. On August 13th of that year, a few months after he came of age, Sophia sends a boyer to Peter's palace to try to negotiate. Doesn't work. August 16th, three days later, she sends the same boyer to the palace once again to try to negotiate, but again, Peter's not having it. On August 20th, once again, she sends the same boyer out to once again, try to negotiate with Peter. This time, that boyer that was supporting Sophia decides, you know what? I'm going to stay in Peter's court. This is some bullshit. I'm tired of going back and forth. We know Peter's the rightful heir. I'm staying with Peter. So when that boyer doesn't come back and Sophia learns that he's turned on her and is now supporting her brother, Peter, on August 27th, she decides that she's going to go talk to her brother herself. Doesn't work. On August 31st, Sophia then tries to gaslight everyone. She tries to convince the boyers, the checks and balances, the aristocratic class of Russia, that all those assassination rumors that Peter was planning on assassinating her and her brother, she didn't make those off. She wasn't the one to create those rumors. It was somebody else who created those rumors, but it didn't work. By September 4th, Peter started to mean business. At this point, he started to arrest the boyers who were supporting Sophia for treason. Because remember, my friends, Peter's the czar. Ivan's the czar. Sophia's not the czar. She's not the regent. She never was the czar technically, even though she acted like the czar. She was technically the regent. Peter and Ivan are the czars. And the fact that she's holding out, trying to keep the... She's basically challenging the government. And so that's treason. So he starts having boyers arrested. On September the 9th, Peter officially strips Sophia of all of her titles and orders her to go live in a nunnery for the rest of her life. On October 16th, Peter officially moves to Moscow. Now, fast forwarding a few years. On February 8th of 1696, Ivan does pass away at the age of 29 years old due to his health. During this whole time, Sophia has been living under lock and key in a nunnery. She's basically a prisoner in this nunnery. Although she's a prisoner with a full staff, with servants, she gets really good food sent to her. So even though Peter's like locked her up for like trying to take over the government, he still treats her with the respect of a princess. But during this whole time, Sophia has not given up the fight. She's still plotting against her brother, Peter. She's still in communication with supporters of her and her family. And especially with Ivan gone, she's fighting for the life of her family life. Through her mother, Maria. And that's where we're going to leave it. For today, guys, next week, we'll continue the story of what happened to Sophia and the rest of Peter the Great's reign of Russia.