I know while we await the big event of the evening to begin let’s talk about Putin…..every armchair expert’s favorite subject.
Some think that Putin is trying to regain the lost territory from the USSR days….while others think he is trying to become yet another Peter the Great…..
Even Vlad the Invader is thinking of myself as another Peter the Great…..
Russian energy giant Gazprom is reported to have been hit particularly hard by sanctions imposed as a result of the war with Ukraine. An internal report – obtained and published by the Financial Times – has forecast that the company is unlikely to recover gas sales lost as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for at least a decade.
But Gazprom chairman Alexey Miller is apparently pressing ahead with his plan to build an 82-metre triumphal column in front of his company’s landmark St Petersburg Lachta Centre skyscraper. The column will celebrate the defeat of Sweden in the great northern war, after which Russia declared itself to be an empire for the first time.
The conflict was fought by Russia at the head of a coalition including much of what would become Poland and Germany as well as Britain, by virtue of its king, George I, also being the ruler of Hanover. It pitted one of the dominant historical figures of the age, Charles XII of Sweden, against Peter I of Russia – also known by the epithet “the Great”.
On September 10 1721, Russia and Sweden signed the Treaty of Nystad, which awarded Estonia and large parts of what is now Finland to Russia and enabled Peter to declare Russia to be an empire. St Petersburg, which the tsar had founded in 1703 at the mouth of the River Neva on the Baltic Sea, was the seat of the empire and would remain so until February 1917 and the abdication of then tsar Nicholas II.
So Vladimir Putin’s enthusiasm for the project could be said to reflect his own aspirations and ambitions for 21st-century Russia under his leadership. There are a number of parallels the Russian president is keen to stress as part of his projection of himself as a modern-day Peter the Great.
I know a lot has been said about Putin’s ambition and this article takes a good look at those ambitions.
Is he the next Peter the Great?
My thought is no he is not…..in his mind he may be but in action he will fall way short.
Does anyone have a thought they would like to share?
I Read, I Write, you Know
“lego ergo scribo”
He is a little like Kadaffai and Hussein and amin– just a little cleaner in his personal hygene.
I saw the “Peter the Great” thing there and thought you were bragging.
No need to brag…the ‘python’ speaks for itself. chuq
I can’t see that happening, even if he harbours a dream for it to come true.
Best wishes, Pete.
Me either he is delusional but not stupid. chuq