_300 Years of Romanov Dynasty Rule in Russia - Overview and Chronology of Imperial Russia

1.
Asia turns its eyes to the West
2.
Life on a country estate
3.
I can't live like this anymore

ESSAY 1.
War with Napoleon
ESSAY 2.
People tied to the land
ESSAY 3.
The revival of Russian culture

In the spring of 1797, Count Nicholas Sheremetev welcomed Tsar Paul I, son of Catherine the Great, to his country estate with a grand spectacle.
The count placed a serf behind every tree in the small forest leading to the mansion.
Each tree was almost completely cut down.
While the emperor and his entourage rode in a carriage, the serfs felled trees at the signal.
To the visiting Tsar it must have looked like a giant curtain opening.
Behind the curtain, the magnificent view of Ostankino unfolded: churches, ponds, gardens, and magnificent palaces.

Bright sunlight shone on the path ahead of the young serf Mikhail Sychevkin.
Having shown a remarkable talent for acting from an early age, he completed his apprenticeship at a local troupe (a theater company that performed acrobatics and plays) after graduating from high school, and it was now time for him to truly spread his wings in life.
A theater company in a college town offered him a position as an actor.
As soon as Michael received permission from his mistress, the Dowager Countess, he took his family and left for the new city.

Word of his brilliant acting spread quickly and soon reached the ears of the arrogant impresario Prince Repnin.
Repnin tried to recruit Sychevkin into his traveling troupe.
To lure Shchepkin, he offered to pay the owner a ransom to buy him out, and if he did well, he could even give him his freedom.
After joining Repnin's troupe, Sychevkin toured all over Russia, receiving acclaim, but he remained tied to Repnin's hand.
Then, a large theater company near Moscow offered Sychevkin a position.
With the money he received from the theater, he was barely able to buy freedom for himself, his wife, and two of his four children.
He offered to pay by promissory note for the two young children, their parents and siblings.
Repnin scoffed and replied that no matter how famous a newly liberated serf might be, what credibility could he have?
But Shivkin's resolve was firm.
He vowed to somehow free his family from Repnin's shackles.

It weaves together a fascinating web of stories, one by one, from the Romanov dynasty, from Peter the Great to Nicholas II, the last Tsar of all Russia.
It also tells the exciting story of Mikhail Sychevkin, a famous actor of serf origin, and the stories of ordinary people who lived in Imperial Russia, like a sad and beautiful Russian folk song.