Peter the Great's visions and dreams were realized in the second half of the 18th century.

Largely through the greatest of his successors who was born four years after his death, the daughter of two impoverished German nobles.

The tale of how the former Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerst became Empress Catherine the First is like a soap opera, except for one thing, it actually happened.

Under the reign of Catherine, 1762-1796, Russia became respected for diplomatic smarts as well as military might.

The empire expanded its boundaries to the east, west, and south.

Catherine the Great would be Russia's last empress, thanks to her son and successor Paul who ruled from 1796-1801.

A very contrary character, it couldn't have been easy being Catherine's son.

His decree that only males could secede to the throne was just one of the things he did to undermine his mother's legacy.

Paul was deposed and murdered with the likely connivance of his son Alexander the First,

who was torn all his life between his grandmother's liberalism and his father's conservatism.

In the course of Alexander's stunning victory over Napoleon, he settled into a very conservative outlook.