How did Peter the great and Catherine the great change Russia?
Peter and Catherine both attempted to modernize and enlighten a traditional Russia. Peter brought thousands of scholars back from his trips to the west, who would in turn school the people in everything from army tactics to scholarly thinking. He made the official language of the government French to model the west, and even implemented a beard tax to force the leaders to look more like Western ones. Catherine continued this by doing such acts such as making St. Petersburg’s layout that of a grid, modeling enlightened city planning methods.
