November 15, 2022. An event on “The Volga route of Peter the Great”.

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On 15 November 2022, a research associate of Bolgar Museum-Reserve Musina G. M held an event “The Volga route of Peter the Great “dedicated to the 350th anniversary of Peter I and the 300th anniversary of his visit to our region. The event was conducted for 15 students of the 8th grade of Bolgar secondary school № 2.
The year 2022 marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great, the tsar who transformed Russia. Large-scale transformations of Peter I touched all spheres of public life: he laid the foundations of the modern state structure of Russia, created a regular army and navy, established a new educational system.
Peter the Great, in his high status as Russian Emperor, officially visited Kazan in 1722; before that he had been to Kazan in 1695 during his Azov campaign. Then in 1708, Peter declared Kazan the capital of the new province. The third visit of the Russian autocrat marked the complete victory of Russia in the Northern War and the beginning of a new military campaign in the Caucasus.
During his stay in Kazan, Peter the Great visited the ancient city of Bolgar in June 1722. He examined the ruins of the ancient capital of Volga Bulgaria and drew attention to its lamentable state. He was shocked by the greatness of the ancient city, its Eastern architecture, a huge number of tombstones scattered throughout the territory of the ancient settlement. He ordered to collect the stones, put them together for their preservation in the room and translate the inscriptions on them from Arabic into Russian. Then he ordered to take care of the repair of the preserved buildings. Since those times, Peter the Great has been considered in the scientific world to be the first and almost the only Russian statesman who paid attention to the outstanding significance of architectural, archeological and epigraphic monuments of Bulgarian ancient settlement. Nowadays, the ancient town of Bolgar is one of the tourist centers of Russia and a UNESCO monument.
Schoolchildren listened to a lecture about the emperor’s activity. The conversation continued in the form of questions and answers, viewing illustrations and discussing the knowledge acquired earlier in history classes. Then “Peter the Great himself” greeted children and told about his skills, reforms and read his decree on the repair and preservation of monuments. Children received lasting impressions, souvenirs and sweet gifts.
The personality of Peter the Great stands apart in the history of Russia, as neither his contemporaries, nor his descendants found a man who could make such a profound change in the state, so embed into the historical memory of the Russian people, while becoming its most vivid page.

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