![[Muscovy_1390_1525.png]] The Russian Empire grew out of resistance to Mongol rule and was accelerated by the fall of Constantinople. A ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow named Ivan III (later called Ivan the Great) refused to pay tribute to the Golden Horde and after the death of the last Greek Orthodox Christian emperor, Ivan decided his kingdom should become the new Rome. Ivan (r. 1462-1505) tripled the size of his state and rebuilt the Kremlin in Moscow. His grandson, Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible, r. 1547-1584) was the first to declare himself Tsar of all the Russias—a title which is Russian for “Caesar.” He annexed the khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia and recruited Cossacks from southern Russia and Ukraine to colonize Siberia. ![[J.-M._Nattier_(d'après)_-_Portrait_de_Pierre_Ier_(musée_de_l’Ermitage).jpg]] *Peter the Great in 1717* Russia became the largest kingdom in the world, stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, but much of it was unoccupied and primitive. Peter I (Peter the Great, r. 1672-1725) visited Europe in disguise for 18 months to study shipbuilding and new administrative techniques that he used to modernize his realm and establish the Russian Empire. We’ll return to Russia later, but let’s explore some of the things that attracted Peter to Europe in the late 1600s. ----- Next: [[3.6 - Christendom]] Back: [[3.4 - Mughal Empire]]