Russian monarchs who traveled Europe (PICS)

Peter I

Peter could have become the most famous author of European travel guides – he was the first Russian monarch to visit the Old World and made his first trip in 1697–1698. Formally, he traveled incognito, but one glance at the company of Russian nobles was enough to recognize the tsar immediately – his tall stature gave him away.

In the Netherlands, Peter studied shipbuilding and even worked on the construction of a ship himself, visited factories and attended lectures on anatomy. In England, he studied the structure of warships in detail, visited Oxford and attended a session of Parliament. In Vienna, he met with Emperor Leopold I. Peter's Grand Embassy would have gone further, but, upon learning of the Streltsy uprising in his homeland, it returned earlier than planned.

In 1716, he set off on another European voyage, spending nearly two years abroad. In Danzig (now Gdansk), the emperor congratulated his niece Catherine Ivanovna on her marriage and visited Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris. His days were filled with meetings with monarchs and sightseeing. Visits to museums and natural history classrooms were a must. However, Peter didn't neglect himself either, making frequent stops at resorts: in Germany, he took the spas in Pyrmont and, in Belgium, he visited Spa.

Alexander I

Shortly after ascending the throne in 1801, the emperor issued a decree allowing citizens to leave and return the country without hindrance. The following year, he traveled to visit Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III.

A few years later, he visited his sister, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who had married Prince Karl Friedrich of Saxe-Weimar. His subsequent trips to Europe were connected with Napoleon. In 1807, he met with him in Tilsit to conclude a peace treaty and, in 1814, he entered Paris at the head of allied forces.

Nicholas I

At the end of 1845, Palermo welcomed distinguished guests – Emperor Nicholas I and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. This was not a diplomatic voyage, but rather a humanitarian one – the party arrived in Italy to explore its cultural heritage. Nicholas visited Florence, Rome, Venice and Bologna. In Rome, he met with retired artists from Russia at St. Peter's Basilica and then visited the studios of some of them. For example, he commissioned several sculptures from Peter Stavasser. He also visited the Vatican. He took several dozen sculptures back to Russia and also commissioned casts and copies of Renaissance paintings. All of these adorned the Hermitage, a museum that opened to the public in 1852.

Alexander II

In 1867, Napoleon III invited Alexander II to France, hoping to improve relations between the countries and discuss a Customs Union. The Russian emperor accepted and also wanted to attend, among other things, the ‘World's Fair’ in Paris. It was there that the visit was marred by an assassination attempt: Polish student Anton Berezovsky fired at the tsar, but missed. Negotiations with Napoleon III, meanwhile, were unsuccessful.

Nicholas II

In Fall 1896, the tsar embarked on a tour of European capitals. He began in Vienna, where he was received by Emperor Franz Joseph. The royal couple attended the opera ‘Manon’ and, in his free time, Nicholas "…chase[ed] deer, climbed hills, wandered through forests and, ultimately, killed two deer and a wild boar", while hunting in Lainz Park. The Romanovs then visited Queen Victoria at Balmoral Castle and introduced her to her great-granddaughter, Grand Duchess Olga, who was about one year old at the time.

The trip concluded in France, where Nicholas attended the laying of the foundation stone for a bridge across the Seine named after his father, Emperor Alexander III. He visited Versailles, the Louvre, Notre-Dame de Paris, Les Invalides and the Panthéon and attended performances at the Comédie-Française and the Grand Opera. The busy schedule left him slightly exhausted: in his diaries, he jokingly noted that his "arm had almost withered" – crowds of people greeted the tsar everywhere and he waved in return.

In Summer 1909, he set off on a summer trip on the yacht ‘Standart’. This time, his route took him through Sweden, Denmark, France and Great Britain. On the Isle of Wight, Nicholas and Alexandra Feodorovna were met by King Edward VII, who organized a review of the Royal Navy for them, which the emperor observed in the uniform of a British admiral – a rank he held.