I'm going to go. He's

a-a-ra-s-s-s-s-a-s-s-a-s-a-s- Welcome to the Russian rulers podcast episode 33 the great embassy part 2 first off happy The Great Embassy Part 2.

First off, happy New Year to all my listeners.

You know, when I started this project last April, I would have been overjoyed to start the new year with 3,000 subscribers and listeners.

But what's transpired has way outstripped my grandest expectations as we've just

passed the 45,000 subscriber mark.

Thanks to all of you for making this such a fun project.

I really couldn't have done it without all the support and great messages you've sent me in the past year.

Hopefully I can continue to improve the product I delivered you each week and enrich your

knowledge bank on the subject of Russian history through its rulers.

Another note, you may have noticed that we didn't publish the podcast until today, Monday,

and that's going to be the new schedule schedule so I can really work at it over the

weekends my business is starting to pick up in my personal life so I'm going to

have a little less time during the week to work on this and the weekends are going to be

my kind of free time. So every Monday is when this podcast will be coming out and I hope

that works out for everyone. Now on to the show. Last time we saw the beginning of one of the

world's grandest oddices known as the Great Embassy, led by Peter the Great, along with 250 of his fellow cohorts from Moscow.

He made a lot of good friends along the way, though, like Sophia and Hanover and William

of Orange, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to gain allies against

the Russian's main enemy, the Turks.

Peter had spent a total of almost five months in Holland, much of which was spent learning how to build ships,

but the tar began to become restless and a bit annoyed at his Dutch hosts.

...