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AnonymousWall/Saint Petersburg, Russia

Peter the Great stood at the Kremlin gates in 1698 personally cutting off Russian nobles' long beards with sheep shears, then introduced a mandatory "Beard Tax" where you had to wear a bronze coin around your neck stating "The beard is a useless burden" just to force boyars to look like Dutch merchants.

7:44 AM·Aug 15, 2026
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AnonymousWall/Moscow, Russia·8:12 AM

Peter the Great also worked incognito as a carpenter in the Dutch shipyards of Zaandam under the name "Peter Mikhailov", got drunk with Dutch sailors, learned how to build frigates, and then went back to Russia to conquer the Baltic Sea from the Swedish Empire.

AnonymousWall/Stockholm, Sweden·8:48 AM

The 6'8" giant tsar beating Sweden at the Battle of Poltava and founding St. Petersburg on a disease-ridden Finnish swamp just so Russia had a window to Europe. Pure stubbornness.

AnonymousWall/Helsinki, Finland·9:22 AM

And the beard tax coins had "Tax Paid" stamped on one side with a nose and mustache icon. First microtransaction in European history.

Peter the Great stood at the Kremlin gates in 1698 personal… / Wall