2. Peter III was crazy about dolls and toy soldiers – but no so interested in ruling Russia
Peter III only ruled Russia for six months, from January of 1762 until July of that same year. He was deeply unpopular with almost all of the Russian elite, not least since he was actually German and made very little effort to learn how to speak the language of his new kingdom. What’s more, according to his wife, Sophia Augusta Frederica – who would go on to reign as Catherine the Great – he was a “good for nothing idiot” who was regularly drunk. Moreover, he remained a man-child, scandalizing Russian society with his obsession with dolls and toy soldiers.
Catherine the Great’s own memoirs reveal that her husband kept a large trunk full of dolls and toys under his bed. He would lock his bedroom door and arrange his toy soldiers in formation, playing with them and recreating famous and imagined battles. Of course, Peter himself was the commander of his toy army, complete with military uniform, and he would even order his servants to dress up and play with him. While obsessive and certainly strange, Peter’s childish ways were generally harmless. Indeed, it was his pro-Prussian foreign policy rather than his immaturity that was his downfall.