4. Ivan the Terrible was the first of the Russian Tsars
Ivan became Tsar of all the Russias, establishing Moscow as the premier Russian state, at the age of seventeen. Under his reign, Russia was transformed into the Russian Empire from the medieval state which he inherited, though his increasingly erratic behavior ensured that it was costly to the people under his rule. Ivan was actually quite popular among the lower classes of the people; it was the nobility which he distrusted and which he purged. He created the first Russian political police – the Oprichniki – which he used to arrest and execute members of the Russian nobility, confiscating their lands and money to his own treasury. The taxation demands levied on the peasantry occupying the lands became excessive, and by the time of his death, Ivan the Terrible was reviled by nearly all of Russia.