“Yes, the descendants of the Orthodox know
Lands dear past fate ….
A. S. Pushkin
In 1721 the title "Great" was assigned to the All-Russian Emperor Peter Alekseevich. However, this was not new in Russian history - thirty-five years before Peter I, this was the name of Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn, “the close boyar, governor of Novgorod and state ambassadorial affairs, guardian”. This was in many ways a mysterious, controversial and underestimated personality. In fact, Golitsyn was ahead of his time, in the era of Sophia's reign, embarking on many progressive transformations, which were then picked up and continued by Peter I. Vasily Vasilyevich's contemporaries - both friends and foes - noted that he was an unusually talented statesman. The eminent Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky called the prince "Peter's closest predecessor." Alexey Tolstoy adhered to similar views in his novel "Peter I". So what is Golitsyn really famous for?
He was born in 1643 in one of the most eminent families of Russia, tracing its lineage from the Lithuanian prince Gedimin, whose family, in turn, was traced back to Rurik. Vasily was the third son of Prince Vasily Andreevich Golitsyn and Tatyana Ivanovna Streshneva, who belonged to the no less famous princely family of the Romodanovskys. His ancestors had served the Moscow tsars for several centuries, held high positions at the court, and were repeatedly awarded estates and honorary ranks. Thanks to the efforts of his mother, he received an excellent home education by the standards of that era. Since childhood, Tatyana Ivanovna has been preparing her son for activities in high government positions, and she cooked diligently, sparing no money for knowledgeable mentors or time. The young prince was well-read, spoke fluent German, Polish, Greek, Latin, and knew military affairs well.
At the age of fifteen (in 1658), due to his origin, as well as family ties, he came to the palace to the sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich, nicknamed the Quiet. He began his service at the court as a royal steward. Vasily served at the table for the sovereign, took part in ceremonies, accompanied Alexei Mikhailovich on trips. In connection with the aggravation of relations between Russia and Turkey in 1675, Golitsyn was with the regiment in Ukraine to "save the cities from the Turks Saltan."
His life changed dramatically with the coming to power of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich. The tsar, who ascended the throne in 1676, granted him from the stewards immediately in the boyar, bypassing the position of the roundabout. This was a rare case for that time, which opened both the doors of the Boyar Duma and the opportunity to directly influence state affairs for Golitsyn.
Already during the reign of Fyodor Alekseevich (from 1676 to 1682), Golitsyn became a prominent figure in the government circle. He was in charge of the Vladimir and Pushkar court orders, standing out among the other boyars for his humanity. Contemporaries said about the young prince: "smart, courteous and magnificent." In 1676, already in the rank of boyar, Vasily Vasilyevich was sent to Little Russia. The situation in southeastern Europe at this time was difficult. The entire burden of military operations against the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire lay on Russia and the Left-Bank Ukraine. Golitsyn had to lead the second southern army that defended Kiev and the southern borders of the Russian state from the Turkish invasion. And in 1677-1678 he participated in the Chigirin campaigns of the Russian army and the Zaporozhye Cossacks.
In 1680, Vasily Vasilyevich became the commander of all Russian troops in Ukraine. By skillful diplomatic activity in Zaporozhye, the Crimean possessions and the nearest regions of the Ottoman Empire, he managed to bring the hostilities to nothing. In the autumn of the same year, ambassadors Tyapkin and Zotov began negotiations in the Crimea, which ended in January 1681 with the Bakhchisarai Peace Treaty. At the end of the summer, Golitsyn was recalled to the capital. For the successful outcome of the negotiations, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich granted him huge land holdings. It was from this moment in time that the influence of Prince Golitsyn at court began to grow rapidly.
The wise boyar proposed to change the taxation of peasants, organize a regular army, form a court independent of the omnipotence of the governor, and carry out the arrangement of Russian cities. In November 1681, Vasily Vasilyevich headed a commission that received an order from the tsar "to be in charge of military affairs for the best of their sovereign's servants of dispensation and administration." In fact, this was the beginning of the military reform, which involved the reorganization of the noble militia into a regular army. And in January 1682, a commission of elected nobles, headed by Golitsyn, proposed abolishing parochialism - “a truly Asian custom, which forbade descendants at the table to sit further from the sovereign than their ancestors sat. This custom, contrary to common sense, was an inexhaustible source of strife between the boyars, reflecting on the actions of the government. " Soon, the category books, which sowed discord between noble families, were set on fire.
The illness of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich brought Golitsyn closer to Princess Sophia, the daughter of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich from his first marriage. Soon they were joined by the court poet and monk-bibliographer Sylvester Medvedev and Prince Ivan Andreevich Khovansky, who headed the Streletsky order. From these people a group of like-minded people arose - the palace party of Sophia Alekseevna. However, Golitsyn was the closest to the queen. According to the historian Valishevsky: “Medvedev inspired the group, infected everyone with a thirst for struggle and passion. Khovansky provided the necessary armed force - an agitated regiment of archers. However, she loved Sofya Golitsyna…. She dragged him onto the road leading to power, power that she wanted to share with him. " By the way, Vasily Vasilyevich - the most educated person for his time, fluent in the main European languages, versed in music, keen on art and culture, aristocratic - was very good-looking and possessed, according to his contemporaries, a piercing, slightly cunning look, which gave him a “great originality". It is not known for certain whether the relationship between the royal daughter and the handsome boyar was mutual. Evil tongues claimed that Vasily Vasilyevich got along with her only for the sake of profit. Although, perhaps, Golitsyn was led by more than one naked calculation. It is a well-known fact that Sophia was not a beauty, but she was not also a sullen, fat, unattractive woman, as she appears in the famous painting by Repin. According to the notes of her contemporaries, the princess attracted her with the charm of her youth (then she was 24 years old, and Golitsyn was already under forty), vital energy, beating over the edge, and a sharp mind. It remained unknown whether Vasily and Sophia had common children, but some researchers claim that they did, their existence was kept in the strictest confidence.
After six years of reign, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich died in April 1682. The courtiers gathered around Sophia, who took the side of the Miloslavskys, who are relatives of her mother. In opposition to them, a group of supporters of the Naryshkins was formed - relatives of the second wife of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and mother of Peter I. They proclaimed little Peter the new tsar, bypassing his older brother Ivan, who was sickly from birth and, as a result, was considered incapable of ruling. In fact, all power passed to the Naryshkin clan. However, they did not triumph for long. In mid-May 1682, a streltsy revolt began in Moscow. Supporters of the Miloslavskys used the discontent of the archers, directing their rage on their political opponents. Many of the most prominent representatives of the Naryshkin family, as well as their supporters, were killed, and the Miloslavskys became the masters of the situation. The sixteen-year-old Tsarevich Ivan was proclaimed the first Russian Tsar, and Peter the second. However, due to the young age of the brothers, Sofia Alekseevna took over the government. The regency of the princess (from 1682 to 1689), in which Vasily Vasilyevich occupied a leading position, remained a striking phenomenon in the history of our country. Prince Kurakin, brother-in-law and brother-in-law of Peter I (and, consequently, the enemy of the princess) left an interesting review in his diaries: “The reign of Sophia Alekseevna began with all diligence and justice for everyone and to the delight of the people …. During her reign, the whole state came in the color of great wealth, all kinds of crafts and commerce multiplied, and sciences began to be restored to the Greek and Latin languages ….
Golitsyn himself, being a very cautious politician, did not take any part in the palace intrigues. However, by the end of 1682, almost all state power was concentrated in his hands. Boyarin was granted to the palace governors, headed all the main orders, including Reitarsky, Inozemny and Posolsky. On all matters, Sophia consulted first of all with him, and the prince had the opportunity to carry out many of his ideas. The documents retained a record: “And then Princess Sophia Alekseevna appointed Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn as a courtyard voivode and made the first minister and judge of the Ambassadorial order…. And he started to be the first minister and favorite and was a pretty person, great mind and loved by everyone."
For seven years, Golitsyn managed to do a lot of useful things for the country. First of all, the prince surrounded himself with experienced assistants, and he nominated people not according to "breed", but according to suitability. Under him, book printing developed in the country - from 1683 to 1689 forty-four books were published, which was considered considerable for that era. Golitsyn patronized the first professional writers of Russia - Simeon of Polotsk and the aforementioned Sylvester Medvedev, who was later executed by Peter as an associate of Sophia. Under him, secular painting (Parsun portraits) appeared, and icon painting also reached a new level. Vasily Vasilyevich was concerned about the formation of the educational system in the country. It was with his active participation that the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, the first domestic higher educational institution, was opened in Moscow. The prince also made his contribution to the mitigation of criminal legislation. The custom of burying husband-murderers in the ground and execution for "outrageous words against the authorities" was abolished, and the conditions of servitude for debts were eased. All this was renewed already under Peter I.
Golitsyn also made broad plans in the field of socio-political reforms, expressing thoughts about radical transformations of the state system. It is known that the prince proposed replacing serfdom by allotting land to peasants, and developed projects for the development of Siberia. Klyuchevsky wrote with admiration: "Such plans for resolving the serf issue returned to state minds in Russia no earlier than a century and a half after Golitsyn." A financial reform was carried out in the country - instead of many taxes that were a heavy burden on the population, one was established, collected from a certain number of households.
The improvement of the military power of the state was also associated with the name of Golitsyn. The number of regiments, both "new" and "foreign" system, increased, dragoon, musketeer, and reitar companies began to form, serving under a single charter. It is known that the prince proposed to introduce foreign training of the nobles in the art of war, to remove the subsidiary recruits with whom the noble regiments were replenished, recruiting from those unsuitable for military craft, heavy people and slaves.
Vasily Vasilyevich is also credited with organizing the construction of three thousand new stone houses and chambers for public offices in the capital, as well as wooden pavements. The most impressive was the construction of the famous Stone Bridge across the Moskva River, which became "one of the wonders of the capital, along with the Sukharev Tower, Tsar Cannon and Tsar Bell." This construction turned out to be so expensive that a saying arose among the people: "More expensive than the Stone Bridge".
However, the prince was nicknamed "the great Golitsyn" because of his successes in the diplomatic field. The foreign policy situation by the beginning of 1683 for Russia was difficult - strained relations with the Commonwealth, preparations for a new war with the Ottoman Empire, the invasion of the Russian lands of the Crimean Tatars (in the summer of 1682). Under the leadership of the prince, the Ambassadorial order established and then maintained contacts with all European states, empires and khanates of Asia, and also carefully collected information about African and American lands. In 1684, Golitsyn skillfully negotiated with the Swedes, extending the Kardis Peace Treaty of 1661 without abandoning the temporarily ceded territories. In the same year, an extremely important agreement was concluded with Denmark on the ambassadorial ceremony, which raised the international prestige of both powers and responded to the new position of our country on the world stage.
By this time, the Holy League of Christian States was organized in Europe, which was nominally headed by Pope Innocent XI. The participating countries decided to conduct a coalition war with the Ottoman Empire, reject any separate agreements with the enemy and involve the Russian state in the union. Experienced European diplomats arrived in Russia eager to demonstrate their skills at the Muscovites. The ambassadors were extremely imprudent, betraying the disloyal attitude of their governments to the interests of Russia, when they suggested that Vasily Vasilyevich give Kiev to her in order to avoid conflicts with the Commonwealth. Golitsyn's answer was categorical - the transfer of Kiev to the Polish side is impossible, because its population expressed a desire to remain in Russian citizenship. In addition, the Rzeczpospolita according to the Zhuravinsky world ceded the entire Right Bank to the Ottoman Port, and the Port according to the Bakhchisarai world recognized Zaporozhye and the Kiev region as the possessions of Russia. Vasily Vasilyevich won the negotiations, after a while the Pope recognized Russia as a great power and agreed to help conclude peace with the Commonwealth.
Negotiations with Poland were protracted - diplomats argued for seven weeks. Repeatedly the ambassadors, disagreeing with the proposals of the Russians, were going to leave, but then they resumed the dialogue again. In April 1686, Vasily Vasilyevich, "showing great skill", cleverly using the contradictions between Turkey and Poland, diplomatic and military failures of Jan Sobieski, managed to conclude the long-awaited and beneficial for our country "eternal peace" with Poland (the Commonwealth), putting an end to the centenary strife between the two Slavic states. The Poles forever abandoned their claims to Kiev, Left-Bank Ukraine, cities on the right bank (Staiki, Vasilkov, Tripolye), as well as Severskaya land and Smolensk, together with the surrounding area. The Moscow state, in turn, entered the alliance of European powers, taking part in the coalition struggle with Turkey along with Venice, the German Empire and Poland. The significance of the treaty was so great that after its signing, Sofya Alekseevna began to call herself an autocrat, although she did not dare to officially marry the kingdom. And Golitsyn later also headed the Russian delegation that arrived to negotiate with the Chinese. They ended with the ratification of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, which established the Russian-Chinese border along the Amur River and opened the way for Russia to expand the Pacific Ocean.
Possession of the main European languages allowed the prince to speak freely with foreign ambassadors and diplomats. It is worth noting that foreigners until the seventeenth century generally preferred not to regard Russians as a cultured and civilized nation. With his tireless activity, Vasily Vasilyevich greatly shaken, if not destroyed, this established stereotype. It was during his leadership of the country that streams of Europeans literally poured into Russia. In Moscow, the German settlement flourished, where foreign military men, artisans, healers, artists, etc. found refuge. Golitsyn himself invited famous masters, artisans and teachers to Russia, encouraging the introduction of foreign experience. Jesuits and Huguenots were allowed to take refuge in Moscow from confessional persecution in their homeland. Residents of the capital also received permission to purchase secular books, art objects, furniture, utensils abroad. All this played a significant role in the cultural life of society. Golitsyn not only developed a program for the free entry of foreigners into Russia, but also intended to introduce free religion in the country, constantly repeated to the boyars about the need to teach their children, and procured permission to send boyar sons to study abroad. Peter, sending the children of the nobility to study, only continued what Golitsyn had begun.
For ambassadors and numerous diplomatic delegations, Vasily Vasilyevich liked to arrange special receptions, striking visitors with luxury and splendor, demonstrating the strength and wealth of Russia. Golitsyn did not want to give in to the ministers of the most powerful European powers, neither in appearance nor in his speech, believing that the extravagance was paid off by the impression made on the negotiating partners. According to contemporaries, the ambassadors sent to Muscovy were in no way ready to meet such a courteous and educated interlocutor there. The prince knew how to listen attentively to the guests and maintain a conversation on any topic, be it theology, history, philosophy, astronomy, medicine or military affairs. Golitsyn simply suppressed foreigners with his knowledge and education. In addition to official receptions and negotiations, the prince introduced informal meetings with diplomats in a "home" atmosphere. One of the visiting ambassadors wrote: “We have already seen enough of the wild Muscovite boyars. They were obese, sullen, bearded and knew no other language than pork and beef. Prince Golitsyn was a European in the full sense of the word. He wore short hair, shaved his beard, cut his mustache, spoke many languages…. At receptions he did not drink himself and did not force him to drink, he found pleasure only in conversations, in discussing the latest news in Europe."
It is impossible not to note the Golitsyn innovations in the field of fashion. Even during the reign of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich, under the direct influence of Golitsyn, all officials were obliged to wear Hungarian and Polish dresses instead of long-skimmed old Moscow clothes. Shaving beards was also recommended. It was not ordered (as later under the authoritarian Peter), but only recommended, so as not to cause much confusion and protests. Contemporaries wrote: "In Moscow, they began to shave their beards, cut their hair, wear Polish kuntushi and sabers." The prince himself carefully monitored his appearance, resorted to cosmetics, the use of which seems ridiculous to men today - he whitened, blushed, groomed his beard and mustache cut in the latest fashion with various spices. Here is how A. N. described Vasily Vasilyevich's appearance. Tolstoy in the novel "Peter I": "Prince Golitsyn is a well-written handsome man, he has a short haircut, an upturned mustache, a curly beard with a bald spot." His wardrobe was one of the richest in the capital - it included more than a hundred costumes made of expensive fabrics, decorated with emeralds, rubies, diamonds, rolled up with silver and gold embroidery. And the stone house of Vasily Vasilyevich, which stood in the White City between Dmitrovka and Tverskaya streets, was called "the eighth wonder of the world" by foreign guests. The building was over 70 meters long and had more than 200 window locks and doors. The roof of the building was copper and shone in the sun like gold. Next to the house there was a house church, in the courtyard there were carriages of Dutch, Austrian, German production. On the walls of the halls there were icons, engravings and paintings on the themes of Holy Scripture, portraits of Russian and European rulers, geographical maps in gilded frames.
The ceilings were decorated with astronomical bodies - zodiac signs, planets, stars. The walls of the chambers were upholstered in rich fabrics, many windows were decorated with stained-glass windows, the walls between the windows were filled with huge mirrors. The house contained a variety of musical instruments and artwork furniture. The imagination was struck by Venetian porcelain, German clocks and engravings, Persian carpets. One visiting French wrote: “The princely chambers were in no way inferior to the houses of the Parisian nobles…. They were furnished no worse, surpassed them in the number of paintings and, especially, books. Well, and various devices - thermometers, barometers, astrolabe. My brilliant Parisian acquaintances did not have anything like that”. The hospitable owner himself always kept the house open, loved to receive guests, often organized theatrical performances, acting as an actor. Unfortunately, there is no trace of such splendor today. In subsequent centuries, the Golitsyn house-palace passed from hand to hand, and in 1871 it was sold to merchants. After a while, it was already the most natural slum - barrels of herring were stored in the former white marble chambers, chickens were slaughtered and all sorts of rags were stored. In 1928, Golitsyn's house was demolished.
Among other things, Vasily Vasilyevich is mentioned in historical literature as one of the first Russian Gallomaniacs. However, the prince preferred to borrow not only the external forms of foreign culture, he penetrated into the deep layers of French - and even wider - European civilization. He managed to collect one of the richest libraries for his era, distinguished by a variety of printed and manuscript books in Russian, Polish, French, German and Latin. It contained copies of "Alcoran" and "Kiev Chronicle", works of European and ancient authors, various grammars, German geometry, works on geography and history.
In 1687 and 1689 Vasily Vasilyevich took part in organizing military campaigns against the Crimean Khan. Realizing the complexity of these enterprises, sybarite by nature, the prince tried to evade the duties of the commander, but Sofya Alekseevna insisted that he go on a campaign, appointing him to the post of military leader. Golitsyn's Crimean campaigns should be recognized as extremely unsuccessful. A skilled diplomat, unfortunately, had neither the knowledge of an experienced commander, nor the talent of a commander. Leading together with Hetman Samoilovich a hundred thousandth army during the first military campaign, carried out in the summer of 1687, he never managed to reach Perekop. Due to the lack of forage and water, unbearable heat, the Russian army suffered significant non-combat losses and was forced to leave the steppes burned by the Crimeans. Returning to Moscow, Vasily Vasilyevich used every opportunity to strengthen the international position of the crumbling Holy League. His ambassadors worked in London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Florence, trying to attract new members to the League and prolong the fragile peace.
Two years later (in the spring of 1689) a new attempt was made to get to the Crimea. This time they sent an army of over 110 thousand people with 350 guns. Golitsyn was again entrusted with the leadership of this campaign. On the lands of Little Russia, the new Ukrainian hetman Mazepa joined the Russian army along with his Cossacks. Having passed the steppes with difficulty and having gained the upper hand in the battles with the khan, the Russian army reached Perekop. However, the prince did not dare to move to the peninsula - according to him, due to a lack of water. Despite the fact that the second campaign also ended in failure, Russia fulfilled its role in the war - the 150,000-strong army of the Crimean Tatars was shackled in the Crimea, which gave the Holy League the opportunity to quite noticeably press the Turkish forces in the European theater.
After the return of Vasily Vasilyevich from the campaign, his position at court was greatly shaken. In society, irritation was ripening from failures in the Crimean campaigns. The Naryshkins' party openly accused him of neglect and receiving bribes from the Crimean Khan. Once on the street, a murderer rushed to Golitsyn, but was caught in time by the guards. Sofya Alekseevna, in order to somehow justify the favorite, made a magnificent feast in his honor, and the Russian troops returning from the campaign were greeted as victors and generously rewarded. For many, this caused even greater discontent, even the close circle began to be wary of Sophia's actions. The popularity of Vasily Vasilyevich was gradually weakening, and the princess had a new favorite - Fyodor Shaklovity, by the way, Golitsyn's nominee.
By this time, Peter had already grown up, having an extremely stubborn and contradictory character, who did not want to listen to his domineering sister anymore. He often contradicted her, reproached her with excessive courage and independence, not inherent in women. The state documents also said that the regent loses the ability to rule the state in the event of Peter's marriage. And by that time the heir already had a wife, Evdokia. Seventeen-year-old Peter became dangerous for the princess, and again she decided to use the archers. However, this time Sofya Alekseevna miscalculated - the archers no longer believed her, giving preference to the heir. Having fled to the village of Preobrazhenskoye, Peter gathered his supporters and, without delay, took power into his own hands.
The fall of Vasily Vasilyevich was the inevitable consequence of the deposition of the power-hungry princess Sophia, who was imprisoned by her half-brother in a monastery. Although Golitsyn never took part either in the rifle riots, or in the struggle for power, or, even more so, in conspiracies about the murder of Peter, his end was a foregone conclusion. In August 1689, during a coup, he left the capital for his estate, and in September, together with his son Alexei, he arrived at Peter's in Trinity. By the will of the new tsar, the verdict was read to him at the gates of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery on September 9. The prince's fault was that he reported about the affairs of the state to Sophia, and not to Ivan and Peter, had the audacity to write letters on their behalf and print the name of Sophia in books without the royal permission. However, the main point of the accusation was the unsuccessful Crimean campaigns, which brought great losses to the treasury. It is curious that Peter's disfavor for the Crimean failures fell on only one Golitsyn, and, for example, such a prominent participant in campaigns as Mazepa, on the contrary, was treated kindly. However, even Peter I recognized the prince's merits and had respect for the defeated enemy. No, Vasily Vasilyevich was not destined to become a companion of the young tsar in the affairs of the reorganization of Russia. But he was not betrayed to a cruel execution, like Sophia's other minions. The prince and his son were stripped of their boyar title. All his estates, estates and other property were assigned to the sovereign, and he and his family were ordered to go north to the Arkhangelsk Territory "for eternal life." According to the Tsar's decree, the disgraced were allowed to have only the most necessary property for no more than two thousand rubles.
By the way, Vasily Vasilyevich had a cousin, Boris Alekseevich Golitsyn, with whom he was very friendly from early childhood. They carried this friendship throughout their lives, helping each other more than once in difficult situations. The piquancy of the circumstance was that Boris Alekseevich was always in the Naryshkin clan, which, however, did not in any way affect his relationship with his brother. It is known that after the fall of Sophia, Boris Golitsyn tried to justify Vasily Vasilyevich, falling even for a short time out of favor with the tsar.
After Golitsyn and his family left for exile in the city of Kargopol, several attempts were made in the capital to toughen the punishment of the disgraced prince. However, Boris managed to protect his brother, who was ordered to move to the village of Erensk (in 1690). The exiles got there in deep winter, however, they were not destined to stay in this place either. The accusations against Vasily Golitsyn multiplied, and by the spring a new decree was issued - to exile the former boyar and his family to Pustozersky prison, located in the Pechora river delta, and to pay them a salary of "thirteen altyn daily food, two money a day." Through the efforts of Boris Golitsyn, the punishment was again mitigated, instead of a distant prison, Vasily Vasilyevich ended up in the village of Kevrola, standing on the distant northern river Pinega, about two hundred kilometers from Arkhangelsk. The last place of his exile was the village of Pinega. Here the prince, together with his second wife, Evdokia Ivanovna Streshneva and six children, spent the rest of his life. From exile, he repeatedly sent petitions to the tsar, asking, no, not pardon, only an increase in the monetary allowance. However, Peter did not change his decision, although he closed his eyes to the parcels sent to the disgraced boyar by his mother-in-law and brother. It is also known that Boris Alekseevich visited his brother at least once during the Tsar's trip to Arkhangelsk. Of course, it was unthinkable to do this without the permission of Peter I.
Over time, the life of Vasily Vasilyevich returned to normal. Thanks to his relatives, he had money, and knowing about his influential brother, the local authorities treated him with respect and made all kinds of indulgences. He received permission to visit the Krasnogorsk Monastery. In total, Vasily Vasilyevich lived in the northern wilderness for a long twenty-five years, on May 2, 1714, Golitsyn died and was buried in an Orthodox monastery. Soon after, Peter forgave his family and allowed him to return to Moscow. Currently, the Krasnogorsko-Bogoroditsky Monastery is inactive and completely destroyed. Fortunately, they managed to save the prince's tombstone, now it is in the local museum. It reads: “Under this stone is buried the body of the servant of God the prince of Moscow V. V. Golitsyn. Died on 21 days of April, aged 70”.
Companions of Peter I tried to do everything so that this charismatic figure and the first minister of the regent's sister, hated by the new tsar, was consigned to oblivion. However, other opinions were also voiced. The zealous adherents of Peter Franz Lefort and Boris Kurakin spoke highly of Prince Vasily. The Golitsyn administration received high marks from Empress Catherine II, sophisticated in politics. One of the first in Russia, the prince not only proposed a plan for restructuring the traditional way of state life, but also moved on to practical reform. And many of his undertakings were not lost in vain. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Peter's reforms were the embodiment and continuation of the ideas and ideas of Vasily Golitsyn, and his victories in foreign affairs for many years determined the policy of Russia.
