Peter the Great's calendar reform
Apropos calendars (see today's earlier post), Rainy Day reader Simone Bayha adds this snippet concerning Peter the Great and the Gregorian calendar:
"Until Peter the Great's rule, Russia counted time from the creation of the world, which the Russian Orthodox Church calculated as having occurred in 5509 BC. By this reckoning, Peter was born in the year 7180 (early 1672 by the Gregorian system). Once in power, Peter decided to "Europeanize" Russia. With missionary zeal, he cut the beards off the boyars, banned caftans and updated the calendar, ordering in late 1699 (or, as it then was, early 7208) that the New Year should start on 1 January instead of 1 September. So 7208, which had begun on 1 September, was replaced by the year 1700 after only three months. But why he didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar, which had been in use for over a century in the European countries he wished Russia to imitate, remains a mystery. As a result, Russia remained 10 days behind the West for over two hundred years."
