History of Russia
The war ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden sued for peace with Russia. Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the Gulf of Finland, thus securing his coveted access to the sea. There, in 1703, he had already founded the city that was to become Russia's new capital, Saint Petersburg, as a "window opened upon Europe" to replace Moscow, long Russia's cultural center. Russian intervention in the Commonwealth marked, with the Silent Sejm, the beginning of a 200-year domination of that region by the Russian Empire. In celebration of his conquests, Peter assumed the title of emperor, and the Russian Tsardom officially became the Russian Empire in 1721.
Foreign policy of the Russian Empire
For three centuries, from the days of Ivan the Terrible (ruled 1547 to 1584), Russia expanded in all directions at 18,000 square miles per year, becoming by far the largest power. (China had more people but far less military or economic or diplomatic power.) The expansion brought in many minorities who had their own religions and languages. The political system was an autocracy ruled by the tsar; in its later days it was challenged by various revolutionary groups who were rendered ineffective by a tough police state that sent many thousands to exile in remote Siberia. Expansion had largely ended by the 1850s, but there was some movement south toward Afghanistan and India, which greatly annoyed Britain, which controlled India. Russia's main historic enemy was the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Russia's access to the Mediterranean Sea. The tsar's solution was to sponsor Slavic insurgents in the Balkans against the Ottomans. Serbia supported insurgents against Austria, and Russia stood behind Serbia, which was Greek Orthodox in religion and Slavic in culture. Russia's main ally was France, which needed its size and power to counter the increasingly powerful German Empire.