Apparently you are. Peter the Great traveled in Europe and was so embarrassed by his own primitive empire that he embarked on a radical program of "Europeanisation", including the building of St. Petersburg on the Baltic. It failed. The boyars and the masses wouldn't accept it.
A quick search find this thumbnail history:
https://www.thinkchina.sg/history/why-peter-great-and-emperor-kangxi-failed-modernisation-test
"In the 21st century, Russia - like its neighbour who is the descendant of Emperor Kangxi - still has to threaten war to prove its greatness. After going around in bloodstained circles towards a utopian state with Karl Marx and Lenin, it is back where it started, with even less taste than the time of Peter."
"The West is wary of Russia because the Tsarist autocracy created by Peter the Great is only interested in expanding outward rather than improving its values."
right from Putin
We Americans believe that government comes from the consent of the governed; not as a legacy of some long dead monarch. When my fellow Americans figure how eff’ed up Russians are, they’ll figure out that the only thing Russians understand is power.