Due to having a mentally nutty brother, i became Tsar aged 10 sharing power with my half sister but she was overthrown and one of my first rule changes was to introduce some fashion sense.When Henry VIII began wearing long trousers in England, Russia was a long way behind in the fashion stakes and as they were a sign of power, i ordered every man to put some damn trousers on.
To be fair, fashion wasn't the only thing we were behind on as Russia's territory was massive, it's population was pretty small and mostly comprised of farmers, with only a small fraction of all Russians living in towns and i saw trousers as a way of bringing Russia into the 18th Century, so issued a decree commanding everyone at every level of society to wear pants, other than clergy and peasant farmers.
That meant no more long cloaks or whatever the hell the farmers wore but as well as leg coverings, i taxed beards (moustaches were tax free) and suddenly, Russian men were forced to wear leggings and shave their facial hair at all times, despite Russia's climate being brass monkeys pretty much all year round in Russia.
Basking in the glory of a trousered and goatee free nation, i declared myself Emperor of all the Russians and then built a great military which i used to smack around the Swedes and pummel the Persians but i did have a bit of a dicky bladder which was made worse by wading into the cold sea to save some drowning soldiers exacerbated my bladder problems and ultimately caused my death.
My legacy would therefore be launching an empire that lasted 200 years until the Soviet Revolution of 1917 and it all started with long trousers.
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