Tell me about his succession woes.

Peter was many things.

He was certainly a truly awful father.

So his son by his first marriage, Alexei, is a perpetual sort of disappointment to Peter.

He thinks that he's not energetic and dynamic and sort of manly enough.

You know, he's quite a kind of mild-mannered, bookish character.

He's, unlike his father, he's much more enamored of old Moscow with its sort of tradition and ritual.

How else should we think about his reign?