We know for a fact that Tsar Peter the Great of Russia was an exceptionally tall man. Below is a life-sized statue of the man. It isn’t very flattering, which lends greater credibility to it’s sincerity — Peter is portrayed with a huge body, slender limbs and a rather small head, just as he was described in real life.
Peter the Great’s skeleton has been measured standing at 6′8″. Six feet, eight inches in length. Or two meters, three centimeters tall. He had a habit of “going undercover” in various lands. At one point he even lived for almost a year in the Netherlands where, as a young man, the enormous Tsar worked on a shipyard, getting down and dirty and working himself into a sweat to learn the secrets of Dutch shipbuilding and naval supremacy. People just sort of pretended he was just some stranger… but in reality, a giant Russian nobleman would have stood out like a sore thumb anywhere.
Peter the Great was not only a giant man, he also had a giant appetite and the ability to down legendary quantities of liquor without feeling a thing. He would sometimes beat up ministers that displeased him or lift up servants by their shirt collars until their feet left the ground. He must have been a frightening man, especially in an era where the average adult man stood about 5′5″.
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