During Peter the Great's reign as Tsar and eventually Emperor of Russia, he attempted to westernize and modernize Russia in order to make Western Europe take Russia seriously. One of the things he did to try and make this happen was by instituting a beard tax; anyone that had a beard in Russia, and especially inside his court, had to pay a tax in order to keep their beards. In one interesting story about trying to enforce this beard tax, he forced his entire court to shave their beards. One of the people within his court had refused to do it, so Peter the Great did it for him.
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