Portal:History/Featured biography/10

Count Nikita Moiseevich Zotov (Russian: Никита Моисеевич Зотов) (1644 – December 1717) was a childhood tutor and life-long friend of Russian Tsar Peter the Great (Russian: Пётр I Алексеевич, "Великий"). Historians disagree on the quality of Zotov's tutoring. Robert K. Massie, for example, praises his efforts, but Lindsey Hughes criticizes the education that he gave to the future Tsar.

Not much is known about Zotov's life aside from his connection to Peter. Zotov left Moscow for a diplomatic mission to Crimea in 1680, and returned to Moscow before 1683. He became part of the "Jolly Company", a group of several dozen of Peter's friends that eventually formed The All-Jesting, All-Drunken Synod of Fools with Zotov being appointed "Prince-Pope" of the Synod, and regularly presiding over their entertainments and festivities. He accompanied Peter on many important occasions, such as the Azov campaigns and the extorturing information from the Streltsy on high treason after their uprising. Zotov held a number of state positions, including c.1701 a head position in the Tsar's personal secretariat (Russian: Тайная канцелярия). Three years before his death, Zotov married a woman 50 years his junior. He died in December 1717 of unknown cause.