ABSTRACT
Although the great tsar died some five months before the final appointments were made for the new Russian mission to China, the whole enterprise was imbued with the Petrine spirit. Peter's uneducated widow, who succeeded him as Catherine I, was more experienced in eating, drinking and amorous affairs than those of state, but she or her advisers made a sound choice in putting Peter's German official Andrei Ostermann in charge of foreign affairs. With resourcefulness typical of his late master, Ostermann chose as ambassador to Peking a clever, cosmopolitan Bosnian merchant-diplomat long settled in Russia, Savva Lukich Vladislavich, whom he provided with a staff of specialists in every contingent field. These Vladislavich himself vetted, replacing some whom he judged unsuitable.
