Seek not a repentant executioner – there is no such thing By Grigory Pasko, journalist Russia. The late 1600s. A gloomy, overcast morning. Standing next to the bloody scaffold is an executioner holding an axe in his right hand, bitterly wailing: “Dear people! For the love of Christ, forgive me! I am a sinner! I have hewn off innocent heads left and right, for which I now deeply repent…” Have you been able to picture this scenario in your mind? Me neither. Because it never happened. Here’s what really happened. As the historians write, “Peter [the Great] himself, after suppressing the Streltsy mutiny, personally chopped off the heads of four of these elite musketeers. His partner, prince Romodanovsky, also chopped off four heads, while Alexander Menshikov boasted that he had personally chopped off 20 heads! Peter organized the execution of the Streltsy like a theatrical production. The blood of the beheaded Streltsy poured into the unearthed coffin of the boyar Miloslavsky, whom Peter regarded as the ideological inspiration for the Streltsy movement. The coffin itself was brought to the place of execution on a sleigh harnessed to a team of pigs. The heads of the executed Streltsy were raised on poles and displayed for all to see.”