Sergei Bukhvostov

Born 1659; died Nov. 30, 1728, in St. Petersburg. Artillery major in the Russian Army.

Bukhvostov was known as the “first Russian soldier” because he was the first to enroll in the Preobrazhenskoe Regiment newly formed by Peter I in 1683; before that he was a striapchii (officer of the tsar’s household) groom. He fought under Peter I in the Azov campaigns of 1695-96 and in the Northern War from 1700. In 1713 he was gravely wounded but continued to serve in the St. Petersburg garrison.