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The toy army of Peter I (Russian: Потешные войска, Poteshnye voiska, literally fun forces) was initially called Петровский полк (Petrovskiy polk, Peter's regiment) and was a collection of young Peter's playmates, sons of noblemen and attendants of his father Aleksei's court.[1] The boys played war, and as they grew, their games became more and more realistic. Soon, a second regiment was formed, out of the sons from a neighboring village, Semenovskoe. The regiments became known as Preobrazhensky (after the Moscow suburb village, Preobrazhenskoe, where Peter lived with his mother) and Semenovsky. As Peter matured, the regiments did as well, and Peter participated fully in the army, joining its ranks as a bombardier and rising up to colonel and head of the regiments.[2] These regiments became the beginnings of the Russian Imperial Guard.
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