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Today's #SWEMEX match is being held at Yekaterinburg, a place with a fascinating role in Russian history, as a quick internet rabbit hole exploration informs me. The city is named after Catherine 1, the first empress of Russia, who incidentally had an astonishing life herself.
Her parents die from the plague. She's adopted by a Lutheran pastor. As she grows up, the pastor's wife fears that her beauty might be too alluring for her son, so she gets her married off to a Swedish soldier stationed in town. And then the Russians invade town & kidnap her
And the chap who kidnaps her is attracted to her, and his close friend turns out to be...Peter the Great, and guess what, he is attracted to her too, so much so that he divorces his wife & secretly marries her. And they have 12 children, of which only 2 survive to adulthood
