He flew through the city, says one of the annalists of those days, like lightning, and proceeded to a small but active sea port town on the coast, Zaandam.' Very many anecdotes are related of Peter during this portion of his life, which, though they may be apochryphal, are very characteristic hermantown hockey arena of his eccentric nature.Poland and Russia were so humiliated, that for several years they had purchased exemption from these barbaric forays by paying the Tartars an annual tribute amounting to fifty thousand dollars each.Peter did not forget hermantown hockey arena the affront.He even performed, himself, several surgical operations.Soon after this he sent hermantown hockey arena forty more to Holland for the same purpose.He had never before seen any boat but such as was propelled by oars.Peter had now attained his eighteenth year, and began to manifest hermantown hockey arena pretty decisively a will of his own.The regent Sophia had not only exerted all her influence to keep him in ignorance, but also to allure him into the wildest excesses of youthful indulgence.For two years a bloody hermantown hockey arena war raged with about equal slaughter upon both sides, while neither party gained any marked advantage.