Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment

The Preobrazhensky Life-Guards Regiment (Преображенский лейб-гвардии полк, Preobrazhensky leyb-gvardii polk) was a regiment of the Imperial Guard of the Imperial Russian Army from 1683 to 1917. The Preobrazhensky Regiment was one of the oldest infantry regiments in Imperial Russia, along with the Semyonovsky Regiment. It served as a gendarmerie unit for the state Secret Chancellery, the first secret police of Russia headed by Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky. The regiment formed part of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Guards Infantry Division stationed on the Fontanka in Saint Petersburg. It was disbanded shortly before the October Revolution in 1917 by its last commander. The Preobrazhensky Regiment was recreated in 2013 as the 154th Preobrazhensky Independent Commandant's Regiment, the official honor guard regiment of the Russian Armed Forces, stationed in Moscow. The young Tsar Peter I of Russia (born 1672, 1682 - 1725) developed the regiment from 1683 onwards on the basis of his poteshnye voiska ("toy forces"), during the military games he conducted in the village of Preobrazhenskoye (now a district in Moscow). The Preobrazhensky Company of Peter's forces officially formed in 1687; it had expanded to become a regiment (полк ) by the 1690s. The Preobrazhensky Regiment distinguished itself during the Great Northern War of 1700–1721, the Patriotic War of 1812, and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The regiment operated as the body-guard of the Grand Duchess Yekaterina Alekseevna as well as the main supporter of her bloodless 1762 coup against her husband Emperor Peter III; having become Empress Catherine II ( 1762 - 1796) she declared the Preobrazhensky highest in the order of military precedence from 14 July 1762. In spite of its distinguished record, part of one battalion of the regiment mutinied in June 1906, at a time of general unrest in the Russian Empire. The mutiny was quickly suppressed and 190 soldiers sentenced to service in disciplinary battalions.