Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
Promotion for all, including serfs, was now based on merit. Civil servants who reached the eighth rank became members of the hereditary nobility. Women, to some degree, were emancipated. [Furtado: 1001 Days] "Peter the Great’s victory in the Great Northern War of 1700–21 brought control of the eastern Baltic, including the ports of Narva, Riga and Reval, not to mention his new creation of St Petersburg." [Blanning: Pursuit of Glory, p. 104]