The deadly rivalry among the boyars after the death of Tsar Aleksei in 1676 can only be understood in the context of the value system and political structure of the court and the court elite in the last years of the life of Peter's father. At the time of Peter the Great's birth, 30 May 1672, the feast of St. Isaac of Dalmatia, the scene of Russian political life was the court of his father, Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. The setting for the tsar's court in those years, as it had been for centuries, was the Kremlin in Moscow, primarily the tsar's palace in the southwest corner.

Most of that space today is taken up by the Grand Palace of the time of Tsar Nicholas I, but some fragments of the old palace of the tsars remain, immediately adjacent to K. A. Ton's classical pile. The original palace was roughly in the shape of the letter “U,” with the lower part of the “U,” facing east toward the small square formed by the bell tower of Ivan the Great and the two cathedrals, the Dormition and Archangel Michael. This lower part included most of the public rooms, the audience chambers where the tsar received ambassadors and where the Duma met. In the sixteenth century the two arms of the “U,” running roughly west toward the wall were the private rooms of the ruling family, and behind them were the offices of the palace administration, the stables, the workshops, and the storehouses.