That'll be 50 rubels please.

On this day in 1698, Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards. As part of his drive to raise state revenues he taxed just about anything that came in quantity. In actual fact it was Peter the Greats drive to Europeanize Russia and bring Western culture and tradition to the fore that led him to tax beards.

The tax was not for amount of hair but whether you had one or not. In effect if you wanted to sport whiskers you had to pay. Owners of beards paid 30 rubels and up (depending on its manliness). Russian peasants, moujiks, paid a levy on their beard every time they entered a city.

Peter was fond of taxes. If he didn't get you for your beard he taxed your basement, horse collars, food, when you were born, married and died, and . . . if that wasn't enough, or you managed to wiggle out from under all these weird money grabs, he taxed your soul.