Russian Empire (Season 1)

Russian Empire (2000) is a landmark Russian documentary series you can watch online on iFILM — sixteen episodes tracing more than two centuries of Romanov rule, from Peter I's overhaul of the state at the turn of the eighteenth century to the collapse of the monarchy in 1917. Leonid Parfyonov hosts, and the project carries every mark of his style: on-location reporting, archival photographs, and a conversational register that avoids the lecture hall. Directed by Anton Megerdichev.

The idea was conceived in 2000 and completed after Parfyonov's departure from NTV in 2004, with each episode devoted to one or several monarchs moving chronologically — Catherine the Great, Paul I, Alexander I, through to Nicholas II. The result is as much a document of Parfyonov's own era of Russian television as it is of the Romanovs.

For Russian history, this remains one of the more watchable entry points: not a textbook survey but a television journalist's take on how power, war, and palace manoeuvre shaped three centuries of one country's story. Stream Russian Empire online on iFILM.