Two days later, the victory celebration began. Beneath classical Roman arches trotted squadrons of Russian cavalry and horse-drawn artillery, followed by the foot soldiers of the Guards, the Preobrazhensky Regiment in battle-green coats, and the Semyonovsky Regiment in blue. Then came Peter, his sword drawn, riding an English horse given to him by Augustus, and wearing the same colonel's uniform he had worn at Poltava. As he passed, women threw flowers. Behind the Russian leaders were 300 captured Swedish battle flags, reversed and trailing in the dirt, then the defeated generals walking in single file, led by Field Marshal Rehnskjold and Count Piper, and finally long columns of soldiers—more than 17,000—marching as prisoners through the snowy Moscow streets. The following day, Peter attended a Te Deum mass in the Assumption Cathedral. The crowd was enormous, and the Tsar stood in the middle of the church pressed on all sides by people.
The formal announcement of victory and the presentation of awards took place with Romodanovsky on the throne. One by one, the two field marshals, Sheremetev and Menshikov, followed by Peter as a colonel promoted to lieutenant general, approached the throne and reported their victories to the seated Mock-Tsar. Sheremetev described and was given credit for the victory at Poltava and Menshikov for the capture of the Swedes at Perevoluchna. Peter described and was given credit only for his victory at Lesnaya. On hearing their reports, Romodanovsky thanked them formally and confirmed their previously announced promotions and rewards. When Rehnskjold, Piper and the other Swedish generals were brought in, they were astonished to see on the throne, not the tall man who had been their host at dinner after the battle and had led them through the streets of Moscow, but a round-shouldered, older man whom they didn't recognize. A row of tall screens on one side of the hall was removed, revealing tables set with silver plate and candelabra. Hundreds of candles were lighted to dispel the winter gloom, and the crowd swarmed to take seats, regardless of rank. Romodanovsky sat on a dais attended by the two Field Marshals, Chancellor Golovkin and the Tsar. The Swedish generals had a separate table. Each time a toast was proposed, the master of ceremonies, standing behind Peter's armchair, fired a pistol shot out the window as a signal to the artillery and musketeers outside. A few minutes later, as glasses were raised, the walls shook with the thunder of the cannon. The day ended with a brilliant fireworks display which, according to the Danish ambassador, was far superior to one he had witnessed in London which "had cost seventy thousand pounds sterling."
The Swedish prisoners—those taken at Poltava and the much larger number captured at Perevoluchna—had finally reached their destination, Moscow, not as conquerors but as part of a triumphal procession led by the Tsar. The senior generals were treated with courtesy; several were allowed to return to Stockholm carrying terms of peace proposed by Peter and an offer to exchange prisoners of war. Young Prince Max of Wurttemberg was released unconditionally, but died of fever on his way home; Peter gave him a military funeral and sent his body back to his mother in Stuttgart. Those Swedish officers who were willing, Peter enrolled in his own army. Once they had taken the required qath of allegiance, he awarded them the same rank they had held in the Swedish army and gave them command of Russian squadrons, battalions and regiments. None was asked to serve against his own king or compatriots in the Great Northern War. Instead, they were posted to garrisons in the south or east, where they patrolled the frontiers, holding the line against incursions by the Kuban Tatars, the Kazaks and other Asiatic peoples. The rest of the officers were dispersed as internees into all corners of Russia. At first, they were allowed considerable freedom of movement, but some who had been given permission to return on parole to Sweden never came back, and a few who had entered Russian service used their Russian rank to escape. After this abuse of trust, the rest were severly restricted.
As the years passed, these Swedish officers, scattered through all the provinces of the Russian empire, often lived in want, as they had no money. The Swedish common soldiers received small allowances from their government at home, but nothing was sent to the officers. Of the 2,000 officers, only 200 received money from their families; the rest were obliged to learn a trade in order to feed themselves. In time, these former warriors, hitherto knowledgeable only in the art of soldiering, developed an astonishing number of talents. In Siberia alone, a thousand Swedish officers turned themselves into painters, goldsmiths, silversmiths, turners, joiners, tailors, shoemakers, makers of playing cards, snuffboxes and excellent gold and silver, brocade. Others became musicians, innkeepers and one a traveling puppeteer. Some who were unable to learn a trade became woodsmen. Still others set up schools, teaching the children of their fellow prisoners (some had summoned their wives from Sweden to join them; others had married Russian women). These children were better educated than most in Russia, learning mathematics, Latin, Dutch and French as well as Swedish. Soon, Russians in the neighborhood were sending their own children to the foreign schoolmasters. Some of the officers embraced the Russian religion and joined the Orthodox Church, while others held fast to their Protestant religion and built their own churches in the wilderness. Although Siberia generally was a bleak and joyless landscape, the Russian governor, Prince Matthew Gagarin, had a reputation for generosity, and Swedish officers living under his jurisdiction praised his warm and forgiving nature. In time, as the Westernizing of the state administration developed, Peter needed skilled administrators and bureaucrats. A number of former Swedish officers were offered positions and came to St. Petersburg to work in the newly established Colleges (Ministries) of War, the Admiralty, Justice, Finance and Mines.
The common Swedish soldiers, over 15,000 of them, were treated more severely. They, too, were offered a chance to enter Peter's service (an entire regiment of 600 Swedish dragoons served under a German colonel against the Kuban Tatars). But many refused and were sent to do forced labor. Some worked in the mines in the Urals and others were employed in the dockyards or on the fortifications of St. Petersburg. Although records were kept of the whereabouts of interned officers, none were kept of the common soldiers. Many were in towns or on the estates of the Russian nobility, and married and settled down to life in the Russian church and Russian society. When peace finally came in 1721, twelve years after Poltava, and the Swedish prisoners were allowed to go home, only about 5,000 of Charles' proud grenadiers, the remnant of an army of 40,000, could be found to return to the towns and villages of their native Sweden.
In the spring of 1710, Peter plucked the military fruits of Poltava. Russian armies, unopposed by any Swedish army in the field, swept irresistibly through Sweden's Baltic Provinces. While Sheremetev with 30,000 men beseiged Riga to the south, Peter sent General-Admiral Fedor Apraxin, newly made a Count and a Privy Councilor, with 18,000 men to besiege Vyborg in the north. This town at the head of the Karelian Isthmus, seventy-five miles northwest of St. Petersburg, was an important fortress and an assembly point for Swedish offensive threats against St. Petersburg. A Russian attempt on Vyborg from the land side in 1706 had failed, but now there was something new in Peter's favor. His growing Baltic fleet, consisting of frigates and numerous galleys, the latter craft propelled by a combination of sails and oars and ideally suited for maneuvering in the rocky waters of the Finnish coast, was available both to transport men and supplies and to keep Swedish naval squadrons at bay. As soon as the Neva was clear of ice, in April, Russian ships sailed from Kronstadt with Vice Admiral Cruys in command and Peter, in his new rank as rear admiral, as Cruys' deputy. The ships made their way through the ice floes in the Gulf of Finland and arrived off Vyborg to find Apraxin's besieging army cold and hungry. The fleet brought provisions and reinforcements, raising Apraxin's strength to 23,000. Peter, after studying the siege plans and instructing Apraxin to take the town no matter what the cost, returned to St. Petersburg in a small vessel, narrowly escaping capture by a Swedish warship.