a prussian girl with no rubles no crown no friends
st petersburg winter cut her skin like porcelain
the tsar dont touch her she colder than neva ice
she reading voltaire while plotting how to roll the dice
ekaterina learned the language before she learned the throne
orthodox cross on her chest but her heart played alone
mother russia watching waiting testing foreign bones
she smiled at the guards made orlov feel at home
she whispered to the nobles while the palace halls froze
promises like vodka burning soft inside their throats
a lover on her left hand a general on her right
she mapped the coup by candlelight
no tears no shaking no feminine mistake
she wore a soldier uniform for the empire's sake
the church bells rang she stood where peter knelt
she said i am yours now nation now watch me break the belt
я взяла этот трон своей рукой
черное море теперь за мной
три империи пали под моей пятой
от балтики до аляски край родной
potemkin built the villages while she built the fleet
sevastopol rising from the black sea heat
ottomans sent their janissaries she sent back defeat
the crimean khan wept where russian boots now beat
she opened galleries she wrote laws she laughed with voltaire
but cross her border and she'll strip your kingdom bare
poland carved like pie on a porcelain plate
three times they begged three times she sealed their fate
alaska sold but first she planted russian flags
aleutian winds howling through imperial rags
a german girl became the third rome mother
no son of hers could ever call himself a lover
she wrote her memoirs in french but thought in russian steel
four hundred thousand serfs knew her will was real
the golden age dripped from her signature
she dipped her quill and redrew cartography pure
я взяла этот трон своей рукой
черное море теперь за мной
три империи пали под моей пятой
от балтики до аляски край родной
sixty seven winters yet her spine never bent
she dreamed of constantinople till her final breath spent
suvorov marched through alps like thunder through snow
her eyes watched from tsarskoye selo the empire grow
she loved like a man they gossiped and they sneered
but no one dared to whisper when the empress appeared
twenty
sixty seven winters yet her spine never bent
she dreamed of constantinople till her final breath spent
she loved like a man they gossiped and they sneered
but no one dared to whisper when the empress appeared
twenty