A reader casts a line:
Via Cracked.com, The 6 Most Ridiculous Things Ever Taxed. Number 4? Beards:
No one in Europe [in 1697] wore beards anymore. Russians, in their long facial hair, looked as ridiculous as someone walking around in 6-inch platform heels with goldfish swimming inside would look today. In an effort to modernize Russia and make it more European than Eastern, Peter the Great made men cut off their beards. And when we say he "made" them, we're talking a man who was known to attack bearded men in the street and forcefully shave them.
But being a slightly reasonable giant psychopath, he also offered them the option of paying a ridiculously heavy tax to keep their long beards. That way, if they had to embarrass the motherland with their fashion faux pas, at least the czar made money off it (the fact that Peter himself couldn't grow a beard probably had nothing to do with his decision).
Nothing to do with it at all.
The Dish 