Career
Until his death he was the most influential of Peter the Great"s associates. Golovin stemmed from the family of Russian treasurers of Byzantine Greek descent. In Peter"s Grand Embassy to the West in 1697 Golovin occupied the second place immediately after Franz Lefort.
lieutenant was his chief duty to hire foreign sailors and obtain everything necessary for the construction and complete equipment of a fleet.
On Leforts death, in March 1699, he succeeded him as Field Marshal. The same year he was created the first Russian count, and was also the first to be decorated with the newly instituted Russian Andrew.
The conduct of foreign affairs was at the same time entrusted to him, and from 1699 to his death he was the premier minister of the tsar. He also controlled, with consummate ability, the operations of the brand new Russian diplomats at the various foreign courts.
His superiority over all his Russian contemporaries was because he was already a statesman, in the modern sense, while they were still learning the elements of statesmanship.
His death was an irreparable loss to the Tsar, who wrote the words upon the despatch announcing it in grief.