Career
He was reputed by contemporaries as "the handsomest man in Russia". During her reign he was much lionized as a military hero of incredible valor. Several months before Catherine"s death, 24-year-old Zubov was invited to take charge of the army heading for Persia.
The expedition, launched in 1796, initially under the motto of complying to the promise Russia had made 23 years earlier to Georgia to protect it against any Persian attempts to bring the country under its hegemony again, was now just one of another wars for regional hegemony that was going on for a long time between Turkey, Persia, and Imperial Russia.
Zubov started the expedition much promising, seizing Derbent in Dagestan in April, and Baku by July of the same year the invasion started. Catherine waxed jubilent at his rapid progress, which in two months repeated some of the gains of Peter the Great during the Russo-Persian War (1722-1723).
Zubov"s return from his luckless expedition occasioned an ode by Derzhavin, meditating on the fleeting nature of fortune and success.