The "Russian Empire" project by Leonid Parfyonov, dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Russian Empire and the founding of Saint-Petersburg, is a contemporary view on 300 years of the Russian state.

"Russian Empire" required weeks of shooting in the Russian capitals and dozens of trips around the current and former territories of the country, to unique places which had never been filmed in the past. From a Polish village which Peter the Great once passed by, to the roofs of the Hermitage and tiny German towns from where the Russian empresses had come from. The program includes filming at the sites of battles fought by the Russian armies, from Rome to Beirut, and the sites of the national disasters from Sebastopol to Eastern Prussia. The program includes historic anecdotes, real diaries, little-known documentational evidence and letters of the top personalities of the Empire.
The "Russian Empire" is a personal history of this country, a TV investigation of the Russian imperial ideal which is still alive for both its supporters and adversaries.

Paul I
The Gatchina regimentation. The step of the guard of honor.
Complaint and Suggestions Box
Three days of statute labor.
Paul I – the Russian Pope, the Maltese Knight and the reconciler of the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches.
Suvorov’s marching over the Alps – the great feat not for Russia.
Empress Maria – the German mother of the Russian Tsars.
Playing cards for charity needs.
Mikhailovsky Castle.
The night of assassination of the Emperor.
Zubov’s snuffbox that purportedly fractured Paul’s temple.

Alexander I (part 1)
Alexander’s accession to the throne – the marvelous beginning of Alexander’s undertakings.
Russia’s participation in anti-Napoleon coalitions. Austerlitz battle. The Tilzit peace treaty.
A war against Sweden. Annexation of Finland.
MR. Speransky – the sun of the Russian bureaucracy.
The free port regime in Odessa.
The golden age of the Russian-American Company – Russian settlements in Alaska and California.

Alexander I (part 2)
The 1812 Patriotic War. The battle of Borodino. Surrender of Moscow. The first partisans. Crossing of the Berezina river. Napoleon driven out of Russia.
The foreign campaign of the Russian army. Defeat of Napoleon. Capture of Paris and occupation of France.
The Holy Union of Monarchs.
Arakcheyev’s activity. Military settlements.
The Kingdom of Poland.
The Caucasus War – the longest war in the Russia’s history. The village of Yarag – the homeland of jihad.
The Empire style – a new style in Russia.
Crisis of Alexander’s reigning. Illness and death of the Emperor.
A legend about the elderly monk Fyodor Kuzmich.