Peter the Great was a bit disliked by his contemporaries for his worldliness because his insistence on modernization often came at the cost of tradition. Folks, as it were, didn't like the idea of giving up their beards, so he taxed it.

I'm serious. Peter the Great taxed people who didn't shave their beards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beard_tax

He also put laws into effect that targeted Russia's fashion sense, often driving home the idea that traditional garb was nothing compared to European fashion.

On a less comical level Peter is generally associated with modernization. He wouldn't take it to level that his predecessors would- I do believe it was the Russian minister of Finance Sergei Witte (jumping ahead to the end of the 19th, early 20th centuries) who said in no unusual terms that if Russia had to either choose between spending it's gold on food or importing machinery and technology to modernize, the people would have to starve, to say nothing of the scale of modernization Stalin would introduce- but he was the first Russian emperor who really put any emphasis on the navy. He reformed government on many levels, and basically did what Henry the 8th did to the Roman Catholic Church with the Russian Orthodoxy, making it a ministry with the effective head of the church appointed by the Tsar. Saint Petersberg would become a crucial hub for foreign activity.

Peter the Great is generally seen as a great modernizer and if there's bones to be picked, it's often to do with how he handled either the Russian Orthodox Church, or his inclusion of European ideas. Xenophobia, if you will. But that'd be the exception rather than the norm.

But the idea that many statues of Peter the Great survived the Soviet Union should speak to the man. Even the Union liked him enough that they didn't see the Tsar first but the leader. And some of the statues weren't exactly humble either- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Horseman