entourage. During Alexander I's journeys abroad, Arakcheev would follow, giving his accord to every law passed. By 1823, he was 'at the height of his power' and was able to plot the downfall of his rival, Education Minister Prince Alexander Golitsyn, by enlisting the support of a firebrand priest, Archimandrite Photius, who accused Golitsyn of apostasy. He also forced the resignation of Pyotr Mikhailovich Volkonsky Later years After Alexander I was succeeded by Nicholas I, Arakcheyev was dismissed from all positions in the government, including his seat in the State Council and Inspector of Artillery and Infantry. He was removed from the court and exiled to his estate, Gruzino, near Novgorod. There he lived until his death in 1834, when he was interred in a local church. Furthermore, after Arakcheyev's death, the tsar requisitioned his land and property due to the inability to find legal heirs. Personal life Arakcheyev purchased the Gruzino estate near Novgorod in 1788. He was in his thirties when he married 18-year-old Anastasia Vasilievna Khomutova. She liked parties and dances; he did not, was intensely jealous of her, and gave the servants a list of addresses forbidden to her. In the second year of the marriage, she left him and they never met again. Arakcheyev also had a long-term mistress, Nastasia Fedorovna Minkina. During his absence from their estate, she bore a son who had red hair and blue eyes, and resembled neither her nor Arakcheyev. The boy was named Mikhail Shumsky, and grew to be a troublesome drunkard. Minkina was so tyrannical that she was murdered by resentful servants. Arakcheyev was grief-stricken and unable to function at court for some time. There was also an 'unofficial peasant wife' who bore him two illegitimate sons, sent to be educated in the Corps des Pages. Temper and "Arakcheevshchina" Arakcheyev is said to have executed two junior officers by having them buried up to their necks and leaving them to die of starvation and thirst. On another occasion he is said to have personally cut off another officer's head with his sword after a perceived infraction. "Arakcheevshchina" (), roughly translated as "the Arakcheev régime", became a derogatory term for a military state, denoting "the atmosphere of reactionary repression closing over Russian society". Soviet writers routinely applied this term to characterize a regime of reactionary oppression. For instance, in 1950, Joseph Stalin described the situation fostered by Ivan Meshchaninov