History of Russia deficit required borrowing, primarily from Amsterdam; five percent of the budget was allocated to debt payments. Paper money was issued to pay for expensive wars, thus causing inflation. For its spending, Russia obtained a large and glorious army, a very large and complex bureaucracy, and a splendid court that rivaled Paris and London. However, the government was living far beyond its means, and 18th-century Russia remained "a poor, backward, overwhelmingly agricultural, and illiterate country." Peter I was succeeded by his second wife, Catherine I (1725–1727), who was merely a figurehead for a powerful group of high officials, then by his
Botik of Peter the Great every year on 30 August. The "botik" was used in many state ceremonies by later Russian monarchies. The boat appeared in a regatta during the 1745 wedding of Peter III of Russia and Catherine the Great. Wearing naval uniform, Empress Elizabeth escorted the "botik". Catherine had a boathouse built inside the fortress to house the "botik" in the 1760s. The boathouse became a major tourist attraction. In 1803, during the centennial celebration of St. Petersburg under Alexander I, the boat was featured in a flotilla on the Neva; it was referred to as the "grandfather of the Russian navy" a