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
Paul I of Russia Persia in accordance with Catherine's last design, was recalled to the capital within one month of Paul's accession. His father Peter was reburied with great pomp at the royal sepulchre in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Paul responded to the rumour of his illegitimacy by parading his descent from Peter the Great. The aged Count Aleksey Orlov, who had been involved in Peter III's murder 35 years earlier, was forced to carry the imperial crown behind the coffin on the way to its new resting place. The inscription on the monument to the first Emperor of Russia near the St.