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
Duke Peter Georgievich of Oldenburg 1809 to Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia. Duke George, who had been appointed governor on the Volga, died six month after Peter Georgievitch, his second, was born. Peter's mother Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia was the favorite sister of Tsar Alexander I of Russia who took his two nephews, Peter and his older brother Alexander, under his protection. The brothers lived in Russia until his mother married King William I of Württemberg in 1816. They moved to Württemberg and were educated in Stuttgart. At the death of his mother, less than three years later, Peter and his brother