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
Grand Duchess Olga Pavlovna of Russia Grand Duchess Olga Pavlovna of Russia Grand Duchess Olga Pavlovna of Russia (; ) was a "Grand Duchess of Russia" as the second youngest daughter and seventh child of Emperor Paul I of Russia and his empress consort, Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. The Grand Duchess Olga was born as her parents' fifth daughter and seventh child. Her birth was not greeted with much happiness by her paternal grandmother, Catherine the Great, who stated that "A lot of girls, all married will not tell anyone". She later wrote: The little Grand Duchess was baptised on and, as it was customary, she