Anna of Russia Anna of Russia Anna Ioannovna (; – ), also spelled Anna Ivanovna and sometimes anglicized as Anne, was regent of the duchy of Courland from 1711 until 1730 and then ruled as Empress of Russia from 1730 to 1740. Anna was born in Moscow as the daughter of Tsar Ivan V by his wife Praskovia Saltykova. Ivan V was co-ruler of Russia along with his younger half-brother Peter the Great, but he was mentally disabled and incapable of administering the country, and Peter effectively ruled alone. Ivan V died in February 1696, when Anna was only three years old, and
Tsarevna Catherine Ivanovna of Russia Tsarevna Catherine Ivanovna of Russia Tsarevna Catherine Ivanovna of Russia (20 October 1691 – 14 June 1733) was a daughter of Tsar Ivan V and Praskovia Saltykova, eldest sister of Empress Anna of Russia and niece of Peter the Great. By her marriage, she was a Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Catherine was born in Moscow and baptized at Chudov Monastery; her godparents were her uncle Tsar Peter I and her great-aunt Princess Tatiana (daughter of Tsar Michael I. She was the third of five daughters, but the early deaths of her older sisters Maria (on 23 February 1692, aged three) and