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
Sophia Alekseyevna of Russia except on Easter day. She died in the Novodevichy Convent six years later. She was fictionally portrayed in Chinese novelist Jin Yong's novel "The Deer and the Cauldron" in which the young protagonist Wei Xiaobao went to Russia and helped her lead the coup against her half-brother Peter I. It was suggested that this event led to the peace between the Qing Empire and Russia in the Nerchinsk Treaty. Vanessa Redgrave portrayed the character of Sophia Alekseyevna in the 1986 miniseries "Peter the Great". Her performance received an Emmy award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries. Sophia Alekseyevna