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
Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia (; 12 July 1915 (O.S.) – 13 March 2007) was a great-great-granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and a niece of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. She was the last member of the Imperial Family to be born before the fall of the dynasty, and was ultimately to become the last surviving uncontested dynast of the Imperial House of Russia. Born in Pavlovsk Palace, she was the second child of Prince John Konstantinovich of Russia and Princess Jelena of Serbia. After the Revolution, her father was arrested and deported