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
Maria Alekseyevna of Russia Maria Alekseyevna of Russia Tsarevna Maria Alekseyevna (; 18 January 1660 - 9 March 1723) was a Russian Princess, daughter of Tsar Alexis of Russia and Maria Miloslavskaya, sister of Tsar Feodor III of Russia and Tsar Ivan V of Russia and half sister of Tsar Peter the Great. Maria Alekseyevna did not actively participate in the political plots of the Kremlin, but her open passive sympathy for Tsarevna Sophia Alekseyevna, Eudoxia Lopukhina and Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia made her relationship to Tsar Peter tense. She maintained a contact with Eudoxia Lopukhina after Lopukhina had been placed in a