|  Elizabeth
chose Carl Peter Ulrich, the son of her late sister Anna
Petrovna, as her successor. He
is known to history as Peter III. Peter III’s first
act upon accession was to make a humiliating peace with
Frederick the Great of Prussia. Peter III’s wife
Catherine, with the help of the Orlov brothers (one of
whom was Catherine’s paramour) and with the support
of the Russian nobility, dethroned him. Soon afterwards
the Orlovs murdered Peter III.
During
Peter’s short six-month reign, Count Peter
Shuvalov’s scheme of raising money for the government,
by reducing by half the metal content of the existing copper
coinage, was quickly implemented. 150 million copper coins
were over-struck (putting a new image with new denominations
over the old coinage), doubling their value. |
