Tsarevna Praskovya Ivanovna of Russia

Praskovya Ivanovna’s father died in 1696, and she was raised with her sisters Catherine and Anna at the estate awarded to her mother by Tsar Peter, the Izmaylovo Estate in Moscow.

Praskovya was tutored in literature and science by German teachers. Praskovya was described by the Spanish ambassador in comparison to her sisters as lacking in intelligence, in addition to being very sickly.[1] The court official, Bergholtz, described her in his journal as a “pretty brunette”, and the noblewoman Rondo noted that despite her bad health, she was quite beautiful.

In contrast to that of her sisters, Peter the Great did not arrange a dynastic marriage for Praskovya. By the consent of her mother, she was married to a Rurikid noble, general prince Ivan Dmitriev-Mamonov (1680-1730). They had one son in 1724, who died in approximately 1730. The marriage was an informal, private marriage and was not public, nor was the birth of their child.

According to Polovtsev, Praskovya was so accustomed to adjusting to the will of her mother and living in her household that she had difficulty adjusting to an independent life after the death of her mother. When her mother died in 1723, the shyness and indecision of Praskovya was demonstrated in her difficulty in handling the estate of her dead mother, and she started to hand out bribes to influential people of the court. She now became a part of the household of Catherine I.

During the reign of Peter II, Praskovya Ivanovna established her own court and reportedly lived extravagantly on the generous allowance awarded to her from the Imperial treasury, which in 1728 amounted about 12,000 rubles. In 1728, she was also granted her own residence in Moscow.

In 1730 her sister Anna Ivanovna succeeded to the throne as sovereign empress, after their older sister's claims was refused: the claim of Praskovya, being the younger sister, came after that of her sister Anna. Her sister's succession resulted in an increased allowance for Praskovya Ivanovna.

• Liriyskiy, Gertsog (1989). "Zapiski o prebyvanii pri imperatorskom rossiyskom dvore v zvanii posla korolya ispanskogo" [Memoirs of the visit to the Imperial Russian court as ambassador of the King of Spain]. In Limonov, Yu. A. (ed.). Rossiya XVIII v. glazami inostrantsev [Eighteenth century Russia in the eyes of foreigners] (in Russian). Leningrad: Lenizdat. pp. 189–260.