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Tsarevna Ekaterina Ioannovna was the third child and third daughter of Ivan V and Praskovia Saltykova. She was born in Moscow on 29 October 1691 and baptised at the Monastery of the Miracle on 8 November 1691. Her godparents were Peter the Great and his aunt Tsarevna Tatyana Mikhailovna.
Ekaterina was a lively girl who adored dancing. Chubby and talkative, she won many admirers at balls in St Petersburg with her merry disposition and humorous nature.
In 1717, Peter I gave Ekaterina in marriage to Duke Carl Leopold of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The following year, she gave birth to the future regent Anna Leopoldovna in Rostock. She did not get on with her brutal and despotic husband and left him in 1722 (he was later overthrown and died in prison).
Ekaterina was delighted to return to Russia, where she threw herself into a life of balls and banquets. She put on so much weight that Peter the Great ordered her to control her appetite, without success. On 14 June 1733, she died of dropsy at the age of forty-two in St Petersburg and was buried in the St Alexander Nevsky Monastery.