At the age of seventeen on 11 November 1710 she married the eighteen-year-old Duke of Kurland who died about two months later.From then on she lived quietly until in 1730 when she was offered the
Russian throne. However, she had to accept certain conditions which reduced the autocratic powers. On 28 January 1730 she signed her name to these conditions and left Mitau for Moscow, but unrest ensued and she was made to repudiate the restrictions placed upon her by the Dolgoruky and Golitsyn factions. Having become a full autocratic Empress, she dissolved the supreme privy council and persecuted the Dolgorukys and Golitsyns. As a result of this, several members of these families finished their lives on the executioner's block.She was thirty-seven, stately and tall, when she became Empress.
She had patience and common-sense but preferred to sign official documents unread and leave the ruling to two Germans, Field Marshal Muennich and Count Ostermann. However, these were soon eclipsed by the Empress's lover, Ernst Buehren, or Biron, whom she brought to Russia. Unfortunately, he openly despised Russia and the Russians, never learnt the language and, as court chamberlain, became notorious for corruption and cruelty all of which was particularly resented because
of his being an alien. Empress Anna created a guards regiment, the Izmaylovsky commanded
by a Scot, to protect her and her government dominated by foreigners.
She had a taste for guns and enjoyed shooting through windows at birds in her garden. Lazy and easily bored, she surrounded herself with gossiping women, dwarfs and hunchbacks.

Source: Leo van de Pas