Elena Glinskaya

Elena Vasilyevna Glinskaya (c. 1510–1538), daughter of a Lithuanian prince, became the second wife of Grand Prince Vasili III in 1526, after he set aside his first consort amid opposition from the boyars and the Church. In 1530 she bore Ivan, the future Ivan the Terrible, and on Vasili's death in 1533 she became Russia's first female regent, ruling for her three-year-old son.

Her government fought Lithuania to an armistice in 1537 and carried out the currency reform of 1535, which introduced the kopek and unified the coinage. She died suddenly in April 1538, amid rumours of poisoning.