Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Grigori Orlov (17 October 1734 - 24 April 1783) was a Russian nobleman. He was one of Catherine II of Russia's first lovers and he and his brother led the conspiracy that removed Peter III from the throne and made her the empress. Catherine was deeply in love with him and gave him high military posts although he never had a decisive voice in state affairs. He was later replaced by others, like Potemkin. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.