Erekle II.
Ivan Ratiev was born in Oryol of a branch of the Georgian princely house of Ratishvili, which had emigrated to the Russian Empire in 1724. His father was an officer in the Russian army. Ivan Ratiev graduated from the Oryol Cadet Corps and then from the Nikolayevsky Cavalry College. In 1890 he joined the 44th Nizhegorod Dragoon Regiment, deployed in Georgia. There he married, in 1896, Ekaterina Irakliyevna, the Serene Princess Gruzinskaya (February 13, 1872 – 1917), a great-granddaughter of King Heraclius II of Georgia and a lady-in-waiting of the empress consort Alexandra Feodorovna.