How Empress Catherine II traveled across the Crimea: Truth and fiction about the Tauride voyage

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

You can start the New Year this way - by going with three thousand accompanying people on a long trip to the southern lands - in any case, Empress Catherine II once did. The Tauride voyage remained in history both due to its scope and as a source of some gossip and rumors - including about the "Potemkin villages".

Inspection of the southern lands - preparation and departure

This was not the first journey of the empress, already quite elderly by the standards of that time, but unprecedented in scope and duration. The Tauride voyage was intended not only to acquaint 58-year-old Catherine with the newly acquired possessions, but also to impress the Europeans, who were in abundance in her numerous retinue of 3000 people.

Potemkin himself prepared the trip - and he cooked it conscientiously. It was planned to visit over thirty cities, make a big voyage around the Crimean peninsula, and then return to the capital through Belgorod, Tula and Moscow. Preparations for the journey began in 1784, and a few months before it began, Russian army regiments were deployed along the route to ensure the safety of the empress and her court. The carriage craftsmen made about two hundred carriages, some of which could be used both in winter - as a sled, and in summer.

On January 2, 1787, the imperial train set off, stretching for a whole verst. In total, 14 carriages and more than one hundred and twenty sledges and wagons were sent, and besides them, about forty spare ones. Catherine II occupied a huge carriage drawn by four dozen horses: inside there was a living room, a library, an office, and a card table. Due to the impressive weight of the crew, on one of the steep slopes, already on the territory of Crimea, the carriage almost capsized - local residents helped to keep it and stop it.

Governor-generals and governors were expecting Catherine's arrival at the border of their possessions, and from there they were escorted to the resting place. We drove usually three hours before noon and about four in the afternoon. In the cities where the empress stayed, newly built traveling palaces or mansions of the nobility were prepared for her. The cities were richly decorated with illumination, resin barrels and bowls were installed along the roads to illuminate the path. Ten days after leaving the capital, Catherine was in Potemkin's native city - Smolensk, then went to Kiev, where she spent about three months - until Easter.

Crimea and the Amazons

In the second half of May 1787, the imperial train entered the Crimean peninsula. Catherine arrived in Bakhchisarai, more recently - the capital of the Crimean Khanate. It is noteworthy that, by order of Potemkin, groups of representatives of different ethnic groups of Crimea were supposed to greet the empress in order to assure the empress of their common loyalty. "Tidy up Bakhchisarai in the best way" - ordered the Most High Prince during the preparation of the voyage, and the city was really "tidied up".

Actually, this was the way throughout the entire route through the southern lands of the empire, Catherine did not stop admiring - not so much even the palaces and temples built in record time, triumphal arches that adorned the entrances to the cities, as the spectacle of villages and pastures, evidence of the development of old and new Russian possessions …No wonder there was a rumor about "Potemkin villages", sham villages created solely to show off the distinguished guests. The sources of such information - not confirmed by facts - were the notes of foreigners who took part in the trip and who knew the details from second hand.

Allegedly, those villages that were visible at a considerable distance from the road were actually "painted on screens", and the villagers were forced to move many miles ahead at night in order to greet the empress again. The same was said about the herds, which so pleased the eyes of Catherine. As if the empress saw the same farm animals four or five times as she moved along the roads of the Crimea.

Historians are skeptical about such statements; they were not particularly trusted during Potemkin's lifetime: it would have been too small for the Most Serene Prince. It is much more likely that one of the officials of the lands close to the capital, in particular the Tula province, which is much more unsettled than Novorossia, resorted to creating such a props.

Potemkin, on the other hand, resorted to other visual effects - in addition to the illumination that accompanied Catherine's voyage along its entire length, in addition to balls that were given in each of the cities on the way of the empress, he came up with more original actions. For example, in Sevastopol, a city that began to be built just three years before Catherine's arrival there, a pavilion was erected on the shore and a huge curtain was reinforced, following the example of the theater. Opening up, he presented to the gaze of the admiring public a view of the bay of Sevastopol and the fleet, which greeted the guests with salute volleys.

And on the way from Sevastopol, not far from Balaklava, the empress was greeted by a company of "Amazons": a hundred women, wives and daughters of Balaklava Greeks, in special uniforms, on horseback, lined up to greet Catherine and her retinue. The Amazons were commanded by 19-year-old Elena Sarandova. The girls were dressed in green jackets and velvet crimson skirts trimmed with gold lace, and a white turban with ostrich feathers acted as a headdress. Each "warrior" carried a gun and three cartridges.

Catherine really liked the Amazon regiment, and he delighted those accompanying the empress - so much so that the Austrian emperor Joseph II traveling incognito even allowed himself to approach Sarandova and kiss her, causing some confusion among the courtiers. The girl herself received the title of captain from the empress and a few days later - a ring with a diamond as a gift. The entire regiment received ten thousand rubles from the treasury - a huge sum for that time.

From Crimea back to Petersburg

So, having fun and admiring the spectacle of prosperous settlements, Catherine made her voyage, not forgetting about the diplomatic goals set for this journey. Only 12 days were devoted to Crimea itself. Having crossed over to the mainland, the empress and her retinue continued on their way, heading north to Moscow, and from there to Tsarskoe Selo. The journey took a little over six months. In total, about six thousand miles were covered by water and land.

Some cities erected commemorative triumphal arches for the arrival of the empress. Each verst on the route of the crews was marked with a special post, and every ten versts the "Catherine's miles" were established. Most of these "miles" and all milestones were destroyed, mainly during Soviet times. Eight survived - five of them are in the Crimea. The Tauride voyage was carried out on a truly tsarist scale - this inspection by the empress of the Novorossiysk lands in front of many ambassadors of European states turned into a demonstration of the power and greatness of Russia, and the settlements themselves, marked with the highest attention, got a chance to take advantage of this glory.

As for how much Catherine was deceived in her impressions of the lands she inspected, the empress by that time already had so much experience behind her in communicating with various governors and governors that it would have been difficult to turn her around. Unless the roads, as they say, were made in a hurry and only for the Empress's passage, but this Russian feature has not yet been defeated by a single ruler.

The empress's retinue included Alexandra Branitskaya, who was suspected of the closest relationship with Catherine.