This is how Catherine was greeted by the population of the locality where she was working. They had been waiting for her for a long time, and had been preparing for the meeting for a long time. One of the Kharkiv residents, who was later a senator and then a 10-year-old boy, F. P. Lubyanovsky, tells in his notes about how they were waiting for Catherine in Kharkiv: “A week before the 5th, there was no longer a free corner in the city; they lived in tents, huts, sheds, where anyone could hide; the entire population of the province seemed to flow into one place; fortunately, it was in the summer, with clear, quiet and warm weather.
“The royal army appeared on Kholodnaya Mountains; the holidays arrived; thousands of voices loudly exclaimed: “It’s marching!” - and everything fell silent, motionless, as if rooted to the spot, in reverent silence, everyone watched and waited; the deity appeared. At the city gates, the empress was met by namfstnik Chertkov and the governor of the province Norov on horseback, both military, lieutenant generals, but both in the provincial uniform. From the gate to the tsvorn (nowadays the 5th university), about a mile and a half, the empress walked at a pace and bowed from the carriage on both sides, only the ringing of the bell towers could be heard. Never again did I witness such deep silence and reverence in front of a large crowd. The crowd of people gathered. The Empress appeared on the balcony of the palace; then only the usual cheers rang out throughout the city.
"The next day, the Empress left. From the palace along the square to the cathedral, a scarlet cloth was spread, along which Her Majesty deigned to walk on foot to the cathedral, where she listened to a prayer service. In this six, I was happy to see the Empress: leaning on a cane, without an umbrella, in the midday heat, she walked very quietly, with a contented, full face good will, majestically and graciously bowed to both sides, From the cathedral she set off on a long journey, “
The enlightened landowner Bolotov, a member of the Free Economic Society, author of articles on agriculture, tells in his memoirs how Catherine was met in Tul. The Empress was expected there at half the month of June, and “all the nobility were preparing by that time to go to this provincial city in order to have the opportunity to see this solemn arrival and the Empress herself.... All the ladies (noblewomen) sewed, in accordance with the scarlet color of the Tula (noble) uniform, and the scarlet of Russia silk dresses"; Together with the others, Bolotov’s wives with their daughters and son “wanted” to be in Tul, and therefore “they also rushed to stock up on the same blanket and outfits for themselves, despite all the losses associated with it.” What. As for Bolotov himself, he drained a whole pond in the one he managed in order to provide larger shuk and carp for the royal kitchen.
Arriving in Tula, Bolotov found this city completely ready to receive the empress. “I managed to visit the factory that same day, see everything prepared there for the empress, and then go to the arsenal, and see enough of all the dust there that they tried to throw in the eyes of the empresses.” “The whole of Tula was then filled with nobility, gathered from all sides of both sexes, and everyone, so to speak, walked on tiptoe, waiting from hour to hour for the arrival of the empress.”...
“I can’t remember without laughing,” Bolotov continues, “the great bustle in which everyone was on that memorable morning, and what a race that rose up throughout Tula there were carriages and carriages and the people were driving back and forth. The entire large Kevskaya Street, from the very entrance and the magnificent triumphal gates built at it - to the cathedral and all the way to the palace, was established in almost an instant with a countless multitude of people, and they, with indescribable impatience, awaited the arrival of the empress and the moment in which he would see his owner. The cathedral was so filled with ladies that it was completely stuffy. All the onf odfts were in their new single-row or women's uniforms, and each of them tried to get for herself the best and most advantageous position for the sake of the empress, about whom everyone here believed that she, having drawn up opposite the cathedral, would certainly stop and, get out of the carriage, enter the church to worship holy icons.