The People of Kostroma Greet the Imperial Family in May 1913
In the 23 years of his reign Nicholas II did not travel much about Russia, Crimea, Finland and the hunting at Spała excepted. His meetings with the people were few. The celebration of the tercentenary of the ruling house was the exception.
But what was planned for 1913 was not a tour of the country by the imperial family, but a repetition of the route of 1613, along which the militia of Minin and Pozharsky had marched, and by which Mikhail Fyodorovich had travelled to his coronation, from Kostroma itself.
On 15 May 1913 the imperial family set out, and their route took in Vladimir, Bogolyubovo, Suzdal, Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Rostov the Great, Pereslavl-Zalessky, the Trinity Lavra of St Sergius and Moscow.
On 19-20 May Nicholas II wrote in his diary: at about six in the morning we went upstream, at nine we passed Kostroma, a wonderful sun lit up the multitude of white churches. We moored at the new landing stage in a field three versts above the town, at the spit by the Ipatiev Monastery.
On the bank the emperor was met by the local authorities and a deputation of peasants from the Shungenskaya volost. Behind the walls of the monastery a special house had been built for the reception of the Tsar. The family inspected the chambers of Mikhail Fyodorovich, and Karl Bulla documented the visit.
The Tsar gave commemorative icons to the churches he came across: to the Old Believer church in Chenopenye, an image of St Nicholas the Wonderworker; to the church in Samet, a copy of the Feodorovskaya icon; to the church in Shunga, priestly vestments.
