On September 13, the day Catherine made her ceremonial entrance into the city, bright sunlight sparkled on the city’s gilded onion domes. At the head of the procession rode squadrons of the Horse Guards, the sun flashing off their helmets; next came a cavalcade of the high nobility wearing gold braid and crimson sashes. Catherine’s gilded carriage, drawn by eight white horses, followed. The uncrowned empress, smiling and bowing, acknowledged the cheering crowds; when Paul was seen sitting beside her, the cheers were even louder.
On September 22, the day of the coronation, saluting cannon began to thunder at five in the morning when a crimson carpet was laid down the steps of the Kremlin’s historic ceremonial outdoor Red Staircase. At nine, Catherine, wearing a dress of silver brocade, trimmed with ermine, appeared at the top of the staircase and slowly descended the steps. At the bottom, she bowed to the crowd in the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square and a priest touched her forehead with holy water. She said a prayer, rows of priests kissed her hands, and, walking between lines of soldiers of the Imperial Guard, she came to the door of the Assumption Cathedral.
Beneath the domes of its five golden cupolas, the interior of the fifteenth-century cathedral glowed with light. Its four massive internal columns, its walls and its ceiling were covered with luminous frescoes; before the altar stood the great iconostasis, a golden screen of painted icons studded with jewels. From the central dome hung a gigantic chandelier weighing more than a ton. Before Catherine, in front of the iconostasis, stood ranks of the high clergy: the Metropolitan Timofey, archbishops, bishops, archimandrites, and other priests. From their miters glittered more diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls. Light, filtering down from the cupolas and flickering from thousands of candles, reflected off the surfaces of the jewels and the golden icons.
Catherine walked to the dais draped in red velvet at the center of the cathedral, mounted its six steps, and seated herself on the Diamond Throne of Tsar Alexis. Observing Catherine at that moment, the new English ambassador, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, saw “a woman of middle height, her glossy, chestnut-colored hair massed under the jeweled crown.… She was beautiful, and the blue eyes beneath were remarkable for their brightness. The head was poised on a long neck, giving an impression of pride, and power, and will.”
The ceremony lasted four hours. Catherine listened as the archbishop of Novgorod described the revolution of June 28 as the work of God and said to her that “the Lord has placed the crown on your head.” Next, Catherine personally arrayed herself with the symbols of imperial power. She removed her ermine cloak and draped another cloak of imperial purple over her shoulders. Traditionally, a Russian sovereign crowned himself or herself. Catherine lifted the huge nine-pound imperial crown produced for her under the supervision of Ivan Betskoy and settled this ultimate symbol of sovereignty on her brow. Shaped like a bishop’s miter, it was crusted with a cross of diamonds surmounting an enormous 389-carat ruby. Below, set in an arch supporting the cross and in the band surrounding the wearer’s head, were forty-four diamonds, each an inch across, surrounded by a solid mass of smaller diamonds. Thirty-eight rose pearls circled over the crown on either side of the central arch. When this glittering masterpiece was in place, she picked up the orb with her left hand, the scepter with her right, and calmly looked out at the cathedral audience.
The final sequence in the ceremony was the acknowledgment that the coronation represented a pact between God and herself. He was the master; she was the servant, now solely responsible for Russia and its people. She was anointed with holy oil on the forehead, the breast, and the hand, and then passed through the doors of the iconostasis into the inner sanctum. She kneeled and, with her own hand, took the communion bread from the plate and administered the sacrament to herself.
The ceremony concluded, the newly crowned and consecrated empress walked from the Assumption Cathedral across the Kremlin square to two ancient, smaller cathedrals, the Archangel Michael and the Annunciation, to kneel before the tombs of previous tsars and a collection of holy relics. She mounted the Red Staircase and turned and bowed three times to the crowd while, from the cannon, more thunder rolled across the city. This sound, amplified by the ringing of thousands of bells in the towers and churches of Moscow, made it impossible for a man to speak to his neighbor.
