Praskovya Lupolova: on foot from Siberia to St. Petersburg
In the city of Ishim, which is located in the Tyumen region, near the building of the local history museum there is a monument on which the inscription “Praskovya Lupolova, who showed the world the feat of daughter love. Ishim - St. Petersburg 1803-1804"
Everyone in Ishim knows about Praskovya Lupolova, not only adults, go up to a schoolboy and ask who Lupolova is? - This is an aunt who reached the king on foot, - there will be an answer. It is now, every 20 minutes at the station, the announcer announces the arrival and departure of trains on the great Trans-Siberian. Moscow can be reached in 1.5 days. In the distant past, not only was there no railway, ordinary roads in the Siberian outback were a rarity. What prompted Praskovya to go to distant St. Petersburg?
Praskovya was born on Ukrainian soil in the city of Elisavetgrad (now the city of Kropyvnytskyi - Ukraine) in 1784, her father was in military service, participated in the Turkish campaigns of the Russian army in the army, was noted as a brave and respected warrior, received the rank of ensign. After his resignation, he moved to Russia.
According to one version, for harboring thieves and stolen horses, Grigory was demoted, deprived of the nobility and exiled to Siberia in the Tobolsk province. His wife and daughter followed him as Decembrists into exile. The link was appointed in the village of Zhilyakovka, not far from Ishim, and began in 1798.
Educated G. Lupolov was employed in the office of the zemstvo court, Praskovya, being devout, visited the Epiphany Cathedral, which to this day adorns the historical center of Ishim. The family hardly lived at the expense of the garden and the salary of the father. Hardly experiencing the suffering of the family in a foreign land, Praskovya decides to go to the capital to ask for mercy and forgiveness for the parent from the emperor. Despite the protests of her father, on September 8, 1803, she sets off on a journey, having with her one ruble and an icon with the image of the Virgin.
Along the Siberian Highway, she walks first to the city of Kamyshlov, after Kamyshlov she is put on carts and reaches the capital of the Urals - Yekaterinburg.
In Yekaterinburg, he is studying to read and write in the house of T.D. Metlina, and with the beginning of navigation in the spring of 1804, he sails in boats to Vyatka, from where he heads to Kazan, near Nizhny Novgorod he stops for several days at the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery. Stays in Moscow for two weeks.
Arrives in St. Petersburg on August 5, 1804, having spent almost a year on the way to the capital. The imperial family learns about the walker from Siberia, Praskovya is received by Empress Maria Fedorovna, who establishes a monetary allowance for her. Emperor Alexander I allows the case of Grigory Lupolov to be considered separately, Senator O. Kozodavlev reviews the case, and the emperor returns his parents from exile.
They began to write about Praskovya in newspapers, both in domestic and foreign ones, she became famous and "enviable bride".
But Praskovya remains faithful to her vow to God, after making a pilgrimage to the Kyiv monasteries and cathedrals in 1806, she goes to the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery. After falling ill with tuberculosis in 1809, he moved to the Tithes Monastery in Novgorod and died on December 4 without taking the tonsure. Praskovya's grave, according to one version, is located at the Nativity Cathedral, according to another, in the basement of the monastery church of the Nativity of the Virgin. A tombstone was installed in the place where the remains of Praskovya were buried, the burial place became a place of pilgrimage not only for Novgorod, but also for St. Petersburg residents.
The monument in Ishim to the famous "walker" was opened on August 7, 2004, the author of the monument is the People's Artist of Russia Vyacheslav Klykov. There is a special section in the hall of the local history museum Praskovye. The monument was erected not far from the house where the Lumpolovs lived, on Chernyakovskaya Square.