The empress set out on her triumphal journey to the Crimea, on the 18th of January, 1787, accompanied by a magnificent suite.  The sledges, large, commodious and so lined with furs as to furnish luxurious couches for repose, traveled night and day.  Relays of horses were collected at all the stations and immense bonfires blazed at night all along the road.  Twenty-one days were occupied in the journey to Kief, where the empress was met by all the nobles of that portion of the empire.  Here fifty magnificent galleys, upon the ice of the Dnieper, awaited the arrival of the empress and the opening of the river.  On the 6th of May the ice was gone, the barges were afloat, and the empress with her suite embarked.  The King of Poland, who had now assumed his old name of Count Poniatowski, here met, in the barge of the empress, his rival, Stanislaus Augustus.

The passage down the river, in this lovely month of spring, was like a fairy scene.  The banks of the Dnieper were lined with villages constructed for the occasion.  Peasants, in the most picturesque costumes, tended their flocks, or attended to various industrial arts as the flotilla drifted by.  The Emperor of Germany, Joseph II., met the empress at Kaidak, from whence they proceeded together, by land, to Kherson.  Here Catharine lodged in a palace where a throne had been erected for the occasion which cost fourteen thousand dollars.  The whole expense of this one journey exceeded seven millions of dollars.  From Kherson the empress proceeded to the inland part of the Crimean peninsula.  Her body guard consisted of an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, stationed at but a short distance from her.  The entertainments in the Crimea were of the most gorgeous character, and were arranged without any regard to expense.  On the return of the empress she reached St. Petersburg the end of July, having been absent six months and four days.  All Europe was surprised at the supineness which the sultan had manifested in allowing Catharine to prosecute her journey unobstructed; but Turkey was not then prepared for the commencement of hostilities.

A squadron of thirty ships of war soon sailed from Constantinople and entered the Euxine.  The Turks were apprehensive that the Greeks might rise and disarmed them all before commencing the campaign.  The empress had equipped, at Azof and Kherson, eight ships of the line, twelve frigates, and two hundred gun-boats.  She had, in addition, a large squadron at Cronstadt, ready to sail for the Mediterranean.  Eighty thousand soldiers were also on the march from Germany to Moldavia.  Every thing indicated that the entire overthrow of the Ottoman empire was at hand.