Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov ascended the throne in 1894 after the sudden death of his father, Emperor Alexander III. On November 2, 1894, he took the oath of allegiance at the Holy Cross Church in Livadia (Crimea) and became Emperor Nicholas II. The same year, Nicholas married Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt who converted to Orthodoxy and became known as Alexandra Feodorovna. A year and a half later, on May 14, 1896, they were crowned in a magnificent coronation ceremony. The souvenir headscarf from the collection of the Lipetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore was produced to commemorate that important event.

In the center, surrounded by oak and laurel wreaths, there are portraits of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Above them, there is the great imperial crown, one of the most important royal regalia of the Russian Empire. This crown was made for the coronation of Empress Catherine the Great in 1762. It was used for the coronation of all subsequent Russian monarchs. At the bottom, between the portraits, there is the coat of arms of Moscow, depicting St. George striking a dragon with a spear. The coronation headscarf was made of satin at Prokhorovskaya Tryokhgornaya Manufactory. The image was printed in color on one side of the headscarf. The so-called tsar’s gifts were wrapped in such headscarves. The gift included a smoked sausage, a Vyazma gingerbread, coarse wheat bread, and a bag of sweets with an image of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna which contained caramel candies, walnuts, pine nuts, figs, raisins, prunes, and Alexandrovsky cakes. Apart from food, the gift also included an enameled mug featuring a double-headed eagle, the monarch’s initials, and the year of coronation. A total of 400,000 gift packages were made. The tsar’s gifts were meant for ordinary people who attended the festivities at the Khodynka Field.