On 21 May, during the festivities held in Novocherkassk, the Cossacks, represented by the Chief of the Army Staff, Major-General Nikolai Leonov handed a memo to Alexander III (who was at that time the heir to the Russian throne) with a request of construction of a monument to the legendary conqueror of Siberia in Don Cossacks capital.

In the same year the highest resolution on the satisfaction of the petition and a decree on the opening of a subscription to collect the necessary funds was issued.

The project of the sculptor Mikhail Mikeshin, who also designed the monument "Millennium of Russia" in Novgorod (1862) was also not approved, because Yermak towered over the Two-headed eagle, the Tsar's emblem.

Mikeshin proposed a new version of the monument to Yermak, which he drafted taking into account the official comments made.

After the proclamation of the eternal memory of the conqueror of Siberia, the Army ataman Konstantin Maksimovich opened the curtain of the monument.

On the back side of the pedestal there are inscribed words in gold: "to Don Ataman Yermak Timofeevich, the conqueror of Siberia, from a grateful posterity.