on its way from Saint Petersburg to Moscow. The attempt failed. On her return to Saint Petersburg she joined Narodnaya Volya. Assassination of Alexander II Perovskaya participated in preparing assassination attempts on Alexander II of Russia near Moscow (November, 1879), in Odessa (spring of 1880), and Saint Petersburg (the attempt that eventually killed him, 1 March 1881). She was the closest friend and later the wife of Andrei Zhelyabov, a member of the executive committee of Narodnaya Volya. Zhelyabov was to have directed the bombing attack, with the group of four bomb-throwers - Ignacy Hryniewiecki, Nikolai Kibalchich, Timofey Mikhailov, and Nikolai Rysakov. However, when Zhelyabov was arrested two days prior to the attack, Perovskaya took the role. The night before the attack, Perovskaya helped assemble the bombs. On Sunday morning, 13 March [1 March, Old Style], the bomb-throwers gathered at the group's flat on Telezhnaya Street. At 9–10 AM, Perovskaya and Kibalchich each brought two missiles. Perovskaya would later relate that, before heading to the Catherine Canal, she, Rysakov and Hryniewiecki sat in a confectionery store located opposite of the Gostiny Dvor, impatiently waiting for the right time to intercept Alexander II's cavalcade. From there they parted ways and converged on the canal. In the afternoon, the Tsar was returning by Catherine Canal in his carriage after watching the weekly military roll call. Perovskaya, by taking out a handkerchief and blowing her nose as a predetermined signal, dispatched the assassins to the canal. When the carriage was close enough for an attack, Perovskaya gave a signal, and Rysakov threw the bomb under the Tsar's carriage. Hanging Rysakov was captured, and while in custody, in an attempt to save his life, cooperated with the investigators. His testimony implicated the other participants, and the tsarist police apprehended Sophia Perovskaya, along with others, on March 22. Rysakov established the identity of all prisoners. Although he knew many of them only by their party pseudonyms, he was able to describe the role they each had played. Just before her trial, she wrote in a letter to her mother: Perovskaya, along with the other conspirators were tried by the Special Tribunal of the Ruling Senate on March 26–29 and sentenced to death by hanging. She was the first woman in Russia sentenced to death for terrorism. On the morning of 15 April [3 April, Old Style], the prisoners were transported to the parade grounds of