Freedom and coercion... Both of these concepts are inseparable from one another in relation to all the vicissitudes of centuries-old Russian history. Both are applicable to any sphere of human activity. Economic almost in the first place. Which of the two should be given preference?Empress Catherine II, having taken the Russian throne, made a choice in favor of freedom. But can economic freedom exist without political freedom? And how can one forget about the highest flowering of serfdom during her reign, known from the school bench? Such questions may be asked by the reader. And he will be right in his own way.However, not everything is so simple. Throughout her reign, the empress remained committed to the idea of economic freedom, absorbed along with the ideas of her age, the Age of Enlightenment. And even in the first years of her stay on the throne, she even hatched plans for its implementation. The new rules and principles formulated already at that time were much later laid the foundation for the implemented guild reform. Thanks to her, new forces came into motion, an impetus was given to the development of free enterprise. It was it that began to energetically make its way, in fact, contrary to the will of the Empress. But it was by no means these forces that Catherine expected to awaken in her reflections on the direction of the economic development of a subject power, dreaming of agricultural abundance.In this study, based mainly on documentary sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, the background of the events that led to to a change in the government economic course in the early 60s. XVIII century | reconstructed "ideal" economic model in the view of Catherine II| the practical steps of the empress in the management of key industries - distillation and salt production are traced.