In 2012, a bust of the commander Yermolov was unveiled in Livny. This event took place thanks to the initiative of the Oryol Cossack Economic Union and regional council deputy Maxim Boyev.

Alexey Yermolov was born in Moscow in 1777 and came from a modest noble family in the Oryol province. His father, Pyotr Alexeyevich Yermolov, born in 1747 and died in 1832, was a landowner and owned a small estate with 150 peasants in the Mtsensk district of the Oryol province.

During the reign of Catherine II, Pyotr Yermolov served as the head of the office of the Attorney General Count A.N. Samoylov. With the rise of Paul I, he retired and settled in his village of Lukyanchikovo. Alexey's mother, born Davydova, was in her second marriage to his father. Through his mother, Yermolov was connected to well-known families such as the Davydovs, Potyomkins, Raevskys, and Orlovs. The famous partisan and poet Denis Davydov was his cousin.

As was customary at that time, Yermolov was enrolled in military service from infancy. In 1778, he became a captenarmus in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment, and soon was promoted to sergeant of this regiment.

Yermolov received his education at the Moscow University boarding school, which educated boys of noble descent aged 9 to 14. The boarding school prepared its students for military, civil, court, and diplomatic service. On January 5, 1787, Yermolov was enrolled as a non-commissioned officer in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment.