Moscow museums · Architecture and estates
Architecture and estates · since 1923
Kolomenskoye
The Kolomenskoye Museum Reserve
The Church of the Ascension of 1532 is the first stone tented church in Russia and the only building in Moscow on the World Heritage list. The tent here is structure and not ornament, and sixteenth-century Russian architecture cannot be understood without having stood under it. The rest is a museum reserve with a middling collection: icons, tiles, manuscripts, wooden buildings brought from the North. And one warning: the palace of Alexei Mikhailovich shown in every photograph is a 2010 replica put up elsewhere in the park; it should not be confused with the real Kolomenskoye.
Minimum route
3 hours
Founded
1923
What to see
The Church of the Ascension, 1532. The Church of the Beheading of St John the Baptist at Dyakovo, sixteenth century, usually empty. The Front Gate with its display. Peter the Great’s cabin, brought from Arkhangelsk. Tiles and icons in the reserve’s exhibitions.
Minimum route — 3 hours for the essentials
Three hours.
- 40 minutesthe Church of the Ascension and the riverbank: it is what one comes for, and it should be seen from below, from the Moskva, and not only close to.
- 30 minutesthe Front Gate and the Sovereign’s Court.
- 30 minutesDyakovo: the sixteenth-century church and the view from it.
- 40 minutesthe wooden buildings and Peter’s cabin.
- 40 minutesthe Golosov ravine, if there is strength left.
Reference
About the museum
A former royal country residence; the museum reserve was founded in 1923 by the architect Pyotr Baranovsky, who brought wooden buildings here from all over the country.
The building
The Church of the Ascension was built in 1532, probably by Petrok Maly, and is the first tented church in stone and one of the boldest conceptions in Russian architecture altogether. On the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1994.
Good to know
The palace of Alexei Mikhailovich is a full-size model built in 2010 and not on the historic site. It is neither a forgery nor a deception, but it is not a monument either, and its standing should be known beforehand. The grounds are large and moving between the buildings takes time.
What to read
William Craft Brumfield, “Landmarks of Russian Architecture: A Photographic Survey” — the tented roof set in the line it belongs to, and the reason it was forbidden a century later. London: Routledge, 2013.
ISBN 9781317973249
Getting in
How to get there
Metro Kolomenskaya for the main gate, Kashirskaya for Dyakovo and the Golosov ravine.
Opening times
The grounds and the museum buildings keep different hours — check the site.
Tickets
tickets online
When to go
A clear day, best in May or September. Kolomenskoye is first of all landscape and buildings in the open; in rain and frost half the point is lost. In the morning it is empty; by midday at a weekend, crowded.
Contacts
Of interest to children
Park, ravine, wooden buildings — there is room to walk and things to touch. From 6; the architecture will say little to them, but the day will be a good one.
· No. 69