This beautiful place is enchanting. Green hills covered with lushly blooming gardens and picturesque wooded islets become a favorite recreation area for everyone who has been here at least once. The oldest monuments of Moscow architecture immediately make you want to look into the history of the museum-reserve.
Once one of the most developed historical and architectural reserves in Moscow was an impenetrable forest covering the high bank of the Moskva River. Due to the abundance of natural resources, the first human settlements arose here very early. This happened before our era.
associated with the large resettlement of the inhabitants of the city of Kolomna, fleeing the invasion of the Mongols.
The first of those architectural masterpieces that can still be seen in the reserve appeared in 1532. It was then that Vasily III built a church here in honor of the birth of his heir, the future Tsar Ivan the Terrible. It was named the Church of the Ascension.
The Church of the Ascension became the tallest Russian architectural structure at that time. Crowned with a cone-shaped brick tent, it has become a pearl of ancient architecture, and is now under the protection of UNESCO.
The construction of the church laid the foundation for the development of the settlement. In the 16th-17th centuries, Kolomenskoye became the royal residence. During this period, the St. George bell tower and the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist were built here. In the second half of the 17th century, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich erected, which included a wooden palace, the Kazan Church connected to it by a passage, and many additional buildings.
consisted of many chambers and chambers, connected by passages and entryways. Contemporaries called it the eighth wonder of the world, and current researchers called it the pinnacle of wooden ancient Russian architecture. Of the entire ensemble, only a few buildings have survived to this day, including the Palace Gate. Now we can see only a model of the palace, partially restored according to ancient drawings already in the 21st century.
After the transfer of the capital of Russia to St. Petersburg, Kolomenskoye gradually deserted and fell into decay. Both Peter I and Catherine II made attempts to restore the wooden masterpiece, but the building material was inevitably dilapidated. A stone palace was built next to it by Catherine II, which was later dismantled.
Kolomenskoye acquired a new breath at the beginning of the 20th century. It was then that restoration work began, aimed at preserving architectural monuments. Thanks to the work of the architect-restorer P. D. Baranovsky, the museum's exposition was collected, including works of icon painting, ancient book printing, architectural decor and church art. On the territory of the reserve, old wooden buildings were collected, which were saved in various cities of Russia. Among them - "Meadovarnya" from the village of Preobrazhenskoye, the house of Peter I from Arkhangelskoye, the Mokhovaya tower of the Sumy prison, the Church of St. George the Victorious. All these monuments have been carefully preserved to this day and are now available for viewing.
The vegetation of Kolomenskoye also retained its splendor and variety, although today it is not at all the dense jungle in which Alexei Mikhailovich hunted. And still, this is a small green island in the middle of a metropolis, where you want to return again and again to breathe fresh air and think about the eternal.
