Kolomenskoye

Today we will visit the last UNESCO World Heritage Site in Moscow. Actually, it is only part of Mosco for a bit more than fifty years and it was in fact founded as a summer residence of the dukes of Muscovy. Welcome to the Moscow State Integrated Art and Historical Architectural and Natural Landscape Museum-Reserve. Or in short - welcome to Kolomenskoye.

Let's enter by this leaf-like gate.

Then, we will take the Front Gate, built in 1672, and leading to what used to be the tsar's courtyard. You will notice the two-headed eagle on top of the bell tower, the emblem of the Russian Empire.

As you may imagine, the taste and likes of the kings and tsars changed over time. As a result, almost mothing remained from the original summer residence which was demolished and rebuilt several times. For some of the older buildings, all that you can admire nowadays are the stone foundations.

As always, the building which were the most lucky are the churches. You can find here quite e few. Some with multiple blue domes, like the church of Our Lady of Kazan ...

... others with a single golden dome, like the church of St. George the Victorious.

But the church that has drawn the attention of UNESCO does not have a dome at all. It is the church of the Ascension, built in 1532 to thank God for the birth of a male heir to the throne. The mother of the baby boy called him Ivan. The history added the nickname "the Terrible".

The church is rather small but very high, white and topped with an unusual conic structure. It looks a  bit like a space rocket, doesn't it?

In fact the is the first tent-roof stone church in Russia. It was designed by an Italian architect.

Inside, you will find the iconostasis, a wall typical for orthodox churches, usually richly decorated, with numerous paintings.  Though to be honest, that one looks almost modest. You can see it was only a holiday home location.

Besides the churches, Kolomenskoye includes also a museum, where you can see some olf Russian icons, often depicting Mary the mother of God.

There is also a collection of white stone.

Time to move forward. Next week we will still be in Russia but this time, I will show you what the world looks like outside of its capital. Even the Russians say that it is a different country.

Talking of differences, have you noticed that huge Christmas Tree. Do not be surprised to find it here. The orthodox church celebrates Christmas on the seventh of January so only a week ago. So we are here in full Christmas period. Thanks to our travels, this year we can celebrate Christmas twice!