Kolomenskoye

June 1, 2017

Imagine Central Park after the rain. Now let the grass grow and watch the bushes outgrow their haircuts. There are still a few neat tulip beds, but more daffodils and clover fields. Watch as an additional km2 or so
 of forest latches on to the territory and brooks trick up from unexpected places; add in a few birches and many many apple trees. Now you can get lost.  Then add in a couple churches from the 1500s, tiny museums tucked away unexpectedly along the path, a whiff of Old Believer spirit and a miracle streaming icon. Add a dozen views of the Moskva River from whitestoned balconies and  there you have it: Kolomenskoye.

 When you go to Kolomenskoe, you should have a plan. The museums and churches are scattered through woods in fields, invisible unless it's fate to find them or your have approached your task responsibly and planned your tour. Or, like us, you can just let your feet take you where they will.

Thankfully, we stumbled accross the church of Ascension, perhaps the most famous church their In the 1532, Tsar Vasiliy and his Tsartitsya built the church of Ascension in honor of their long awaited baby boy,  a Vanechka who would grow up to be known as "the Terrible." It was here, that on March 15, 1917, on the day of Tsar Nicholas's abdication, Our Lady Derzhavnaya appeared in the basement of this church.

In 1868, Hector Berlioz said:
"Here before my gaze stood the beauty of perfection and I gasped in awe. Here in the mysterious silence, amid the harmonious beauty of the finished form, I beheld architecture of a new kind. I beheld man soaring on high. And I stood amazed."

Even thought the Derzhavnaya icon was found in the Ascension church, it has since been moved to the blue domed Kazanskiy church. Here services occur almost every day. This church doesn't shell shock and impress, but rather quiets the rowdy excitement you bring in from the outside. Nothing truly notable decorates the walls, and everyone in the church just automatically gravitates over to the icon. For long minutes, sometimes hours, men and women just stand in front of it; praying, thinking, reevaluating. We sang a troparion like Fr. Paul's true daughter and Goddaughter and left 10 minutes before closing.

Peter the Great's little wooden hut, our next stop. Katya refused to go  in, saying, "I don't like him. We don't like him.  He's horrible. For what should we go in?" His self-confident pose didn't really faze her. She posed, then said "let's go." I wasn't about to face up an angry Peter the Great that day, so we left.

Instead, we followed some path up a hill to this other 16th century church in honor of St. John the Baptist. It took a half an hour and a vertical red staircase to get there. Up there, there were apple groves and 19th century gravestones and a taciturn deacon.We couldn't resist and had a photoshoot. On the way back we got lost, stumbled upon a stable with a lone horse in the forest, then it started raining as we finally realized we were going in the opposite direction of the metro and--and of Moscow itself. But that, perhaps, was the best part of all.