Kolomenskoye (Russian: Коло́менское) is a former royal estate situated several kilometers to the southeast of the city center of Moscow, Russia, on the ancient road leading to the town of Kolomna (hence the name). The 390 hectare scenic area overlooks the steep banks of the Moskva River. It became a part of Moscow in the 1960s.
Tsar Alexis I (1629-1676) had all the previous wooden structures in Kolomenskoye demolished and replaced them with a new great wooden palace, famed for its fanciful, fairy-tale roofs. Foreigners referred to this huge maze of intricate corridors and 250 rooms, as 'an Eighth Wonder of the World'. Although basically only a summer palace, it was the favorite residence of Tsar Alexis I. The future Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was born in the palace in 1709, and Tsar Peter the Great spent part of his youth here. Upon the departure of the court for St. Petersburg, the palace fell into disrepair, so that Catherine II refused to make it her Moscow residence. On her orders the wooden palace was demolished in 1768, and replaced with a much more modest stone-and-brick structure.
Fortunately, detailed plans of the Alexis I palace survived. The Moscow Government has completed a full-scale reconstruction in 2010. The rebuilt palace stands approximately 1 kilometre to the south of its original location near the White Column, in order to preserve the historic foundations.
During the early Soviet period, under the initiative of architect and restorer Pyotr Baranovsky, old wooden buildings and various artefacts were transported to Kolomenskoye from different parts of the USSR for preservation, so currently Kolomenskoye Park hosts an impressive set of different constructions and historical objects.
Text source: Wikipedia
Photo: A modern reconstruction of the wooden palace (2011) by A. Savin (Wikimedia Commons · WikiPhotoSpace) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15923774
