The Church of the Ascension in the Moscow suburb of Kolomenskoye was the first stop on my two-week trip across Russia. It is a relatively minor sight in this historic capital: when you look at any of those ‘Top Ten Things do in Moscow’-things, the Kremlin and Red Square, the Metro and the Novodevichy Convent will surely be in there. The Kolomenskoye Estate however will only turn up in longer lists of attractions or not at all. That does not mean that it is quiet however: when I visited on a Sunday morning around 9 a.m., several Chinese tour groups were already present too.

The site has been registered as a Single Monument without a Buffer Zone, so it’s all about this one ‘White Column’. Part of the compound are also a freestanding bell tower, the colourful entrance gate and what looks like the remains of another gate. There is no entrance fee, although you can get tickets to enter ‘six museums’ from the on-site kiosk. The tickets were free, I don’t if they always are or because it was a special day today (‘Moscow Day’).

One of the six museums actually is the interior of the Church of the Ascension. It is not in religious use anymore and now hosts a small exhibition on its architecture. There are two reasons to enter: to get a feel for how tiny it is inside ánd to see its original brick colouring. One of the distinguishing features of the Church as we now know it is its white colour: but the walls were only whitewashed leading up to the 1980 Olympic Games. When you look closer, the bricks become visible. Gathered from a photo shown inside the church, the original colouring was a red brick roof and greyish-blueish main structure.

Another museum is the ‘Kolomenskoye museum’. Its entrance is in the small building to the right of the entrance gate, standing with your back to the church. This looks like a minor thing seen from the outside, but the exhibition space actually goes all the way across the main gate to the other side. It spans 2 floors and a cellar.

I was really glad that I decided to enter – while the tourist masses covered the field around the church, almost no one visited this museum. It felt a bit stiff at first – in each room a stern-looking Russian lady keeping watch  – but there are several good icons other memorabilia from the former Royal Estate.

During the preparation for my visit, I noticed that the ICOMOS evaluation text suggests that originally the whole Kolemenskoye Estate was nominated 2 years earlier. It then was revised into this narrow scope for inclusion in 1994. Besides this hint in the AB evaluation, I have not been able to find further evidence of whether this indeed was the case. The former Royal Estate now is kind of an open-air museum of wooden buildings, brought there from other places in the country. It has a lovely setting along the Moskva River and is a pleasant place for a lazy Sunday morning, but the Church of the Ascension really is the only exceptional building here.