Audiotour Palace of Tsar Alexey Romanov at Kolomenskoe

The best-known of the palaces ever existing at Kolomenskoe, a Russian royal residence, was built in the reign of Tsar Alexey Romanov, father of Emperor Peter I (the Great). Wood served as its main building material: the Tsar, a man of poor health, felt in a wooden mansion much more comfortable than in a stone or brick one. The palace consisted of 26 living towers (in Old Russian known as terem’s) and comprised 270 rooms.

The construction of the palace, which Simeon Polotsky, court poet, described as the ‘eighth wonder of the world’, became an important event in the XVII century architecture. Foreign ambassadors who visited Kolomenskoe spoke in glowing terms about it. Best masters from different regions of Russia worked on the palace interior décor and furnishing. In the rooms one could see religious and historical painting, West European furniture and oriental carpets.

In the XVIII century, when the Russian capital was moved to Saint Petersburg, the importance of Kolomenskoe as the tsars’ residence faded overtime. A hundred years after its construction, in the reign of Empress Catherine II, the palace, already worn-out, was disassembled. The drawings and inventories made beforehand permitted to create a small wooden model of the palace in the XIX century and to reconstruct the building in full scale in 2010.

Today, the reconstructed palace is a unique tourist site where you can learn about the tsar’s residence daily life in the XVII century.