Kolomenskoye

Arthur was my host and tour guide for our visit to Kolomenskoye Park.  This is an historical park with a combination of original and reconstructed buildings from 16-18th Century Russian history.  It was fun to travel with Arthur as my guide and interpreter.  Normally dour Russian attendants warmed up and sometimes even smiled when they realised that this 6-year-old was interpreting for his non-Russian-speaking dolt of a father.  

We started at the Kolomenskoye palace, a modern recreation of an older, 16th Century wooden palace.  First up, statue of Catherine the Great!

Massive wooden building

Ornate entrance

Arthur insisted that I record the presence of cannons!

Decorated ceilings

Including this horseman

And a fancy front door!

Arthur dressed as a tsarevitch.  The lion statues would roar and turn their heads when the attendant pressed a button!

This other little girl was also wearing period costume, so of course they had to pose together!

View from the upper floors, including some of the detail of the roofing.

Local legend has it that St George killed the dragon in this ravine, and this rock is what remains of his horse's head.

Statue of Peter the Great outside his little house. Inside the house, there is a nail in the wall showing Peter's height - he was very tall!

This is the 'Petitions Column' of Tsar Aleksey.  Petitioners could leave their messages (petitions and complaints) here, where they would be collected and presented to the Tsar.

Entrance gate to Kolomenskoye village.

Wooden church of St George (we did not go inside).

The following photos are of 17th and 18th Century forts that were moved here from Karelia.  The reconstruction is of a portion of a fort, a single tower that would have been joined with 5 other towers to form a stockade.  This was part of the defences that were built to protect against the Swedes, and Arthur was keen to point out where Swedish musket balls had struck the tower!

Arthur got into a very animated discussion with the attendant here.  I didn't follow exactly what they were talking about, but Arthur was telling the man what had happened here, and the man would say "nyet, nyet, nyet" and explain to Arthur what actually happened.  It was classic grown man history geek getting into an argument with a 6 year old - neither was going to convince the other, neither was going to back down.  I just tried to contain my smiles, and shared an eyeroll with the other attendant there.

And finally, one of Arthur's favourite sites, Peter the Great's Dutch house, that was transported here from the Netherlands.  It is (probably a reconstruction of) the house where Peter stayed when he was learning to build ships in Amsterdam.  The bed was something, looked like it was only about 1.5 m long, so I wondered how comfortable it would have been for a man more than 2 tall!