Introduction

The Izmailovo district in Moscow lies approximately 15 kilometers to the east of the city center, and is part of the Eastern Administrative District.

The enormous Izmailovsky Park comprises nearly one-half of the district’s territory — some 12 square kilometers.

Just north of the park, across Pervomaiskaia Street, lies the Izmailovsky Island on the Serebriano-Vinogradnyi Pond, with its historic ensemble of buildings dating back to the 17^th century. The estate of Izmailovo and its history served as the inspiration for today’s nearby Izmailovo Kremlin and Vernissage Market complex, a popular Moscow destination for city residents and tourists.

The earliest history of the original village of Izmailovo dates back perhaps as far as the end of the 14^th century, as attested by archaeological findings in the area during restoration work in the 1980s. There were peasant villages in the environs, and in the middle of the 15^th century, these lands were held by nobleman and military commander Lev Izmailov, from whom the area takes its name.

By the time of Ivan the Terrible in the 16^th century, the Izmailovo lands had come into the possession of the Romanov boyars as a hereditary landed estate (rodovaia votchina) used for hunting and other leisure activities.

Since 2005, the territory of the Izmailovsky Island has been part of the Moscow State Integrated Art and Historical Architectural and Natural Landscape Museum Reserve, which comprises three historical sites: Kolomenskoye, Liublino, and Izmailovo.

Izmailovo Under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1663-76)

During the second half of the 17th century, Izmailovo passed into the hands of the tsar’s family. The property was inherited in 1654 by Alexei Mikhailovich, the second tsar of the Romanov dynasty and son of Mikhail Romanov, the dynasty’s founder. Alexei Mikhailovich, father of Peter the Great, ruled Russia during the period 1645-76, coming to the throne at the age of 16.

Alexei Mikhailovich, said to have been of a quiet, gentle, but progressive disposition, played an essential role in Russia’s development after the Time of Troubles at the turn of the 17^th century. He was well educated by the standards of his time, and studied foreign languages, history, geography, mathematics and natural sciences, as well as military and foreign affairs. This progressive education prepared the way for his son Peter’s deep acquaintance with Western customs, arts, and technologies.

Alexei Mikhailovich encouraged foreign trade and was interested in the news and customs of Western countries. His considerable achievements included improvements in administration and justice: reorganizing and professionalizing his military forces by creating new-order regiments such as Reiters, Soldiers, Dragoons, and Hussars, expanding the state bureaucracy, developing the postal service, reforming the monetary system, and expanding agricultural production. He enacted an updated legal code, the Sobornoe Ulozhenie of 1649, which legally defined serfdom and remained in effect until the 19^th century.

Alexei Mikhailovich cultivated interests in areas such as astrology, interior design, chess, music, poetry, and cuisine. Through his broad range of interests and pursuits, he encouraged the formation of a Russian elite that was more secular and more cosmopolitan, and increasingly open to European culture. This is how Alexei Mikhailovich was often represented in 19^th-century historical paintings.

Alexei Mikhailovich established an estate at Izmailovo, damning up the river Robka (today Serebryanka) in order to create what would become the Serebryano-Vinogradnyi Pond and the Izmailovsky Island, where he built a wooden palace (Gosudarev Dvor), which could be reached by an impressive stone bridge culminating in the three-storey Bridge Tower.

Surrounded by the artificial pond, the Izmailovo estate resembled a small fortress.

The stone Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos is known today as the Pokrovsky Church at Izmailovo (Khram Pokrova Presviatoi Bogoroditsy v Izmailove). The Church was originally constructed in the “Naryshkin style” during the 1670s by the Medvedev brothers, Kostroma architects under supervision of the master architect Ivan Kuznetchik, on the site of an earlier wooden church from the turn of the 16^th century.  Its design featured a special porcelain-tile pattern called “peacock’s eye,” by a well-known craftsman named Stepan Ivanov (“Polubes”).

Alexei Mikhailovich wanted to create a model estate and showcase at Izmailovo for both agriculture and industry, to serve as an inspiration for the rest of Russia. He developed his summer residence at Izmailovo in many diverse ways during the period 1663-76, taking an active interest in the whole. This close association with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and the sphere of his activities lies at the heart of today’s Izmailovo Kremlin project, and his spirit animates the entire enterprise.

The world of Alexei Mikhailovich at his Izmailovo estate suggests a kind of Russian Eden. On the lands surrounding the Izmailovsky Island, he cultivated exotic crops such as grapes, melons, figs, coconuts, cucumbers, pears, flax, and mulberries from imported seeds and plantings. He maintained vineyards, greenhouses, and gardens of medicinal plants, and engaged in fish-farming and stock-raising. He introduced new farming technologies such as iron ploughshares and other iron implements, dams and irrigation networks, wind and water power. Alexei Mikhailovich also constructed garden pavilions, fountains, and a large water mill, and established a hunting reserve, a mini-zoo that included a lion and lioness presented as a gift to Alexei Mikhailovich by the Persian Shah, a “folly” called Babylon, which was Muscovy’s first labyrinth, and apiaries for raising bees and producing honey.

The world of Alexei Mikhailovich can be imagined from our present-day position as a kind of Russian Renaissance, and also, importantly, a period that is now regarded as “authentically” Russian, valuing and seeking to propagate and enhance the skills of making, inventing, and cultivating that had evolved in ordinary Russian communities over time.

Alexei Mikhailovich was open to foreign experts and influences, but his primary emphasis was on native originality, innovation, and creativity. The figure of the artisan-craftsperson (remeslennik) is central to this ideal.  And indeed, Alexei Mikhailovich invited “masters” of various crafts and trades to his estate-community, as bearers of rich ancient traditions and regional specializations that should be sustained and fostered.  Very often these artisanal forms used natural and indigenous Russian materials such as wood and semi-precious stones.

Alexei Mikhailovich himself can be considered an innovator. For example, he had his court stop eating with their hands and use utensils made from precious metals. Icon-painting in his time became more sophisticated and realistic in style. His influence and encouragement were felt in newly-developed areas in Russian culture as diverse as philosophy and liturgy, architecture, textiles, theater, and weapons development.

Alexei Mikhailovich believed that technological advances could make Russia independent of foreign imports, and also able to produce goods for export. In 1667, Alexei Mikhailovich enacted a new trade statute to protect Russian vendors from foreign competitors.  He also encouraged trade within Russia, creating an all-Russian common market.  At Izmailovo, he had hundreds of people working on his various projects, which are extremely well documented in archival materials. For example, he established a factory for glass, and additional factories for textiles and bricks.

Kolomenskoe

Along with Izmailovo, another important cultural site in Moscow associated with Alexei Mikhailovich is Kolomenskoe, a former royal estate situated on the Moscow River on the old road leading to the town of Kolomna (where in 1380, Dmitri Donskoi gathered his troops before the battle of Kulikovo).

Kolomenskoe’s most notable structure is the 1532 white-stone Ascension Church, built to commemorate the birth of Ivan the Terrible, and inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage Register in 1994.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich constructed a grand wooden palace here as a summer residence, which visitors called the “eighth wonder of the world.”

Alexei Mikhailovich’s palace was unfortunately demolished in the late 1760s by order of Catherine the Great, but detailed plans of his 17^th-century palace survived.

In 2010, the post-Soviet Moscow government completed a full-scale reconstruction. The present-day site includes an open-air museum of Russian wooden architecture.

Kolomenskoe

Along with Izmailovo, another important cultural site in Moscow associated with Alexei Mikhailovich is Kolomenskoe, a former royal estate situated on the Moscow River on the old road leading to the town of Kolomna (where in 1380, Dmitri Donskoi gathered his troops before the battle of Kulikovo).

Kolomenskoe’s most notable structure is the 1532 white-stone Ascension Church, built to commemorate the birth of Ivan the Terrible, and inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage Register in 1994.

Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich constructed a grand wooden palace here as a summer residence, which visitors called the “eighth wonder of the world.”

Alexei Mikhailovich’s palace was unfortunately demolished in the late 1760s by order of Catherine the Great, but detailed plans of his 17^th-century palace survived.

In 2010, the post-Soviet Moscow government completed a full-scale reconstruction. The present-day site includes an open-air museum of Russian wooden architecture.

Alexei Mikhailovich Today

Alexei Mikhailovich has not traditionally figured in the Russian cultural consciousness with a distinct popular image like that of his son Peter the Great. But his image is an essential one for the Izmailovo Kremlin project and more broadly for Russia today.

It is commonplace to claim that Russia entered an era of dramatic modernization in the early 18^th century, experiencing a sharp shift away from an essentially medieval mentality, as mandated by Peter.  In this connection, it is sometimes noted that Russia, unlike the countries of Western Europe, did not experience a Renaissance or a Reformation to provide a transition and preparation for such large-scale change.  But this familiar story neglects the 17^th-century reign of Alexei Mikhailovich with its innovations and spirit of enterprise. In fact, the Petrine reforms of the early 18^th century had their roots in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, which prepared the ground for Russia’s future development. Alexei Mikhailovich can be said to represent the culmination of tsarist Russia, rather than imperial Russia. He represents the vital early stages of modern Russian cultural development that preceded the major shifts of the 18^th century, in which Izmailovo continued to play a part.

Russia experienced a major economic and cultural transition after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Russians endured upheaval and hardship during the shift from a centralized command economy to that of a newly-capitalist state. Many Russians had been employees of the Soviet state for their entire working lives, and adapting to a new market for earning a living was a challenge. During this unsettled time, Russians looked back to earlier periods in their history for inspiration, as well as drawing on the forms of cultural ingenuity forged in the shadow economy of Soviet times. The 19^th century, and particularly the final decades before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution when Russia looked most like its Western European counterparts, offered an encouraging example — a rich culture of family-owned enterprises and an appreciation for artisans and their expertise in traditional forms of Russian-making that could be taught and passed on to future generations.

More distant historical periods could also offer inspiration and a source of national pride, among them the time of Alexei Mikhailovich.

The transitional 1990s and early 2000s in Russia recalled the 18^th century, when diverse Western European influences changed nearly every aspect of life in modernizing Russia.  During this post-Soviet period in Russia, wares from all over the world — Chinese dishtowels, Turkish bathsoap, Bulgarian ketchup — were available in Russian stores, and many Russians lamented the fact that Russia no longer seemed to be producing its own goods.

Today’s Izmailovo Kremlin and Vernissage Market are a kind of answer to the disorienting experience of so many Russians during the transition from a socialist economy to a neoliberal capitalist system.

For many Russians, the artful “makers” and small-scale entrepreneurs of past Russian eras resonate with their sense for what is needed in post-communist Russia today – individual ingenuity and initiative.  And Alexei Mikhailovich is now understood as a Russian ruler who promoted values that are meaningful and inspiring for Russians today.

Peter the Great

Peter the Great was a towering figure in Russian cultural history and a reformist tsar, enacting what has been called a “cultural revolution,” a powerful series of modernization initiatives that set Russia on a radically new course of development, far beyond what was then still essentially a medieval culture. In the popular imagination, Peter the Great is associated with the rise of imperial Russia as a global power.

Peter the Great has been commemorated in prominent ways up to the present, with statues and monuments in his image across the whole of Russia.  The famous “Bronze Horseman” statue established at the center of St. Petersburg in 1782 establishes the primacy of the city’s founder in its history.  The enormous post-Soviet Peter statue that now stands in the Moscow River, visible from the massive 1990s reconstruction of the 19^th-century Church of Christ the Savior, leaves no doubt about Peter’s continued status as one of the very greatest Russian leaders.

Peter the Great, normally so dominant in narratives of Russia’s history, plays a relatively minor role in the history of Izmailovo, although it is clear that he benefited greatly from exposure to his father’s broad field of activities. Peter studied many different trades at Izmailovo, and these formed the basis for his Western orientation and many plans for reforming and modernizing every aspect of Russian life.

Peter was born at Izmailovo in 1672 and grew up there.  In 1688 at age 16, he discovered a small boat in storage that had belonged to his great-grandfather Nikita Romanov, and tried it out on the Serebriano-Vinogradnyi Pond to good effect. This boat is now in St. Petersburg’s Central Naval Museum and is called the “grandfather of the Russian Navy” and Izmailovo can be considered “the cradle of the Russian Navy.” The goal of forming a powerful Russian Navy is central to the founding of Peter the Great’s new Russian capital city of St. Petersburg in 1713.

In September 1998, in honor of the 300^th anniversary of the Russian navy, a new monument to Peter I was installed on the Izmailovsky Island, showing the Russian tsar as resolute, active, and inspired, dressed in working clothes and leaning on an anchor. The 18^th-century history of Izmailovo lives on as an acknowledged part of its legacy.  The Izmailovo Kremlin project is an explicit reconstruction reflecting the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in the later 17^th century that post-dates the unveiling of this earlier post-Soviet Peter monument.  If the Peter monument at Izmailovo formerly pointed to Alexei Mikhailovich’s lack of prominence in the Russian cultural imagination, the cultural mythology connected with the father Alexei now appears to have triumphed over that of the son Peter, at least at Izmailovo.

We might look to the Izmailovo coat of arms for a way to combine the images of these two Russian rulers, Alexei and Peter, father and son.  One-half of the coat of arms shows a red griffin, a sign of the Romanov family, holding a bunch of grapes — a reference to Alexei Mikhailovich’s cultivation of vineyards.  The other half of this badge of identity is, of course, Peter the Great’s little boat, a stand-in for the future Russian Navy, whose sail is here ornamented with Peter’s own emblem. As figured by the Izmailovo coat of arms, the cultural mythology of Izmailovo allows Russians to take what is best from their history, and both of these rulers contributed to the development of Russia as a modernizing state.

Izmailovo in the 18th Century after Peter the Great

In 1696, Peter gave the estate to Praskovia Fyodorovna, the widow of Peter the Great’s brother, Ivan V, and her three daughters, Yekaterina, Anna and Praskovia, who lived there permanently until 1713. In 1701, Izmailovo encompassed 27 ponds, 10 mills, 3 gardens, 5 cultivated groves, and close to 400 peasant families.

After Anna Ioannovna’s enthronement as Russian Empress in 1730, she used her fondly-remembered childhood home Izmailovo as her residence, where she maintained the zoo and held theatrical performances.  It is believed that the second floor of the tower then hosted meetings of the Russian senate.

While at Izmailovo, Anna decided to found a new cavalry guard regiment — the Izmailovsky — for which she appointed herself the commander.  References to the Izmailovsky regiment abound in 19^th-century Russian literature. Izmailovsky was by then one of the most venerable and respected Russian military regiments, a symbol of the elite forces stationed in the new capital of St. Petersburg. Invoking the Izmailovsky regiment in a literary text provided a coded reference to the flower of young Russian military officers.

The last member of the royal family to live at Izmailovo was Peter’s eldest daughter Elizaveta, who ruled Russia from 1741-62.  Elizaveta had a path created through the forest to the neighboring estate Perovo, which belonged to Count Alexei Razumovsky, her longtime favorite companion.  This path is now the main alleyway of the Izmailovsky park.

Izmailovo in the 19th Century

The structures of the Izmailovo estate were laid out on the artificial island like a small fortress.  The Russians themselves destroyed the facilities while fleeing Napoleon’s advancing army in 1812, so that Napoleon’s forces could not entrench themselves there.

During a visit to Moscow in 1837, Tsar Nicholas I witnessed the deplorable state of the Romanov’s family’s ancestral home, the 25th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War and vowed to improve its prospects.

As part of his project to revitalize the area, Nicholas I ordered the construction of an almshouse for war veterans in need.

On 19 March 1850, Nikolayevsky military almshouse opened on Izmailovsky Island, and accommodated some 400 veterans — primarily from the Napoleonic and Caucasian wars — up until the 1917 Revolution.

Until the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the architectural complex at Izmailovo was a popular strolling spot. At this time, the huge green area around it was outside the boundaries of Moscow proper. Later 19^th-century Russian memory journals such as “Bygone Russia” (Russkaia starina) capture the romantic atmosphere of this historical site at the outskirts of Moscow.

Izmailovo During the Soviet Period

After the 1917 Revolution, the veterans’ almshouse was closed, and the buildings were repurposed in 1924-1926 as communal flats for the workers of the Salyut Aviation Plant. The former almshouse then housed 2,500 people and the new worker’s town was named after Bolshevik party member Nikolai Bauman.

In 1930, Soviets established the enormous Izmailov Park of Culture and Rest (renamed in 1935 in the name of Stalin).  Still a popular spot, the park features a vast array of sports and recreational facilities.

And in 1935, the Izmailovo region officially became part of Moscow proper.

In the 1930s, Stalin envisioned a stadium in this area that would accommodate 120,000 people and be the equal of the stadium in Berlin. It was to be the site of the Soviet Spartakiad competitions and future World Olympics games. But construction was interrupted by World War II, and never resumed.

A special underground bunker for Stalin was secretly constructed beneath the Izmailovo stadium, as an emergency command center for the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army. It was connected to the Kremlin by a tunnel and during the Great Patriotic War in 1941-1945 there were some 2000 people stationed there. Today the bunker is a museum.

In 1944, a metro station opened in the area, called Izmailovsky Park. In 2005, the station was dedicated to Soviet partisans who fought the Nazis and the station name was changed to Partizanskaya with commemorative statues of Soviet heroes Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and Matvei Kuzmin.

The urban development of the Izmailovo District began in earnest during the postwar period, which saw a residential construction boom along the northern part of the Izmailovo district, especially to the east from where the Izmailovo Kremlin and Vernisazh are now. Soviet neo-classicism, characteristic of Stalin-era low-building districts, was the dominant style.

Moving into the postwar Soviet period, the Bulldozer Exhibition was a Moscow exhibition of underground art, held in September 1974. The Soviet authorities violently broke up the exhibition, but after a strong international reaction, they allowed a second, larger version of the underground art exhibition to be staged in the Izmailovo park forest, showcasing forty artists and attracting a crowd of thousands. Although a comparatively small concession, this event is seen as a precursor to the reform climate of the Soviet 1980s.

The four-building hotel complex “Izmailovo” was completed in 1979 in preparation for the 1980 Olympic games, the largest of the various accommodations constructed in advance of the event. Today the buildings – Alpha, Beta, Gamma-Delta, and Vega – are privately managed and the complex offers several thousand rooms for visitors to the area.

Taking inspiration from the 1974 Bulldozer Exhibition, the area occupied today by the Izmailovo Vernisazh became a gathering place for unofficial artists and artists to display their work and find buyers at the end of the 1980s and during the troubled 1990s, many of them were working on the revival of traditional handicrafts.

Izmailovo Vernisazh and Kremlin Today

The Izmailovo Vernisazh is now the largest and least expensive souvenir market in Moscow. The Vernisazh also has sections for a flea market, a painters’ row, rugs, and antiquarian objects.

Today’s Izmailovo Kremlin complex is a stylization of Alexei Mikhailovich’s 17th-century Baroque architecture with Russian folkloric elements.

The facilities are intended to promote knowledge of old Russian culture and crafts, and there are artisan workshops and displays, and a variety of hands-on experiences offered to visitors.