Izmailovo — the royal patrimony of XVII century

In 1654, Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich Romanov became the owner of the Izmailovo boyar patrimony and the vast lands around. Since then, Izmailovo, which attracted the Tsar with hunting grounds, became part of the palace household. From the beginning of the 1660s, a grandiose construction started: several hundred peasants laid roads, dug ponds, built dams, and erected buildings of the palace complex. The complex centered on the palace and other residential buildings erected in 1671-1682 on an artificially created island.

Izmailovo was reorganized into an economically important new type royal estate, where the largest experimental farm of that time was created, which included vast fields, an apothecary garden, a linen manufactory, a glass factory, 37 ponds, apiaries, grain and oil mills. Here new varieties of agricultural crops were bred, the first agricultural machines were invented and used.

The permanent exhibition presents fragments of the Izmailovo ‘Lion’ Gate surviving thanks to the efforts of architect and restorer Peter Baranovsky, a unique collection of drawings of the Izmailovo lands, glazed tiles, agricultural tools, wooden and white stone carving monuments, an authentic XVII century water pipe, bricks with the stamps of royal brickworks and a spy glass from the Venetian workshop of Leonardo Semiteсolo.

Among the XVII century buildings on Izmailovo Island the Bridge Tower (1671-1679), the Intercession Cathedral (1671-1679), the Front and Back gates (1679-1682) have survived to this day.