ETHNOGRAPHIC COMPLEX

We invite you to the six Ethnographic Complex sites to see falcons and horses, watch a smith at work and find out how local villagers used to live here in the late XIX – early XX century. The place is ideal for showing children the history, culture and customs they will hardly ever see in the present-day city.

• Falcon Yard
• Horse Yard
• Smith’s Yard
• Kolomenskoe Peasant’s Farmhouse
• Beekeeper’s Farmhouse
• Water Mill on the Zhuzha Rivulet
  

This aviary at Kolomenskoe is the only place in Moscow where you can watch hunting birds in flight and learn about their behavior and training. If you wish to go deeper into history, welcome to visit the ‘Falconry at Kolomenskoe’ permanent exhibition. It recreates the atmosphere in which the XVII century royal falconers lived and worked, explains the professional terms and shows the equipment used in hunting birds training. Describing the history of falconry, the exhibition notes its value as cultural heritage.

Besides the museum exhibition in the Falconer’s house the Falcon Yard comprises an open-air display showing various species of birds of prey. The thematic guided tours and other museum events taking place here include a demonstrative flight of saker falcons, a goshawk and a buzzard (buteos).

At the Horse Yard complex you will learn about the roots and history of horse breeding in Russia and hear the stories about some famous Russian breeds origin. 

What you’ll have ahead:

• see 12 horses, including ponies, trotters and heavy drafts;
• visit a smithy once specializing on making horseshoes;
• visit a coach house;
• come to the Horse is Man’s Wings thematic permanent exhibition and the saddler’s shop;
• ride a pony or go for a ride in a carriage

The Smith’s Yard comprises several buildings: the father’s and the son’s dwelling houses, the smithy and a shed. Its location on the village outskirts is not an accident: the smith’s work involves fire and thus holds danger.

At the Smith’s Yard permanent exhibition you will see:

• a reconstructed XIX century smith’s working place with a functioning furnace – a large stove where the master fires metal blanks before forging;
• a XIX – XX century village home interior with a Russian stove (a big multi-purpose stove used for heating, cooking and often sleeping), a samovar (a smartly decorated metallic water boiler) and a baby bassinet.

At the Smith’s Yard, you can also visit learning activities for children – informative or master classes (see the full list on our web site).

In the 1960s, Kolomenskoe village became part of Moscow and by the end of the 1970s, lost its rustic appearance. Yet, you have a chance to look into the past: along Bolshaya Street you can see the reconstructed farmhouses of a smith and a peasant once living at Kolomenskoe.

Even from the outside, the Kolomenskoe Peasant’s Farmhouse breaks common patterns about rural homes. A high brick basement speaks of the host’s well-being while the spacious rooms look more like late XIX century city flats. The local peasants mostly practiced profitable vegetable gardening and for their invention, a new variety of cabbage (known as ‘kolomenka’), they were ironically nicknamed ‘cabbage stalk heads’ or ‘cabbage kings’. At the farmhouse interior exhibition you will learn:

• what vegetable gardening tools the peasants would use;
• how their stored the harvest;
• what a local ‘dolly shop’ looked like

The farmhouse is surrounded with a vegetable and a small flower garden. Besides, here you will see other buildings typical of a peasant’s household: a stable now housing a male horse called Apelsin (Orange), a hen house and a granary.

BEEKEEPER’S FARMHOUSE

Not far from the Tsar’s Courtyard complex, behind the Ascension Garden, you will see the Beekeeper’s Farmhouse. The Honey Kolomenskoe permanent exhibition arranged inside it will introduce you to a beekeeper’s everyday life.

You will find out:

• the beekeeping history, from the Middles Ages to the present day;
• various functions of bees within a bee colony;
• species of Central Russian honey plants;
• what tools and equipment a beekeeper uses;
• about various types of hives
  

The mill stands in the northern part of the museum-reserve. Inside it, there is a permanent exhibition showing items used in the past to produce, process and store flour, e.g. a chest, a pouring shovel, yoke-shaped scales, a bast sieve and riddle, wicker birch bark containers (tues’es) and bags (kuzov’s).

You will learn:

• how the water mill works – principles and technologies;
• how peasants used to pay the miller;
• what the difference was between ‘sieve bread’ and ‘riddle bread’ is