15 best museums in Kolomna – list, descriptions, prices 2021, reviews
Kolomna is poetry in stone, on which people began to work in the days of Ancient Russia. However, the work is still unfinished today. The invincible fort, the beloved city of Dmitry Donskoy, the ancient center of Orthodoxy and simply the most beautiful city standing at the confluence of the turbulent streams of the Oka and the Moskva River – this is definitely worth a visit if you are planning a trip to Russia.
Kolomna Kremlin
A trip to Kolomna will already look quite complete if you can look into the local Kremlin. According to historians, this powerful building was erected mainly in the fifteenth century. It is recommended to take at least half a day to visit it, since in addition to strong walls and well-preserved towers, there are still many unique architectural and historical buildings here.
Of the most significant buildings of the Kolomna Kremlin, we can note the Assumption Brusensky Convent, the Tikhvin Temple, the Exaltation of the Cross Church and other religious buildings that appeared here almost simultaneously.
It is better to use the services of a guide to get more information that is easy to miss when traveling alone. And the material promises to be really saturated.
Museum “Kolomenskaya Pastila”
This Kolomna museum has set itself a rather unusual goal – to preserve art in its ephemerality. Not plasticity of form or saturation of color, but smell, taste, manner of speaking, features of life. Anything that tends to naturally change with the passage of time.
The museum was opened relatively recently – only in 2009. For its location, the territory of Kolomenskoye Posad was chosen. The outbuilding of an ancient merchant's estate right next to the Church of St. Nicholas in Posadi was given as a museum.
Kolomna Pastilnitsa is a tiny, absolutely special corner of silence, which comes to life only under the sound of an old clock and the piercing trill of a canary. The hospitable hostess is always glad to see guests – she will offer you dozens of varieties of marshmallows and will gladly share the legends of antiquity, in which the formidable figure of Ivan the Great and the mysterious masons, who used to gather in the Suranovs' house, will come to life.
She will also not forget about the miraculous apples that grew in the gardens of Bishop Nikita, and about the main guest of the table – about the Kolomna marshmallow.
Museum “Kalachnaya”
The pride of Kolomna near Moscow is the museum, which is significant for this ancient Russian city. Kalachnaya stands right at the Pyatnitskaya Tower. Here, the ancient Kolomna kalachny craft is gradually being revived.
In a certain sense, the museum can be called alive, since the object of the museum show was the sequential process of baking kalach from the moment of preparing the sourdough on hops to cutting the dough on an ice table, in order to then send the fragrant muffin directly into the oven full of heat. Local kalachi are baked in a stove specially designed according to the drawings of the nineteenth century, which is heated exclusively with birch firewood.
It is believed that in this way kalachi will acquire additional whiteness. What is the importance of opening this museum? In fact, kalachny fishing has practically lost its historical roots in Murom, Moscow and in Kolomna itself.
What today is proudly called kalach has nothing to do with its historical prototype, which was by no means considered sweet. To restore the old recipe, a large-scale work was carried out with the archives of the last three centuries.
Museum of Organic Culture
The very concept of organic culture appeared in the first third of the twentieth century thanks to Mikhail Matyushin, who made a significant contribution to the art of this period. Not many museum visitors immediately associate it with the Russian avant-garde, as this direction was rather closed even during its most turbulent stage of development.
Representatives of this trend believed that the world should be perceived solely as an integral (organic) system, headed by “Order, Law and Formation”.
The modern Museum of Organic Culture has three halls: the Museum of Tradition, the Museum of Photography and the Museum of Art. Here is collected the richest collection of works by Russian avant-garde artists, in particular, E. Guro, M. Matyushin, P. Kondratiev.
Oddly enough, but not particularly widely known in Russia, the pillars of organic culture are well known in the West. Many of their works are in the best museums in the world.
Military Glory Museum
Like many other cities in Russia, Kolomna has its own museum dedicated to military service. Kolomna is without a doubt an ancient city – its inhabitants constantly found themselves in the thick of military events, starting from the time of Ancient Russia and up to the tragic pages of the Second World War.
It is not surprising that it was decided to keep the feats of the people in the memory of posterity. Initially, the Church of Peter and Paul was given to house the museum, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, the temple was returned to believers, and the museum was moved to a new building in a futuristic style with a red glass facade, symbolizing feats and military prowess.
Favorite Toy Museum
This private gallery is one of the youngest museums in Kolomna. It opened only in 2014 and is located on the territory of the Kolomna Kremlin. The gallery was opened on the initiative of Irina Kulikova, who collects toys and creates them herself.
Before the opening of the museum, she was mainly engaged in the restoration of old toys, which she bought in antique shops, at auctions, and even just on the Internet. Oddly enough, the craftswoman was inspired to open the museum by visiting the pastel museum, which can hardly be called traditional either.
Today, the museum's collections are represented mainly by toys of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And it's not just about plush animals, but also about numerous dolls.
The most significant of the foreign specimens is a porcelain boudoir doll. A separate exposition is devoted to dolls of Russian manufactories: “Gudkov”, “Gzhel”, “Dunaev” and so on.
Museum “Kolomensky gramophone”
We have already managed to find out that Kolomna can be quite deservedly considered the birthplace of marshmallow rolls. It's time to add gramophones to this list. Yes, yes, it was gramophones that began to be produced on an industrial scale in Kolomna at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Initially, on the site of the factory, which just a year later began to thunder throughout the country, there was an old silk-rolling factory. Local experts did not limit their imagination. First on paper, and then in reality, more and more incredible variants of gramophones began to appear.
For example, once at the factory it was decided to start producing gramophones that were filled with “talking paper”.
The Second World War did not bypass Kolomna production either – the scale began to decline, no one needed creative ideas. But the old Kolomna gramophones turned out to be surprisingly necessary, which filled the soldiers' dugouts with sweet sounds to the hearts.
Museum “Kuznechnaya Sloboda”
This museum was opened in 2010 and is a private collection of artifacts. Basically, the collections included exhibits that once belonged to Ilya Lebedev, who began collecting it more than twenty years ago.
These are forged, wooden, and cast products that belong to different eras. Despite the fact that the collection was originally private, it is absolutely impossible to call it small – the modern museum fund is about seven thousand exhibits.
Once in the museum halls, you will not only get to know the peculiarities of culture and life in certain historical periods, but you will also be able to feel a little deeper the very flavor that is impossible not to notice when visiting, for example, a village blacksmith's shop, a hut or a stable. It also houses a large collection of armor and weapons of bygone times, as well as various devices that were used in hunting and fishing.
Artcommunal
that unusual museum takes on the responsibility to tell its guests in colors about how the life of a Soviet person looked like in the sixties of the last century. Be prepared to find yourself in a typical thaw-era Khrushchev with a distinct communist spirit and unsettling notes of dissidence.
The museum occupies a house in old Kolomna, where Venedikt Erofeev once lived. In the same house on the first floor, the Ogonyok store was once opened, in which he, in fact, worked as a loader. The universally recognized genius and fighter for the freedom of creativity Erofeev today made this place the way we know it now.
The “communal space” of the museum is occupied by living rooms and workshops. The art residence is never empty. Artists and masters of the word live here alternately, who, with the determination of the creator of this place, are fighting for a new look at art. Exhibitions and art installations are also held here.
Artkommunalka often receives guests from abroad. So, quite recently, an exhibition of works by an artist from South Korea, Lee Sujin, was held here, who gave a lecture on the interaction of a video series, performance and text.
Museum of Local Lore
The Kolomna Museum of Local Lore is deservedly considered one of the oldest in the region. Its discovery fell on 1932. Initially, it was located on the territory of the Kremlin, but later the former Church of the Archangel Michael was transferred to the ownership of the museum.
The museum fund is impressive – there are about thirty thousand exhibits that were brought here from all local archives, private collections, similar museums. The material collected here gives the most complete picture of the culture, history and nature of the Kolomna region, starting from the most ancient period of human history.
Over the past twenty years, a number of historical buildings have been transferred to the museum. Of these, the nineteenth-century merchant estate complex, the seventeenth-century governor's house and the eighteenth-century estate of the Lazhechnikov merchants are of the greatest importance.
Estate of merchants Lazhechnikovs
Unfortunately, few people know the name of the merchant Lazhechnikov today. And few people will remember that this man was successful not only in the merchant business, but also in literature. Moreover, he was a kind of pioneer – the discovery of a new genre in Russian literature – the historical novel – is associated with his name.
His family estate is located today right in the center of Kolomna. If you decide to visit this museum, you will be lucky enough to try lifting a pood weight, taste real mead, try marshmallow sitting at a table covered with a hand-knitted tablecloth, and even learn how to use a rubel.
Local interactive programs deserve special mention. There are regular screenings of silent films based on the novel by Lazhechnikov himself “Ice House” and various plays are played to show what the life of the merchants looked like in the nineteenth century.
Tram Museum
The Zamoskvoretsky distances spread before you, the monument to Cyril and Methodius fades in all its glory, and the Cathedral Square is so wide!
From the street it is almost impossible to understand how unusual the collection is kept by this museum – an ordinary house built of wood back in the nineteenth century. The place for the opening of the museum was not chosen by chance. It was here – back in the late nineteenth century – that the first tram car in the country was created.
The production is still open, which automatically makes this city the only one in Russia where a tram enterprise has been operating for such a significant period of time. However, this is not surprising, because today the tram business is experiencing a real renaissance.
Museum “House of the Samovar”
The small Kolomna museum is a multi-colored pysanka under low vaults with dozens of flat and pot-bellied, high and low, round and rectangular samovars. At the heart of such an impressive collection is the private collection of the Burov family.
In addition to samovars, the museum also received old kerosene lamps, irons, jewelry and vintage clothing. The Burov family managed to leave a truly complete collection of things that tell in colors about the culture and life of the nineteenth century.
Once in this museum, you are guaranteed to dispel a couple of popular misconceptions for yourself. Suffice it to say that samovars appeared not in Mother Russia, as one might assume, but in Asia. We are talking first about Ancient China, and only then about Iran and other countries.
In Russia, the samovar appeared only by the eighteenth century, but it entered the life of a Russian person so firmly that it is almost impossible to imagine them in isolation.
Museum “Secrets of Kolomna mead”
Honey making and beekeeping have always been at the head of a galaxy of crafts for which Kolomna was famous. So that the traditions of past centuries are not forgotten, the museum “Secrets of Kolomna mead” was opened. An outbuilding of the house of the famous local merchant and philanthropist Makeev was chosen for its placement.
The organizers of the museum did an excellent job of restoring the wine cellars, managing to create in them an atmosphere typical of the era of their foundation. Medovush was once called the cellar in which honey drinks were stored.
Hence the name of the museum. The tour usually takes place in the company of a housekeeper, a mead maker and a beekeeper, who acquaint guests with the history of beekeeping, talk about how the image of honey has changed in epics and chronicles.
During the tour, you will be able to taste various varieties of honey on your own. After visiting the museum, you can visit a local shop that sells products made on the basis of honey – from gingerbread to honey wines.
Museum of Linen and Life of a Russian Woman
This museum is located in the historical part of the city, in the immediate vicinity of Kuznechnaya Sloboda. The collections of the museum contain numerous towels, spinning wheels and Russian costumes of various eras. The guide will tell you about how thin, light-colored clothes are obtained from a tiny grain of linen.
You will get to know a little more about the process of making yarn using a loom, spinning wheel and spindle. At the end of the tour, you can stay for one of the regularly held workshops, where you can try to make a small linen souvenir or a linen doll as a talisman.
If you do not want to make a souvenir or you do not have enough time left, you can look into the store at the museum and purchase handicrafts made by hand.