Krutitskoye Podvorye

Krutitsy was the Moscow residence of the bishops of Sarai and later of the Krutitsy metropolitans, and what survives is a small ensemble from the 1680s and 90s tucked behind ordinary streets near the Moskva: the Assumption cathedral, the bishops' chambers, a covered gallery on arches, and the Teremok - a gate tower whose whole facade is faced in glazed polychrome tiles, several thousand of them, made in the workshops of the period in green, yellow, blue and white, with columns wound in tile foliage. It is one of the best surviving pieces of seventeenth-century Russian tile work anywhere. The lanes around are cobbled and low-walled, and because the site is small, unsignposted and off the tourist routes it stays quiet in a way almost nothing central in Moscow does. Restoration in the twentieth century was led by Pyotr Baranovsky, who saved a good deal of Moscow architecture from demolition.

History

Orthodox clergy founded the Diocese of Sarai in the Golden Horde capital in 1261, and Prince Daniel of Moscow gave it land on the bank of the Moskva, where its first church was finished in 1272; the diocese moved to Moscow in 1454. During the Time of Troubles its Dormition Cathedral was for a time the main cathedral of Muscovy, and the fire of 1737 burned its old wooden roofs, which were replaced with tin (Wikipedia, Krutitsy).

Highlights

• The Teremok - a gate tower faced entirely in thousands of glazed polychrome tiles.
• The gallery - a covered arcade on arches linking the chambers.
• The cobbled lanes - low-walled streets that keep a seventeenth-century scale.
• The quiet - a central Moscow site that almost nobody visits.

When to go

May to September; the tiles read best in sunlight. One hour. Free and open, though the churches keep service hours.

Before you go

Very small - an hour covers it. Signage is minimal and the site is easy to walk past. Some buildings are closed and used by the church. The surrounding area is ordinary industrial-edge Moscow.

Nearby

Novospassky monastery is a short walk; the Moskva river is south.

Key facts