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.

What you actually see

• 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.

Honest expectations

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.