Falconry Yard, Tsar's Embankment and the Ascension

⏱ 1 h 15 min🚶 1.5 km🍽 0📍 5 stops

🐢 A little — under 3 km

Along the river on a wooden boardwalk to the pier, then up the hill to the Church of the Ascension with the best view of the bend, and into Kazan Garden with its new art objects.

🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature⏱ An hour or so

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

1
🖼 Falcon Yard in Kolomenskoye
музей-заповедник «Коломенское», вход со стороны Царской набережной
🎟 ticket · tickets on Mosbilet
The yard of the tsar's falconers, renewed in 2026: an exhibition on falconry, birds of prey and flight shows.
About 5 minutes from Klenovy Bulvar metro, entrance from the embankment side. We look at the yard from outside; the exhibition and the falconry flights are separate, another hour or so
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© A.Savin · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Falconry was Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich's favourite pastime: under him, more than three thousand hunting birds were kept at the royal hunting yards.
- The present yard was recreated in 2007 as a reminder of the krechatnya, where hunting birds were kept in the old days.
- In 2026 the complex was modernised: conditions for the birds were improved, the falconer's house was restored and the exhibition was made interactive.
- A snow-white canopy and a visitor centre with a facade of decorative panels were added to the yard.
- Visitors are told about the traditions of the "red hunt" and shown flights of birds of prey.
🚶 on foot
2
🚶 Tsarskaya Embankment and Kolomenskoye pier
музей-заповедник «Коломенское», вдоль Москвы-реки
🆓 free entry
Kolomenskoye's promenade, opened in 2025: 3.5 km along the Moskva River, a wooden deck over the water, swings with evening lighting and a renewed pier for river cruises.
Go south along the river on the wooden boardwalk to the pier: there are swings along the embankment and a café by the pier.
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© Юрий Д.К. · CC BY 4.0
© Юрий Д.К. · CC BY 4.0
© Mike like0708 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The promenade stretches 3.5 km along the Moskva River, from the mouth of the Zhuzha River to Saburovsky Bridge.
- The pedestrian part was widened with a wooden deck and a separate running track was added.
- Along the embankment there is an avenue of swings that light up in the evening, and four viewing platforms, two of them with steps down to the water.
- The renovation rebuilt the pier square, where river cruises depart from.
- In winter 2025/26 the embankment became a 1.7 km ice rink that held more than 2,500 people at once.
🚶 on foot
3
🏛 Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye
A white-stone tent-roofed church on a high bank, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Climb the hill from the pier. In 2026 the viewing platform on Voznesenskaya Square was renovated — the best view of the river bend is from here.
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© Raita Futo from Tokyo, Japan · CC BY 2.0
© Ludvig14 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The church was built in 1532 on the orders of Vasily III, by a common version in honour of the birth of his son, the future Ivan the Terrible.
- It is one of the first stone tent-roofed churches in Rus; it is about 62 metres tall.
- The author was probably the Italian architect Petrok Maly.
- In 1994 the church was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
- Inside, the church is very cramped: almost all of the volume goes upward, into the tent.
- Nearby is Golosov Ravine, with the boulders Devy and Gus-Kamen, around which many legends circulate.
🚶 on foot
4
🏛 Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Kolomenskoye
просп. Андропова, 39, стр. 9
🆓 free entry
A working five-domed church from the mid-17th century with blue domes, built under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich: it was a palace church, with a wooden palace next to it.
An active church, free entry. On the way from the Ascension is the 17th-century Sytny Yard, where bread was baked and kvass made for the tsar's table.
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© Pufacz · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Ludvig14 · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Butsenin · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Stone churches of the Kazan Icon, this one included, began to be built after 1649, when veneration of the Kazan Icon was introduced church-wide in honour of the birth of Tsarevich Dmitry.
- It was a household church: a passage about 50 metres long linked it to the wooden royal palace.
- The exact date of construction is disputed; the brick church was most likely built in 1662–1670.
- The north porch serves as the base of the tented bell tower.
- Services here were almost never interrupted: the church was closed only in 1941–1942.
- The main shrine is the Derzhavnaya (Sovereign) Icon of the Mother of God: it was found in Kolomenskoye on 2 (15) March 1917, the day Nicholas II abdicated, and returned here in 1990.
- According to legend, the Virgin Mary twice showed the peasant woman Evdokia the icon's location in a dream — it was found in the cellar of the neighbouring Church of the Ascension.
🚶 on foot
5
🌳 Kazan Garden in Kolomenskoye
музей-заповедник «Коломенское», у Казанской церкви
🆓 free entry
One of the three surviving historic apple orchards of Kolomenskoye; in 2026 the art objects "Apples in the Garden" and "Falcon with Branches" were installed here, and at the edge of the garden there is a rest area with a mirrored art object.
Find the art objects “Apples in the Garden” and “Falcon with Branches” in the garden — they were installed in 2026.
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© Valentina Dyptan · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Skycreek · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Ulaisaeva · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The Kolomenskoye gardens were planted as early as the 17th century; of six historic gardens, three survive — Kazan, Dyakovo and Voznesenie.
- The Kazan Garden, like the Dyakovo one, grows on its original, historic site.
- All the gardens of the museum-reserve hold more than 4,000 trees, and many of the apple trees are of a venerable age.
- Apple blossom in Kolomenskoye lasts from 6 to 18 days, so catching it is not possible every year.
- The 2026 art objects nod to the history of the place: "Apples in the Garden" symbolises the garden and fertility, "Falcon with Branches" the tsar's falconry.