Kolomenskoye is one of the most ancient places of human habitation within modern Moscow. Archaeological items discovered in its vicinity witness Stone Age (V-III millennium B.C.) settlements once existing here. In old times the village of Kolomenskoye near Moscow came to be directly involved into the historical events known as the Time of Troubles.
In 1923, a small museum was founded at the historically shaped ensemble of Russian Grand Princes and Tsars’ country estate; this museum was to grow up overtime into a complex Kolomenskoye art and architectural museum-reserve with a total area of 254.6 hectares. The unique landscape of Kolomenskoye bears traces of many generations’ life and activities.
Not far from the centre of Kolomenskoye estate, in Dyakovo, the most ancient settlement within modern Moscow appeared 2.5 thousand years ago on a roundish flap-top hill. This site known as Dyakovo Settlement gave its name to Dyakovo archaeological culture. Besides, archaeologists have recently discovered a settlement dated by early Middle Ages (VIII – X centuries AD) in the central part of Kolomenskoye as well as a unique Dyakovo-poyma settlement, which represents an ancient Russian village dated by XI-XII centuries, at the foot of Dyakovo Hill.
On the high bank of Moskva River one can see the Church of the Ascension built in 1532. It is one of the first tent-roof stone churches in Old Russia. In the XVI and XVII centuries, this church, small in interior dimensions, served as a summer family chapel of the Russian Tsars. In 1994, the church was included into the UNESCO World Heritage List altogether with Moscow Kremlin and the Red Square. Nowadays, according to an agreement with the Patriarchy, the church is jointly used by the museum and the patriarchal metochion that was founded in1994. In1917, the great miracle-working icon of Our Lady of Sovereign was uncovered on the ground floor of the church.