Most of the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve now looks like this

Most of the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve now looks like this. A continuous fence with pinpoint access to the architectural ensemble, while the protected park itself has been effectively sealed off and dug up.

I did not go to the trouble of finding out why the work is being done, or to what end. There is so much mud around that circling the whole fence in search of the project notice would be rather difficult. But, in principle, it is all quite clear as it is.

Kerbstoning of the protected village of the Muscovite tsars. Anyone who has been to the estate remembers how the oak grove and the apple orchard looked; they required no refurbishment of the Patriarch's Ponds variety.

As someone for whom Kolomenskoye is one of the best-loved places in Moscow, I am not cheered by what is happening. All this work began literally at the moment when new wording was adopted in the law on specially protected territories, which in effect permitted building on nature reserves. I suspect that when the "object" is handed over, we shall all be greatly surprised by the formats of urban infrastructure brought into a reserve of old Russian antiquity.

But optimists of total paving-slab improvement and urbanist enthusiasts may well find many merits in the project.