Kremlin in Izmailovo

The Izmailovo Kremlin is a themed crafts park built between 1998 and 2007 in northeastern Moscow, recreating seventeenth-century Russian wooden architecture in brightly painted, almost theatrical form. It opened in 2001 next to the city's largest souvenir market, the Vernissage, and openly presents itself as a picture-book Russia for families and travellers. Inside sit a Vodka Museum, a Bread Museum and a Matryoshka Museum, plus a working smithy and a small wooden chapel where weddings are held. Visitors wander lanes of gingerbread, fur hats and lacquer miniatures and can try felting or pottery themselves. The result is not authentic heritage but a deliberately staged backdrop, which many Muscovites accept with a smile because it gives the simplest single-stop access to Russian crafts.