Within a walking distance from the Izmailovo Kremlin is a quiet island where you can see the tsar`s estate of Izmailovo. Ivan the Terrible gave these lands to Nikita Romanovich Zhakaryin-Yuryev, a brother of his first wife Anastasia Romanovna. He is considered the founder of the Romanov dynasty.
The sons of Nikita Romanovich were already the Romanovs. The elder son Fyodor Nikitich became the Russian patriarch Filaret. The Izmailovo estate was inherited by the younger son Ivan Nikitich Romanov, nicknamed «Kasha», an uncle of Mikhail Romanov, who became the first Russian Tsar of the house of Romanov in 1613.
Since 1640 the Izmailovo estate belonged to the son of Ivan Nikitich, Nikita Ivanovich Romanov and after his death in 1654 the estate came into possession of the Dvortsovyi Prikaz, and became a summer residence of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich.
The walled Tsar`s Court with a wooden palace, churches and housekeeping buildings was built under Alexei Mikhailovich. Decorative orchards and vegetable gardens with rare southern plants were laid out in the valley of the Serebryanka river. There were also creameries, meaderies, mills, a brick factory and a glass factory there. To our day there survived the Intercession Cathedral (1679), the Front and Back Gates of the Tsar`s Court (1670 г) and the Mostovaya Tower (1671).
The son of Alexei Mikhailovich, the future Tsar and Emperor Peter I, was very fond of the Izmailovo Estate. It was there that he conducted the manoeuvres of his «toy army» in the 80th of 17 century. The «toy army» was organized into the Preobrazhensky and the Semenovsky Companies (later Regiments) and became the beginnings of the Russian Imperial Guard. The fun battles of small boats were also held on the Serebryany pond. Thanks to this Izmailovo was called the «cradle of Russian fleet.»
In 1837 in the Izmailovo Island there appeared a military hospice for the veterans of the Patriotic War of 1812. After 1917 the buildings of the hospice was given to the Bauman workers` quarters, which was then turned into a congregated living facility. Since the 70th of the past century various organizations have been housed in the buildings of the Tsar`s Court and the hospice.
