This is Kolomenskoe's operational Church of the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan, built in 1644 by Tsar Alexei in memory of the war against the Poles during the Time of Troubles. Inside the elderly ladies who bustle about keeping everything in order provide the best reminder in modern, post-Soviet Russia of the world and attitudes of the USSR. When we were there the vestibule was thronged with other old ladies selling budding willow cuttings which people buy as symbols of spring.
