A Walk Around Kolomna

9 points3 km0 hours

Kolomna is one of the oldest towns in the Moscow region, with a well-preserved kremlin. Here you can soak up the atmosphere of historic Russia, with cobblestones, churches and wooden houses. The town draws visitors with museums on unusual themes and its unhurried pace of life. Kolomna stands at the confluence of three rivers, an hour's drive from Moscow.

Route author

Susanin Team

Things to do

📜 Learn the city's history
🍲🎶 Local culture
💡🎨 Look for inspiration

Route points (9)

Pastila Museum Factory in Kolomna

Point on route “A Walk Around Kolomna”

Point 3

Pastila Museum Factory

🕵️ Urban legend • 📜 Historic site • 🏛️ Museum

Origins of the Treat

Kolomna has long been famous for its apple orchards. As early as pre-Mongol times, people here preserved apples for the winter, and apple pastila (a light fruit confection) became a kind of “medieval preserve.” The first small factories appeared in the 18th century, and in the second half of the 19th century the largest producer was the factory of the merchant Karp Fomich Chuprikov. It was he who took Kolomna pastila to the world stage: it was shown at the World's Fair in Paris in 1867 and in Vienna in 1873, winning medals and attracting real public interest.

A Merchant Factory

The founder's son, Pyotr Chuprikov, expanded the business into a modern confectionery factory with workshops making pastila, candies and preserves. The factory had its own shop, and the packaging with engraved images became the brand's calling card. Kolomna pastila made the town famous and became a firm part of its cultural identity.

Disappearance and Revival

In the early 20th century the factories closed, the recipes were forgotten, and for more than a hundred years pastila was only a memory. That changed in 2008, when the Chuprikov factory recipe was found in the archives of the Russian State Library. In 2011 a historic building on Polyanskaya Street was restored, and the Museum Factory began re-creating the authentic taste of Kolomna pastila.

The Museum Today

Today the museum occupies the Chuprikov merchants' estate and re-creates the atmosphere of an old-time factory. You can see the workshop, underground storerooms, an outbuilding with the factory shop and an apple orchard. The museum makes several kinds of pastila from old recipes: with egg white, without it, and dense. Theatrical tours, workshops and tea with pastila turn learning about the treat's history into a cultural journey. The museum is part of the Kolomenskiy Posad cluster and one of the town's symbols.