Information about the building

The three-tiered tower, built between 1671 and 1679, served as the ceremonial entrance to the Izmaylovo estate. A stone arch bridge led to it from the south across the Silver Pond. The first floor housed gates and стрелецкие службы, while the third floor contained the bell tower of the neighboring Pokrovsky Cathedral. The second floor was used as a heated chamber for receiving guests, and the pipes from the stoves, preserved to this day, can be seen in the corners of the covered gallery of the tower.

Since 1696, the estate was home to Queen Praskovya Fyodorovna, the widow of Tsar Ivan V, the brother of Peter the Great, along with their three daughters, the princesses Ekaterina, Anna, and Praskovya. They lived in Izmaylovo permanently until 1713, after which they visited occasionally. When Anna Ioannovna became empress, she made Izmaylovo her residence. It is believed that during this time, the government and senate gathered on the second floor of the Bridge Tower.

In the 1920s, the Bridge Tower was occupied by communal workers. The commune of the aviation factory 'Salyut,' one of the first in Moscow, took over the entire Izmaylovsky Island, transforming it into a workers' town named after Bauman. The former chambers were inhabited by builders of the new state. Later, during the Soviet era, the tower housed communal apartments and various institutions. Today, it is home to the 'Moscow Tile' museum, which opened in 2008.

Restoration

In 2021, the restoration of the tower was completed, during which specialists fully restored its historical appearance. Doors and gates, windows, window grilles were recreated, and the white stone plinth, porches and canopies above them, staircases, and all decorative elements, as well as the floors in the gallery surrounding the building, which is a characteristic element of Russian architecture, were restored.

The greatest challenge was preserving and recreating the lost polychrome tiles symbolizing the paradise garden. This was a long and meticulous task. The Bridge Tower features 384 tiles: 288 at the end of the first tier and 96 between the second and third tiers. During the restoration, it was discovered that the tiles of the first tier were recreated and installed by Konstantin Ton in the 1840s-1850s, as well as during later restorations in the 1950s-1980s. Meanwhile, the tiles between the third and second tiers turned out to be authentic 17th-century tiles, and their restoration was carried out on-site.