File:The old English Court.jpg

English: Opened to coincide with the state visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1994, this museum is housed in one of the oldest secular buildings in Moscow, the former home of the first foreign representation in the Russian capital.

The Old English Court, built as a private home for a wealthy merchant in the Zaryadie region, was presented by Ivan the Terrible to a group of English merchants who arrived in Murmansk in 1553 from the court of Edward IV.

Although good relations suffered when Elizabeth I repeatedly rejected Ivan's proposals of marriage - the third English envoy to the Tsar was kept under house arrest here - trade flourished between the two countries for almost a century, with the English bringing wool, metals and wine in return for furs, caviar, honey and other Russian produce. Russian timber was used to build the English fleet, and the Russian army was equipped with English muskets and ammunition.

In 1649, Tsar Aleksei I brought the alliance - which had seen an unprecedented number of foreigners journey to Russia to work as craftsmen, civil servants and explorers - to an abrupt end, expelling the English traders as a mark of his disgust at the execution of Charles I.