of St. Nikolay the Wet, or Nikolay Chudotvorets (the Miracle Worker) was the first church in Zaryadye.
Panorama of the churches and architectural monuments on Varvarka. Restoration project by the workshop of I. Kazakevich. 1960s
Church of the Conception of St. Anne
in the Kitai-Gorod wall. 1922. D.P. Sukhov
The Church of the Conception of St. Anne is one of the oldest surviving churches along the riverside in Zaryadye. The church’s name comes from the fact it was located in the marshy Vasilievsky grasslands of Veliky Posad (The Great Settlement). After the Kitay Gorod wall was built in the 1630s, the church was situated on the corner of the city wall, so the church was given another name — the Church of the Conception of Anna on the Corner (in Russian, ’ve uglu’) — which it is still called today, only now the church is on the ’corner’ of Kitaygorodsky and Moskvoretskaya streets and Zaryadye Park.
The church was referenced in a description of the Moscow fire of 1493. During the church’s restoration in 1955-1958, which included scientific archeological research, bricks from the main building could be dated back to the mid to late 16th century. The church’s cellar and walls were made from limestone sourced near Moscow, and the vaults and dome drum are lined with small bricks.
Judging by the different architectural style from the time of Boris Godunov, the St. Mina sacrarium was added to the south side of St. Anne’s Cathedral in the beginning of the 17th century. Between 1658 and 1688, the St. Ekaterina sacrarium was added to the north side to commemorate the birth of Ekaterina Alekseevna, the daughter of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich. The church was rebuilt and restored over the years, and at the end of the 17th century, the original helmet-shaped cupola was replaced with an onion dome. In the 1920s, the church closed, and in 1941 it was one of the first churches to be demolished in preparation for the construction of the second Sovnarkom building in Zaryadye. A scientific study of the church was ordered at the initiative of the Soviet Academy of Architecture to be delivered to the Kolomenskoye Museum. However, the outbreak of World War II disrupted these plans being executed. After the war in the 1950s, the Church of St. Anne was reconstructed.
Church of St. Varvara the Great Martyr
The majority of churches that have survived to this day along the southern side of Varvarka Street were proceeded by private estate churches that date back to the second half of the 14th century. The Church of St. Varvara was one of these churches. According to archeological data, the first wooden Church of St. Varvara was built in the 14th century, and then further south on the land plot, another stone church was commissioned by merchant Vasily Bobr and his clan and built by Italian architect Aloisio Fryazin in 1514.
The church was renovated in 1731 to commemorate the coronation of Empress Anna Ioannovna. Just sixty years later, the Moscow metropolitan Platon decided to demolish the ancient church, which was still in good physical and condition, but according to the bishop, despite the church’s “strong foundation and ornamental contents” the “aesthetic was poor and the church décor wasn’t suitable given the location”. The old church that didn’t meet the bishop’s decorum standards was leveled to its foundation in 1795. A new modern church atop a high mounting was built in 1796-1808 by Rodion Kazakov, a student of Matvey Kazakov, a neoclassical architect famous (the two shared a name, but were not related). Rodion’s project was funded by the merchant Nikolay Samgin and colonel Ivan Baryshnikov. The church was rebuilt several times following 1812, the year of the great Moscow fire and occupation of the French army. In the 1920s, as part of the anti-religious policy of the Soviet government, the church — like others in Zaryadye — was closed. From 1964-1967, many of the 19th century buildings surrounding the church were torn down. After many years of neglect, the church was refurbished.
Church of Maximus the Blessed
The church honoring holy princes Boris and Gleb was built in the northeast corner of Zaryadye on the estate of Fyodor Kochkin, and was first mentioned 1434 chronicles. When Maximus the Blessed, “a servant of God and fool for Christ” was buried here, a sacrarium was built in his honor, and the name became popular with people.
In the first half of the 16th century, Vasily Bobr and his brotherhood ordered the construction of the Church of St. Varvara, but insisted it not be built of wood, but a new stone material that was consecrated in honor of the Byzantine monk and theologian St. Maximus the Confessor. One of the sacrariums of the new church was named after Saints Boris and Gleb, but despite the new official name, people continued to identify the church with Maximus, whose relics were kept in the cathedral until the church’s assets were confiscated following the October Revolution.
In 1698-1699, merchants Maxim Verkhovitin and Maxim Sharovnikov commissioned an unknown architect to build a new building on the site that embodied characteristics from 17th century Russian church architecture. A bell tower and a refectory have been preserved to this day. In 1829, instead of destroying the old bell tower, a new one was built, which is still standing today. Worship services were held until the early 1930s when the church was closed. The church was restored in 1965-1969 during the construction of Rossiya Hotel, and then transferred to Central Committee of the All-Russian Society of Nature Conservation. After 1991, the cathedral was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Church of St. Georgiy on Pskov Hill
The first church on this site was documented by Grand Prince Vasily II in a religious document. At first, the church’s alter was dedicated to the Mantle of Our Lady. But in the first half of the 16th century, after the Moscow and Pskov principalities had merged, Pskov’s arquebus-armed soldiers — one of the most advanced gun-toting troops of the time — were relocated to the area of Zaryadye. The natural land boundary where the church stood was given the unusual name of Pskov Hill. The church was sometimes called ‘Georgiy, land of the old prisons’ since it was adjacent to the State Prison Yard located at Varvarka Gate on the Kitay Gorod wall. The first stone church was erected here in the early years of Ivan the Terrible’s reign. To this day, whitewashed stone from the church’s basement is level with the present-day foundation. The cellar is divided into vaulted chambers, which was customary at the time so that church parishioners could protect valuable property from fires and robberies. The church that can be seen today was built in 1657. Due to the land’s particular slope, there are two cellars — on Varvarka Street there is a single-story structure, and on the Zaryadye Park side, there is a three-story building. This configuration was extremely uncharacteristic of the church architectural cannons of the mid 17th century.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the St. Georgiy Church stood at the heart of Varvarka Street, intersecting four small side streets. In 1812, Moscow suffered from a great fire as well as the occupation of French troops. In 1815-1818 the church was rebuilt with financial backing from the merchant Peter Solovyov. A new bell tower, monastery canteen, and portico were built upon the original foundation in early neo-Gothic style, and a side alter dedicated to St. Georgiy was erected. The first worship service was held on March 20, 1818. A handwritten notebook —along with the icon of St. Georgiy the Martyr — documents the history of the church. These items were presented to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna on the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty by the parish group led by Nikolay Tsvetkov. The notebook is currently being kept at the Russian Federation State Archives.
Following the revolution, the church was shut down in the 1920s and was repurposed as a warehouse. From 1965-1972, architect E. A. Diedesfeld oversaw the church’s restoration. In the 1970s, the St. Georgiy Church (like many other architectural artefacts in Zaryadye) was transferred to the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments and was used as a space for temporary exhibitions. After 1991, the church was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church and restored as part of the Zaryadye Park construction.
Znamensky Cathedral and Monastery
The history of Znamensky Monastery and its cathedral is closely linked with the history of the Romanov boyar family, who gave rise to Mikhail Fyodorovich who came to rule Russia as tsar in 1613.
The Znamensky Monastery is currently made up of five buildings. The most prominent is the Our Lady of the Sign Cathedral, named after the revered 12th century icon. In 1170, the Vladimir-Suzdal army besieged Novgorod. According to legend, Archbishop Ilya prayed to the Our Lady icon in the ancient St. Sophia Cathedral to help the Novgorod citizens fight off their enemies into retreat. His prayers were answered. The Our Lady icon was especially venerated by Romanov descendants Zakharyin-Yuryevs, a family whose forefather Andrey Kobyl is thought to be a noble boyar of Novgorod, according to researchers.
The monastery was most likely founded on the side of the ‘Old State Court’ in 1631. As a result of the devastating Moscow fire of 1626, wooden structures on the territory were destroyed. A few years later, Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich handed over the estate over to the church and established a monastery in memory of his mother Martha, a nun. According to another version, the monastery was founded a few years before her death in 1629 in honor of the birth of Alexey Mikhailovich, the future heir to the throne. One way or another, the chambers in the lower and upper cellars were transformed into small rooms for monks and abbots. The tsar provided the monastery with great support, and gifted the monastery several inherited estates and rural land in Moscow and Bezhetsk. After the monastery was ravished by another fire in 1668, Ivan Miloslavsky a boyar and relative of Maria Miloslavsky —the first vife of Alexey Mikhailovich took on the majority of construction and restoration costs. In 1676, the stone masons Fyodor Grigoriev and Grigory Alekseev from Kostroma built high-ceilinged two-story buildings for the nuns to live in. These structures are still located along Varvarka next to the Romanov palace. A heavy-duty stone wall was built around the monastery.
From 1679-1684, according to a contract worth 850 rubles, Grigoriev and Anisimov built the
Cathedral of Znamensky — which at the time was the second largest cathedral in Kitay
Gorod after the St. Basil’s — in the place of the old estate church
Due to the loose soil, the masons placed 2486 planks of hard wood in the ground and built an imposing
two-story cathedral with a high steepled bell tower. The cathedral’s alter screen features the Romanov family icon Our Lady of the Sign and royal contributions such as the Gospel that belonged to Patriarch Philaret, a silver crucifix, and a satin clergy robe. The cathedral was formally consecrated on June 26, 1684 by Patriarch Joachim. The ceremony was probably attended by Princess Sophia, the daughter of Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich from his first wife, Miloslavskaya.
The monastery likely stopped receiving regular donations and support once Peter the Great ascended to the throne. One of the opinions among researchers is that Peter stopped donating to the Znamensky Monastery because of its connection to the Miloslavsky family (at this point led by Sophia) who were sworn enemies of the tsar. Once the Russian capital was moved to St. Petersburg, the cathedral lost its standing. In 1737, the monastery suffered great damage from a fire. By this time, Elizaveta Petrovna had come to power. Her coronation ceremony took place in Moscow, and she likely visited the Znamensky monastery and gave a renovation order. In 1767, architect Yakovlev built a new one-story service building on the territory, which now belongs to the State Historical Museum. In 1784, the 17th century bell tower was dismantled due to problems with the foundation, and a new bell tower and a row of monk cells were built. The monastery was demolished by the French in 1812, but the main relics were saved before Napoleon arrived in Moscow. In 1827, the monastery was renovated and brought back to life.
At the time, the monastery began renting out some of its space. Similar to other sites in historic Zaryadye, small cells for monks were built. By the end of the 19th century, several commercial buildings began to appear on the monastery’s territory.
The Znamensky Monastery — considered one of the main worship places of the Romanovs —was deconsecrated in the early 1920s as part of the Soviet anti-religious campaign. The cathedral and the other buildings were stripped of their interior and exterior religious decor and converted into dormitories and communal apartments. The former monastery was set for demolition (along with the rest of Zaryadye’s historical buildings) on several different occasions during the first decades of Soviet rule, but fortunately, the 17th-century Igumensky building and the 18th-century bell tower and monastery cells remain. In the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s, these monuments of Russian architecture were restored to their original appearance and then subsequently transferred to the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments to be used for lectures, exhibitions, and cultural events. After 1991, religious services resumed in the church.
