Archaeological data shows that between the 13th and 15th centuries, Veliky Posad (in Russian, the “Great Settlement”) was densely populated by artisans, especially in the riverside area (now Zaryadye). Trace remains of industries such foundry, jewelry, forging, pottery, leather making, shoemaking, tailoring, bone carving and other handicrafts were found in the excavation.

The plain at the bottom of the foothill in Veliky Posad was inhabited by merchants, due to the proximity to the shipping pier and Velikaya Street, the transport link for goods sent from the river up to the city. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Surozh residents, the Greek and Russian merchants who traded with the Sudak, a Genoese colony in Crimea, lived in Zaryadye. In 1514, the Surozh merchants Vasily Bobr, Fyodor Veprya, and Yuri Urvikhvostov erected the stone church of St. Varvara on Varvarka Street.

In the second half of the 16th century, the social fabric of the densely populated Kitay Gorod and the southern division of Zaryadye began to change to some degree.

The river pier was no longer part of the neighborhood layout — it was moved to the mouth of the Yauza river, further north and east. Velikaya Street was immersed in new construction.

The patchwork of different social populations in Zaryadye settled in homes of various size and type — from impoverished monk cells to vaulted brick chambers with stone flooring and wooden attics. Each home was surrounded by a fence, had a courtyard, and maintenance buildings. This can be clearly seen in the medieval Moscow city plan dating back to 1597. The whole city is composed of courtyards, both big and small. In Zaryadye, tariffs and customs for imported goods were collected in the Romanov, Monetny, and Mytny courtyards. The Mytny courtyard can be architecturally traced along old manure layers, since the cattle would wait in the courtyard for the owner to pay the tariff.

The prisons were unfavorably located on a rugged and steep descent under Pskov Hill, and water from the hill would flow down into the prisons. There is evidence how prisoners would collectively beat the authorities and demand for them to clean out the clogged drainage pipes so that they “wouldn’t die in perdition.”

The 1626 census mentions Zaryadye residents Prince Vasily Yanshevich Suleshov — a cadet and royal carver at the court of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich — and boyar Ivan Fyodorovich Basmanov as living at the corner of Ershov Lane and Zachatievskaya Street. However, in the beginning of the 17th century, Zaryadye was by no means an aristocratic neighborhood: most residents couldn’t even afford to build a brick house. Nor did they want to, considering that life in wooden quarters was much healthier than in a stifled, damp stone building. The wealthier households — those of deacons, scribes, rank-and-file noblemen, merchants, priests, clerks, guards, and tradesmen — were fenced off with wicket gates.

City plans from the 1660s make note of several courtyards in Zaryadye that belong to known dignitaries. Simon the icon painter lived in a notable estate next to the St. Georgiy Church on Pskov Hill.

In 1667, he appealed to the tsar with a petition: “Your great sovereign decree gives me, your servant, icons and student affairs, yet I only have a small courtyard in the dirty mud of Kitay Gorod, and nowhere to build even a straw house to make icons or teach students.” Ushakov’s request was granted and he was given and a complementary courtyard from the widowed Ksenia Yudina on Posolskaya Street (now Nikolskaya), which he refurbished, and then completely rebuilt after a fire, but he couldn’t hold onto the property. Later Ushakov likely was given stone chambers on Ipatyevsky street next to Trinity Church on Nikitinsky, monuments which have survived until present day.

One of the highest ranks of boyars — an okolnichiy — by the name of Ivan Afansaevich Gavrenev, who had previously served as a Duma clerk and was a top diplomat, also lived in Zaryadye. His courtyard was next to the Church of Nikolay Chudotvorets (the Miracle Worker). Adjacent was the court of Deacon Vasily Vladimirovich Brekhov, who became famous for his scandalous demeanor: he mingled with comrades in the military and government, which deacons usually did not do. Brekhov’s opponents wrote that his fraternization was to increase “his own great wealth and power”. Whether that was true or not, Brekhov came out ahead from the schism. Another interesting figure from this era is Deacon Anton Ivanovich Ivanov who died in 1709. He lived next to the prison yard. He oversaw the local administration department, and made a fortune from taking bribes from over 16,000 peasants. Razbogatev and Ivanov moved away from Zaryadye and built a palace on Vagankovsky hill, where the modern-day Pashkov house stands.