Varskaya Street was first mentioned in the “Murder Records” from the 1420s and 1430s along with Velikaya Street, which runs from the Kremlin through the Timofeyev (now named Konstantin-Yeleninsksaya) gate and down along the bank of the Moscow river. According to the one theory, the street got its name from the word “varya” (in Russian, “varya” means “to boil”), a step in the honey-making process. Even if this story is true, the street’s original etymology was forgotten after Varvarka became home to the newly constructed Church of St. Varvara.

At the end of the 15th century, Grand Prince Ivan III — more commonly known as Ivan the Great — began large-scale construction in the capital city: Italian architects built
state-of-the-art walls and towers around the Kremlin as well as the Faceted Chamber, the Assumption, Annunciation, and Archangel cathedrals inside the Kremlin walls.

Many noblemen, church clergy, and wealthy merchants followed the Grand Prince’s example and built themselves stone chambers in the Kremlin in the 15th century. In 1514, Aloisio Fryazin was commissioned by three rich merchants to build a church at the beginning of Varvarka. The following message was recorded in the Patriarchal Chronicles: “This very summer, a brick cathedral in honor of the Great Martyr Varvara was constructed by architect Aloisio Fryazin at the behest of merchants Vasily Bobr, Fyodor Vepr and Yushka Urvikhvostov.” The small, square, brick church with a single dome was built at the top of the street, across from the Old English Court, a private home for wealthy merchants in Moscow.

The patrons who commissioned Aloisio Fryazin to build the church came from the merchant town of Surozh — a large, wealthy and influential town of traders. In the second half of the 14th century, under Dmitry Donskoy, Surozh traded focused on Southern Europe, especially the Byzantine Empire and other Mediterranean territories. The Surozh had a trade outpost in the Genoese colony of Surozh, now the present-day town of Sudak in Crimea.

By the end of the 15th century and into the 16th century, the children and grandchildren of the Surozh merchant class had become boyars and big financiers in the Grand Prince’s court. Their estates were situated along the southern side of Varvarka Street between Maly Znamensky and Zaryadyevsky lanes.

Later, Vasily Bobr and his comrades built two more stone churches on their estates — the Church of Maximus the Blessed and the Church of the Holy Myrrhbearers. Manor houses with stone chambers were built nearby and used for both residence and storage. In 1557, the palace of Vasiliy Bobr was rebuilt after a fire. At this point, Bobr had begun serving in the Treasury, and his residence was at the Old English Court, the first diplomatic trade mission in Russia.