Due to the mass exodus of court nobility and rich merchants to the new capital city lasted through the 1750s, almost no substantive construction took place in Zaryadye. At best, old stone buildings were rebuilt for new purposes but were still peripheral and wooden. As a result, the grand Moscow market, with its rows of stone shops with wooden counters and stalls, began to spread farther east of Kitay Gorod, gradually swallowing up parts of Varvarka Street and the inner squares of Zaryadye.

In the first land survey plan of Moscow (The Plan of the Imperial Capital City of Moscow, compiled by architect Ivan Michurin in 1739) Zaryadievsky, Pskov and Krivoy streets in Zaryadye are shown running south from Varvarka Street, and Mokrinsky, Ershov and Yeletsky lanes are shown originating from Moskvoretskaya Street and heading east. There were trading stalls that sold butter, apple, and other products on both sides of Moskvoretsky Street, many of which belonged to Ivan Medovshchikov, a top guild merchant who lived nearby on Varvarka Street.

At one point in time, the Mytny courtyard was a customs duty station to brand cattle to be sold in Moscow. But by 1725, the space was converted into a market with shops under the arched galleries of the courtyard. The entire premise of the courtyard was more or less occupied by meat and poultry traders, and there was an inn with snack bars and a pub in the southern building. Another large tavern was opened at the Varvarka gates, next to the old prisons.

In addition to numerous shops, craftsman workshops, and drinking establishments, private textiles appeared in Zaryadye. From chronicled archives of the 18th century, we know: “he who lives in the courtyard essentially has his own workshop, and the courtyards created natural boundaries.” For example, the document tells us of a sizable textile mill near the Varvarka gate that housed 77 weaving machines owned by a certain F.S. Poddevalshchikov. Also on Varvarka, there was a small textile workshop (only five cloth weaving stations) inside the parish of the Church of St. Georgiy. The third and smallest textile workshop (with three looms) near the Church of Maximus the Blessed in Zaryadye, was owned by someone by the name of Athanasius Fedorov.

In 1732, the Empress Anna Ioannovna, who was temporarily residing in Moscow, ordered lanterns to be placed every 10 sazhens (about every 70 feet) on the streets inside the Kremlin and Kitay Gorod. This brought a new profession to Moscow, which lasted for nearly 200 years, of the lamplighter who would light the lanterns each evening, and then in the morning extinguish the oil (later replaced with kerosene). Varvarka Street and the smaller alleys of Zaryadye had already been paved with cobblestone by the time Anna Ioannovna began her reign as Empress. People who owned the plots of land facing the streets had to pay for pavement in front of their houses. The Znamensky Monastery, which occupied the entire block and bordered Varvarka, Pskov, Bolshoy Znamensky and Maly Znamensky, had to pave more than 500 square sazhens (more than a square kilometer) at their own expense, a costly endeavor in those days.

In 1793, the government took up the project of urban infrastructure in Zaryadye. Ivan Michurin, the author of the city’s first land survey and architect of office of the city’s police chief, put together a plan to lay sewage pipes leading to the Moscow River in the lower part of Zaryadye to help transfer sewage flowing from Kitay Gorod.

Despite the numerous attempts by Peter the Great and his successors to regulate and streamline Moscow’s construction unapproved stables, barns, sheds, shop stalls, snack bars, pancake kiosks, barber shops, and other structures were still being built in Kitay Gorod, especially in the Zaryadye area, throughout the 1820s, 1830s, and even 1840s. Without permission, land owners extended their property into vacant lots. But the situation changed in 1742 with the coronation of Elizabeth Petrovna.

Under Elizabeth, streets in Moscow were widened to 16.8 meters and lanes to 8.4 m. Continuing her father’s work, Elizabeth established permanent “architectural classes” in the Moscow Police Chancellery to draft and review projects for construction. The office was staffed with a sufficient number of specialists. Finally, approval of all individual construction projects both on the street side and courtyard side became mandatory and ubiquitous.