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VARVARKA STREET
This is the oldest street in Kitai Gorod. It goes back to the pre-Mongol period. Legend has it that the leader of the peasant uprising, Stepan Razin (c. 1630-71) was taken along it in chains on his way to be executed. Almost three centuries earlier, in 1380, the Moscow army of Grand Prince Dmitry of the Don marched along here on its way to fight the Tartars under Ma-mai. In the dim and distant past this street was the liveliest in the Great Settlement and had many trading booths. Today it is a veritable encyclopaedia of Moscow architecture, containing fine specimens from various periods.
Varvarka Street
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The ebullient, festive world of old Russian architecture opens up before us in Varvarka Street. Take, for example, the Church of St. Barbara (No. 2) which stands at the very beginning of the street on the right-hand side. This remarkably well-balanced church, cruciform in plan, is decorated with elegant Corinthian columns on its north and south facades. The large dome has a two-tiered upper section. The church was erected by Roman Kazakov at the end of the eighteenth century, using the foundations of an earlier church built in 1514 by Alevisio Novi. Kazakov reproduced many Renaissance features in this church.
The other side of Varvarka Street is taken up by the south facade of the Old Trading Court, which in the old days supplied not only Moscow but the whole of Russia with goods. This monumental building in classical style was erected by the architects Semyon Karin and Ivan Selekhov from a design by Giacomo Quarenghi in 1790-1805. The second stage of its construction was completed under the guidance of Osip Bove in the late 1820s.
The Trading Court takes up the whole block bordered by Varvarka and Ilyinka streets and Crystal and Fish lanes. Along the facades and the walls facing the inner courtyard there were originally two-storey open galleries, onto which the merchants' booths faced. On the inner courtyard side the galleries are divided up by pilasters, and on the street side by powerful Corinthian columns, which give the whole building a most majestic air.
View of Zaryadye
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Next to the Church of St. Barbara is one of Moscow oldest and most interesting buildings, the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Old English Court (No. 4) which once belonged to a rich merchant nicknamed Yushka. After his death these fine chambers with a sumptuous reception hall, living apartments and storerooms were presented by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to English merchants of the Muscovy Company. Almost a century later the English were compelled to leave Russia following an edict by Tsar Alexis, who was angered by the execution of King Charles I of England. The court then went down in the history of Russian education, when Peter the Great opened an Arithmetical School here.
The English Court is thought to have been built by the Italian Alevisio Novi. The north facade facing the street retains features of sixteenth-century architecture with its laconic clarity. The south facade, divided by pilaster strips, with its cornice and band of niches is the main facade and belongs to the beginning of the seventeenth century.
The single-domed Church of St. Maxim (17th century) separates the English Court from the town estate of the governor and political figure Nikita Zakharin-Yuriev, which is known as the Old Sovereign's Court (No. 10). It was frequently rebuilt. In the middle of the last century on the orders of Tsar Alexander II the architect Fyodor Richter restored the estate. The main house, which was intended to be a museum, consists of two-storey sections made of brick and a third storey of wood. The steep slope of the hill makes it impossible to see the semibasement and most of the ground floor from the street.
Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki
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A broad band of decorative brickwork marks the main, second storey. It is decorated with paired columns on the corners of the south facade and typical window surrounds with triangular pediments. On the east facade is a balcony supported by consoles. The second section, which adjoins the west side, has an attic with a tent roof. Architecturally the most interesting section is the semibasement made of white stone and covered with a cylindrical vault. It has survived unchanged from the original building. The chambers contain an exhibition organized by a branch of the State History Museum and entitled Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Chambers in Zaryadye, which illustrates everyday life in old Moscow using specimens of folk art from that period.
The chambers stand next to the former Monastery of the Sign, the ensemble of which grew up in 1675-84. It includes a powerful five-domed cathedral with bell-tower, the Brethren's Building and a building of monks' cells. The ensemble is dominated by the massive cathedral built of brick in 1679-84 by peasant serfs from Kostroma led by Fyodor Grigoriev and Grigory Anisimov.
The main arc of the Rossiya Hotel ramp divides the cathedral and the squat Brethren's Building from the eighteenth-century bell-tower and the seventeenth-century cells. Note the Church of St. George on Pskov Hill, (1657) (No. 12). This small five-domed church looks somewhat squat because its high semibasement is hidden by the steep slope and barely visible from the street. The refectory, north chapel and bell-tower were built in the last century, but contain fragments of earlier buildings. The church's rich ornament in the form of a cornice, a band of niches, typical window surrounds and kokoshniks stands out well against the bright red background of the walls.
This life-affirming festive building completes the row of monuments lining Varvarka Street like museum exhibits. But if you turn right down Kitaisky Passage and walk past the extant section of the wall to the embankment, you will see yet another "miracle" in stone, the miniature Church of the Conception of St. Anne, one of the oldest buildings in Zaryadye. It was built of brick by unknown masters in the early sixteenth century. The chapels and arcade were added later. The trifoliate termination of the facades, which are divided by pilaster strips, is determined by a special feature of its construction, namely its groin vault. This made it possible to treat the interior as a single space, without erecting piers or columns. This type of church became very widespread in old Russia.
On the left-hand side of Var-varka Street is Nikitnikov Lane, where you will find a splendid specimen of the Russian ornamental style, the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki (No. 3). It was built in 1631-4 by the rich merchant Grigory Nikitnikov and served as both a private and parish church. The south chapel, dedicated to St. Nicetas the Warrior, was the family burial vault.
The complex composition of the different sections placed on a high semibasement is dynamic and elegant. The small, but high cube of the church proper is crowned with a pyramid of decorative kokoshniks arranged in a chequered pattern and adorned with polychrome tiles. Above it rise the traditional five domes. This composition is repeated in the side chapels. The white-stone window surrounds and portals are covered with carved foliate ornament and strange birds. The side chapels, tent-roofed bell-tower, porch and refectory form a picturesque asymmetrical silhouette. The south facade facing the street is the most richly decorated. The church's frescoes and icons painted in the seventeenth century by the Tsar's icon-painter Simon Ushakov, are of great artistic value.
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