🚶 Varvarka Street

A short ancient street in Kitay-gorod with a string of churches, the Old English Court and the Romanov boyars' chambers on the slope down to the river.

The street is named after the Church of St Barbara; the present building was built in 1796–1804 by the architect Rodion Kazakov.
From 1933 to 1990 the street was called Razin Street; tradition says Stepan Razin was taken along it to his execution in 1671.
According to tradition, Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich was born in the Romanov boyars' chambers; a museum opened here in 1859, one of the first in Moscow.
Ivan the Terrible gave the 16th-century Old English Court to the English merchants of the Muscovy Company in 1556.
The street still has the churches of Maxim the Blessed and of George on Pskovskaya Hill, and the 17th-century Znamensky Monastery.
The south side of the street was occupied by the Rossiya Hotel until 2006; Zaryadye Park opened on its site in 2017.