Today, it is hard to imagine the Raushskaya Embankment without St. Nicholas Church: its tall bell tower and wide dome stand out against the backdrop of neighboring high-rises and the power station complex. It is difficult to believe that in the 20th century this church almost disappeared from Moscow.

According to one version, the Nicholas Church on the banks of the Moscow River was founded in the 16th century by Cossacks living beyond the Yaik River (now Ural). Another hypothesis claims that the first church here appeared in the early 17th century, and the Cossacks gifted it an icon of St. Nicholas. By the mid-17th century, it was already mentioned as a stone church, with the main altar dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ, while the Nicholas altar was only a side chapel. Nevertheless, the people continued to call it after St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, one of the most revered saints. In 1741, the church was dismantled, and with the funds from merchant Emelyan Moskvin, new construction began, which initially was unsuccessful: in 1742, the unfinished building collapsed. After several attempts, construction was completed in 1759 under the guidance of architect Dmitry Vasilyevich Ukhtomsky, funded by the Turchaninov merchants.

The architecture of the new church is characteristic of Elizabethan Baroque, named after Empress Elizabeth. The square base of St. Nicholas Church is topped with a powerful octagonal dome with large lucarnes, which gives the church monumentality and ensures good lighting inside. Some decorative elements remained unfinished: for example, the capitals of the pilasters on the facade were left smooth. An elegant fence with a wrought-iron grille in the shape of a flower bud complements the overall appearance of the church. The church impresses with its size and capacity: in addition to the main altar in the name of the Transfiguration of Christ, there are altars dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and St. Sergius of Radonezh.

After the cessation of services in 1933, the church was handed over to the neighboring power station, which destroyed its dome and the upper tiers of the bell tower, planning to demolish the building, but later converted it into a transformer-mechanical workshop. By the early 1990s, the church was in an emergency state, with the space divided into floors and cracks in the brickwork. Only in 1996 was the disfigured church handed over to the community of believers. In the early 21st century, St. Nicholas Church was restored to its historical appearance, but restoration continues, including work to recreate lost interiors. In addition to the church, an 18th-century two-story rectory remains on 2nd Raushsky Lane. The 19th-century church warehouses facing the Moscow River were replaced in the early 20th and 21st centuries with new buildings imitating ancient architecture.