Location and Origin

In the past, the area of Kulishek and Ivanovskaya Hill, where Khitrovskaya Square is now located, was considered one of the most privileged suburbs of Moscow. Here stood the country palace of Grand Duke Ivan III of Moscow, and the nobility settled, whose estates remained until the mid-19th century.

Before Napoleon's invasion, there were two estates on the site of the current Khitrovskaya Square, destroyed by the fire of 1812. In 1824, retired Major General Nikolai Zakharovich Khitrovo, who lived nearby on Yauzsky Boulevard, purchased these estates. He improved the area, paved the square with stone, and installed oil lamps. The square, named Khitrovskaya, was donated to the city. Khitrovo also acquired houses along the southern border of the square from Petropavlovsky Lane to Yauzsky Boulevard, where he organized trading rows for a meat and vegetable market. These buildings included two 17th-century structures that previously housed the Singing Courtyard of the Krutitsy Metropolitan. After Khitrovo's death in 1827, the trading rows passed to other owners and have survived to this day in a remodeled form.

The house of N.Z. Khitrovo (Podkolokolny Lane, 16/2, building 5) remains, located in the courtyard of a residential building constructed in 1937-41 for the V.V. Kuybyshev Military Engineering Academy (Podkolokolny Lane, 16/2).

On the eastern side of the square, additional trading rows were built in 1837, which were dismantled before World War I to create a garden adjacent to the estate of the Karzinkins and Telezhovs on Pokrovsky Boulevard. In the late 1920s, a multi-story residential building (Podkolokolny Lane, 13/1) was constructed on the site of the garden according to the design of architect M.V. Kryukov, which has survived in a reconstructed form and is recognized as a valuable urban-forming object.

In the 1860s, trading rows with residential premises on the second floor were built along the western border of Khitrovskaya Square, belonging to P.V. Stepanov, later passed to his daughter E.P. Yaroshenko. In the courtyard of this property, ancient chambers from the 17th century have survived (Podkopayevsky Lane, 11, building 1).

After the abolition of serfdom, when many peasants flocked to Moscow in search of work, Khitrovskaya Square became a labor exchange, a place for unskilled labor. Later, a metal canopy was built here, and a public canteen was opened. Cheap furnished rooms and lodging houses appeared in the surrounding houses. The house of N.Z. Khitrovo housed the Oryol Medical Center to provide medical assistance to the residents of Khitrovka.

20th and 21st Centuries

By the early 20th century, the square and its surroundings had become a criminalized area. A sharp rise in crime in Khitrovka was recorded in the early post-revolutionary years. Therefore, in the early 1920s, the Moscow Soviet took measures to cleanse Khitrovka of criminal elements. Soon, a park was established in the square, and in the 1930s, a secondary school building was constructed, later repurposed into an electromechanical technical school. This building was demolished in 2009. A year earlier, an attempt was made to build an eight-story office center on Khitrovskaya Square, which sparked protests from local historians, Muscovites, and artists.

On October 16, 2008, the Historical and Cultural Expert Council of Moskomnasledie reviewed a request from local residents to grant cultural heritage status to the ensemble of buildings on Khitrovskaya Square. By the council's decision on October 16, 2008, the Khitrovskaya Square area was classified as identified cultural heritage sites "The Landmark Khitrovka" with surrounding buildings. Khitrovskaya Square is also part of the protected archaeological cultural heritage site "White City."

Notable Buildings

Within the boundaries of the landmark "Khitrovka" are other cultural heritage sites:

- Myasnitskaya Police Station (Maly Trekhsvyatitel'sky Lane, 10)
- City estate of Lopukhins, Kiryakovs, income property of Bunins (Khitrovsky Lane, 3)
- The famous "Iron" house at the corner of Petropavlovsky and Singing Lanes, built in the 19th century on the basis of stone outbuildings of the estate of the noble Svinyins and reconstructed in 1925 according to the design of architect I.P. Mashkov.