Walking through the streets of Moscow and enjoying the beauty of the churches, one can notice church complexes that do not look like monasteries due to their size. It turns out that this is not the monastery itself, but its dependency, a small complex with a church and auxiliary buildings, belonging to the monastery but located away from it.

The first dependency in Moscow was Krutitsy, founded in the 13th century under Prince Daniel of Moscow. Since then, many monastic dependencies have appeared in the capital, including the dependency of the Valaam Spaso-Transfiguration Monastery. The monastery itself is located on Valaam Island.

The land for the dependency in the Tverskaya Zastava area was donated in the late 19th century by a prominent Moscow philanthropist S.S. Prusakov, grateful for the miraculous healing of his wife during a pilgrimage to Valaam.

The building at the intersection of 2nd Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street and Alexander Nevsky Lane was designed by engineer Alexander Ivanovich Roop. It consists of two blocks: the main block with the church of Saints Sergius and Herman of Valaam the Miracle Workers on the second floor and the church of Saint Prince Alexander Nevsky on the first. The icons for the iconostasis were created by artist V.P. Guryanov. Together with the brotherly block, the buildings occupy an entire block.

Externally, the building does not resemble a church. It is a four-story house with a tented bell tower at the corner. The six-column church with cross vaults is located on the second floor. A drum with a dome, visible from the street, is set on four pillars. The architecture resembles the cross-domed style. The facade is highlighted by a risalit with three windows framed by columns with cubical capitals. The entrance is decorated with a portal featuring red granite columns brought from Valaam, allowing visitors to feel like pilgrims. The architecture of the bell tower and other elements is done in a pseudo-Russian style with influences from Byzantium and Art Nouveau.

The history of the dependency after the revolution, like many other churches, is dramatic. The church was closed several times, finally in 1926. The bell tower was destroyed, the dome was sealed, and the floor was poured with concrete. Artist Vitaly Grafov depicted these events in his painting "Closure of the Moscow Dependency of the Valaam Monastery."

During the 1941-1945 war, the dependency housed a hospital where the famous surgeon and Saint Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky) performed surgeries.

In 1993, the dependency was returned to the church. Since then, the facade of the building has been restored by the "Mosproject-2" workshop, with work completed in 2013, while the interior restoration continued until 2017. A new iconostasis and previous paintings were restored. The painting was done by artists from the Ilya Glazunov Academy. The interior spaces, facade, and mosaic icons have been restored. Among the relics of the dependency is a list of the "Valaam Icon of the Mother of God." In 2017, a stained glass depicting the "Constantinople Cross" was installed above the main entrance door. On the first floor, there is a museum exhibition with historical bricks bearing the seal of the Valaam Monastery.

Today, the dependency actively lives a church life. Services are held, and Sunday and icon painting schools named after Saint Nikifor, Patriarch of Constantinople, operate, as well as organized pilgrimage trips to Valaam. The dependency is popular among Muscovites and guests of the capital, and its architectural complex adorns the Tverskaya Zastava.