Archaeological excavations indicate that people actively began to settle near the fortress in the northern part of Sobornaya Square in the second half of the 12th century. And at the end of the 12th century, they paved the dirt road passing by with a tree. This is how the first street in Moscow appeared on Borovitsky Hill. By the way, at that time the city was still very small and all fit on the upper terrace of the hill.

The oldest street in Moscow did not change its route for more than three centuries and ceased to exist only at the end of the XV century, when a new gate was made in the brick fortress of the city, and the building layout and system Kremlin streets have changed.

Velikaya Street does not exist on the maps of Moscow. And it never existed, because this street ran here in those distant times when there were no maps in Moscow. And it was on the banks of the Moscow Veliky Posad River around the ancient Kremlin, and two roads ran along it from one of the Kremlin gates, the Frolovsky (now Spassky). One of them remained nameless for posterity, and the second was called Bolshaya, or Velikaya Street. Trading people walked along it to Ryazan and other southern cities. From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, there was also a street paved with wood on the territory of Posad, but apparently did not have a name, and this one is the Great, the very first mentioned in the chronicle of the fire in Moscow in 1486. She went out to the river. It is also known that the church of St. Nicholas the Mokry stood on it: the saint was depicted with wet hair and was considered the patron saint of sailors and other travelers. The approximate location of this street is in the area of the current Bolshaya Nikolskaya.