The Church of Saint Nicetas the Martir was built in 1762-1765 by the Vladimir merchant Semyon Lazarev. It is very different from the other eighteenth-century Churches which we have seen and which all show traces, to some extent or other, of seventeenth-century traditions. Its basic plan does resemble that of the refectory type of Church, but it is executed in a completely different style typical of eighteenth-century Russian architecture.
If we imagine it without the two-storey structures added in the middle of the nineteenth century, we see a building which is much more like an elegant three-storey palace than a Church.
Each floor had its own beautiful iconostasis and was bathed in light from the large windows in the side walls.
The exterior is decorated in Baroque style. The slender bell tower is most attractive, with its strong clusters of corner pilasters and the spiral scroll motif on the upper tier. The architect appears to have been very fond of this motif and has used it again in the adornments of the upper part of the Church, its dormer windows and fine rectangular sections under the dome. The bell tower have a unique cross. It includes a so-called "flying Angel figure". Personally I all over again have accepted this figure for cross defect, but have explained its sense later.
The square in front of the Church has now been turned into public gardens and its eastern side follows the line of the old ramparts of the New Town running from the Golden Gate.
The old Irina Gates used to stand at the point where the road turned left down Nikitsky Hill to the River Lybed. At one time dense forest came right up to the earth ramparts and we are reminded of this by the names of the streets here - Great Forest Street and Little Forest Street (Bolshiye Remenniki and Maliye Remenniki).