They connect to Varvarka Street (west), Solyanka Street (east), Kitaigorodsky Lane (south), Staraya Square and Lubyansky Lane (north), completing the half-circle of Central Squares of Moscow around Moscow Kremlin and Kitai-gorod.

Until 1934, territories inside the wall developed separately from the rest of the city, retaining medieval congestion until the 1890s despite numerous plans to redevelop Kitai-gorod.

In the 1890s, Moscow Merchant Society consolidated the blocks within the wall, and built a string of majestic office buildings, notably Boyarsky Dvor facing Varvarka Gates and Staraya Square (by Fyodor Schechtel), 4 Staraya Square, former Communist Party Headquarters (by Vladimir Sherwood Jr.), and Delovoy Dvor (by Ivan Kuznetsov).

The square and Solyanka Street acquired the finest examples of late Art Nouveau and Russian neoclassical revival, however, developers failed to obtain the permits for demolition of the wall.

Monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius by Vyacheslav Klykov was opened on the northbound boulevard in 1992.