This short City of London street located near the Tower of London takes it name from its connections to Russia – but there’s a couple of possible explanations related to this.

Firstly, though, we should note that the street – which runs from Trinity Square to Seething Lane (Seething Lane Gardens sits on the north-west corner of the junction) – only dates from 1912 when the area was redeveloped.

So, to the theories. One concerns Peter the Great, who came to stay in Deptford in 1698 to study naval architecture as part of his ‘Grand Embassy’ tour of Western Europe.

A tavern located nearby in Great Tower Street apparently attracted his patronage and as a result subsequently changed its name to the ‘Tsar of Muscovy’ in his honour. The street was then named after the tavern.

The second theory is that the street takes its name from the Muscovy Company which was founded in 1555 and headquartered close by, near the top of Seething Lane (we’ll deal more with the company’s history in a later post).