Malyy Row
A modest working market on the Hill's northern slope.
The Lesser Row — a small trading row that clustered along the northern slope of University Hill at the end of the 19th century — was more modest than its neighbour, the Sergiivskyy Row, and grew up spontaneously on private merchant funds. It rose on the site of wooden stalls that had sprung up here right after the fire of 1856: a long two-storey brick structure with an open arcade on the ground floor and living quarters for the shopkeepers above.
At its peak in the 1880s–1900s, the Lesser Row united around twenty shops: inexpensive textiles, glassware, small iron goods, censer-coals for the parish church. This was not a glamorous arcade but an honest working market, frequented by craftsmen from the artisan quarters and servants from middle-class households. On feast days the arches were dressed with garlands and stalls of fresh pirozhki opened along the front.
The Soviet capital was systematic about clearing such minor private trading hubs throughout the 1920s: the Lesser Row was nationalised in 1924 and several shops repurposed as warehouses and an artel workshop. During the 1930s urban replanning of the city centre the row itself was demolished alongside the adjacent lane; the salvaged materials were absorbed into a new workers' dormitory. The war struck that newer building too — in 1943 it also took a direct hit. Today the site of the Lesser Row is an empty plot with four trees.
