The first St Simeon Stylites' Church was built out of wood here in 1600 to commemorate Tsar Boris Godunov becoming tsar in the same year on what was the feast-day of St Simeon Stylites. By 1657 the church was mentioned as being built out of stone and this version was replaced in 1731. However work on the current version started in 1792 and was only completed in 1813, after suffering a setbacks when the church's dome collapsed in 1798 and then during the Napoleonic Invasion of 1812. The church's most striking feature is its large rotunda dome. In the 1920s the church was closed and was converted, most notably new windows were created in the rotunda. In 1995 it was returned to the Orthodox Church.