Opposite the Southeast corner of the our Saviour Monastery was formerly the settlement of Skuchilikha, which belonged to the monastery, and was inhabited by various craftsmen including the Monastery 's masons and bricklayers.
The settlement had two wooden Churches, built during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one of which had a tent-shaped spire.
They were replaced by the present stone Churches, which form the familiar pair: the large Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Smolensk icon (built in 1696-1706, and restored by Olga Guseva in 1960); and the heated Church of Saint Simeon (built in 1749).
The larger Church has many features in common with other buildings belonging to the same period. The cornice of indented cut stone, balusters and small kokoshniks, resembles that on the Emperor Constantine Church, while the broad wall surfaces with three symmetrically placed windows remind one of the Ascension Church in the Saint Alexander Monastery. Evidently, the old system of commissioning a building by listing the features, that were to be included in it and the models in which these were found was still in force in Suzdal at the end of the seventeenth century. In most cases the builders did not simply imitate these features, but made them an organic part of a new, original construction. The most important factor, however, was the lively interest shown by builders in the town's old buildings and those being erected by their colleagues.
It is possible that the architect of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Smolensk actually worked with Mamin, Gryaznov and Shmakov. At all events he seems to have made a careful study of their buildings.
The Church's north portal is executed with great freedom and plasticity making it look as though it has been structured.
The Church's bell-tower belongs to the period of Russian Classical architecture at the end of the eighteenth century.
The small winter Church of Saint Simeon has been badly disfigured by later alterations.

Nearby is a well-preserved specimen of seventeenth-century domestic architecture (now No.134 Lenin Street). It was obviously the property of a wealthy citizen, or member of the clergy and may have belonged to the Suzdal priest, Nikita Pustosvyat, one of the Old Believers. An early nineteenth-century painting of Suzdal shows a similar house by the Cathedral of the Nativity in the Kremlin. Although the house is built of brick, everything about it shows the influence of traditional wooden architecture. It consists of two square frames of different heights, each covered with a saddle-back roof, resembles the Church from Glotovo, which is situated in the Kremlin. The larger, eastern section has two storeys, the lower one used for storage and such like with a vaulted ceiling, which has survived. This large section is made of brick and is adjoined by a smaller section with three attractive windows on the front wall. The windows have since been widened and given new surrounds. This rare specimen of domestic architecture helps us to understand why we find traces of the devices and forms characteristic of wooden buildings in Church architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, and why the Churches of this period possess features, which make them resemble ordinary dwellings.