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The victory of Kulikovo Field brought a feeling of national unity and gave rise to national consciousness, which provided an impetus for the development of culture. Moscow chronicles began to be written and such epic literary works as The Tale of the Mamai Slaughter and Zadonshchina appeared. By the end of the 14th century Moscow has developed into the biggest Russian center of trade and crafts with a rich torg (market place) and rapidly growing posad. Moscow's external ties grew ever more active. The city continued to stand terrible sieges and in 1408 a great army by Khan Yedigei approached the Kremlin wall, yet this could not set back the city's development: thus, in 1404 the first city clock was built in Moscow. In 1439 Moscow repulsed an attack by Khan Ulu Muhammed who was dealt a crushing blow by the Russian warriors led by Boyar Vladimir Khovrin on the site of today's Arbat Square. Almost simultaneously, representatives of the Moscow State flatly rejected the decision of the Council of Florence of the union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches under the authority of the Holy See. After the fall of Constantinople, captured by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Moscow was given the title of Third Rome, the successor of Byzantine Empire. Now West European states began pinning their hopes on Moscow in their struggle against Turkish domination. It was at that time that the legend emerged according to which Moscow, just like Rome, lay on seven hills.

Grand Prince Ivan III, Dmitry Donskoy's great-grandson accepted the proposal made to him by the Papal diplomats and married Sophia Palaeologus, a relative and, in a sense, successor of the Byzantine emperors, for this matrimonial alliance enhanced the international prestige of the Moscow state, but he did not in any way comply with their wishes in his foreign policy. The Tatars, Lithuania and Livonian Order reminded his principal enemies. In 1480 the Tatar yoke was finally thrown off. The process of political unification of the Russian lands was making rapid progress. Relations were established with the Venetian republic, Turkey, Hungary, Denmark and Persia. Ivan III and his associates had a clear idea of what the capital of the young state should look like so that it could represent Muscovy in a befitting way. The Kremlin obviously needed a new, improved system and, the same time, was created a reliable water obstacle in the case of an enemy attack. It included a deep moat, a chain of sluiced ponds and dams to maintain the water level on the side of what is now the Manezh. By 1516, the work was completed and a new bed for the Neglinnaya River was dug from the Borovitsky Gate along the Kremlin wall, for the natural riverbed made a sharp turn on the southwest and the Neglinnaya joined the Moskva River at a spot near today's Church of Christ the Saviour.

But the Kremlin walls did not long remain the only stone protection of Moscow. In 1538 the stone walls of the Kitaigorod adjoining the Kremlin were built under the supervision of the master builder Petrok Maly. In 1586-1593, shortly before the Polish-Swedish intervention, Fyodor Kon and his associates, who had won fame for building the Kremlin (citadel) in Smolensk, built the walls of the Bely Gorod, the White City (today the Boulevard Ring of Moscow), with a total length of 10 km and 27 towers, ten of which were provided with gateways.

In writing about the position and role of the Moscow Kremlin the Englishman Giles Fletcher, who stayed in Moscow some time at the end of the 16th century and might be called an authority on the subject, noted that it's inner inside the body, washed by the Moskva River flowing next to the wall, was called the Czar's castle. He also observed that at the time Moscow was somewhat larger than London.

The Kremlin was built and rebuilt and the city posad round it was growing rapidly. In the early 15th century it was limited to the area of the Kitaigorod and by the end of that century it already included numerous slobodi (artisan's quarters) as well.

While the city continued to be a major trading center and the growth of industry continued to accelerate, it also became a kind of place of exile for those members of the nobility who were malcontent or who fell into disfavor with the court. Living here so far from czar and his court, they made every effort to demonstrate their independence by their way of life. That it why Moscow at the time consisted mostly of urban estates where the manor house was surrounded by various service buildings, often with a large garden park containing various attractions such as pavilions, artificial grottoes, summer houses, sculpture, pounds, fountains and open-air theatres, which adjoined the front yard or it was called in the French manner the cour d'honneur. Still another feature of that Moscow of landowners was the fact that both the manor house and the gardens on every estate could be freely used by Muscovites. Even nobleman who barely knew the lord of the manor might pay him a call and as for his gardens, Muscovites from all walks of the life had the use of the facilities. There were hundreds of such garden-parks in the city and the owners considered it a matter of honor to keep their fellow Muscovites interested in them. Best confirming to these conditions of life in Moscow was the creative work of Matvei Kazakov, one of the best-known and most talented local architects.

The stay of Napoleon Grande Army in Moscow for a month and a half in 1812 inflicted innumerable losses upon the city. The fires of 1812 destroyed or damaged most buildings in the center of the city. Industrialists and merchants replaced the noble proprietors of the Moscow manors. The biggest and most luxurious estates were bought by the city for its needs. In most cases they were converted into city hospitals and the State Assignation Bank was housed in the former manor house of the Lunins in Suvorovsky Boulevard. Characteristic of new private mansions, built after the fires of 1812, was their rather modest appearance. The tendency is particularly evident in the works of leading Moscow architects of the first quarter of the 19th century such as Domenico Gilardi, Afanasy Grigoriev and others. Yet even in those parts of the city where the so-called row houses predominated (i.e. houses built along the frontal lines of the streets and often joined by a common wall) an echo of the amenities of former estates could be found in the green inner courtyards, which looked more like gardens. The urban estate was now enclosed as it was within the mansion that faced on the adjoining plot of land, which could not be seen from the street. Particularly characteristic in this respect was the merchant district of Moscow, separated from the city center by the Moskva River, known as the Zamoskvorechye, and so colorfully described by the celebrated Russian playwright Alexander Ostrovsky. An example of everyday life in the Zamoskvorechye in the middle and second half of the 19th century is to be seen in the playwright's memorial house-museums in Ostrovsky Street.

The abolition of serfdom in the early 1860s gave a fresh powerful impetus to the urban development of Moscow and stepped up the rate of construction work in the city. Alongside the mansions of financial tycoons, who often employed the architect Fyodor Shekhtel, innumerable tenement houses of an original architecture were built in many ways reminiscent the contemporary trends in tenement construction in West European countries. The most striking trend in Moscow architecture of the period was Russian Art Nouveau, whose brilliant examples include the Metropol and National hotels, the buildings in Kuznetsky Most Street, Petrovka Street, Petrovskiye Linii (Lane) and Pushkinskaya Street.

After the October Revolution of 1917, constructivism, represented by such talented architects as Melnikov, came to the fore. The relatively small number of constructivist structures to be seen in Moscow is explained by the complexity of the historical period during which they were built. This was conditioned by a shortage both of quality building materials and of skilled builders. It cost the country great effort to adapt itself first to the New Economic Policy (NEP) and then to the departure from it.