After the 1824 general plan of the city had been approved, the construction of the main street began. Initially, it was mainly inhabited by the nobility. In the early 19th century, merchants began to live there as well, so the houses were built from brick and featured some decorative elements. This street was also occupied by the Assembly of the Nobility, built in 1826, the estate of Princes Trubetskoy, the City Duma, the State Bank, and the Nikolayevsky City Theater.

The street changed its name several times: in ancient times it was called Bolshaya Nikolskaya, in the 18th century — Dvoryanskaya, and since the mid-19th century it has been known as Bolshaya Pokrovskaya.

In 1896 — the year the All-Russia Industrial and Art Exhibition took place in Nizhny Novgorod — a streetcar was launched. Nevertheless, there were still coachmen on the street, ready to take passengers to any destination.

This is how Nikolay Khramtsovsky describes the street,

Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street can be divided into two parts — the old one and the new one. The former lies between Blagoveshchenskaya Square and Pokrovskaya Dam. It has the same importance in Nizhny Novgorod as Kuznetsky Most and Tverskaya Streets do in Moscow.

The central place in the photo is occupied by the building of the trading house “Chesnokov and Kudryashev” — the most splendid revenue house in the city, owned by a peasant named Alexander Grigoryevich Kudryashev and a burgher Nikandr Stepanovich Chesnokov. They were considered Nizhny Novgorod’s largest landlords.

How did a peasant and a burgher manage to build such a magnificent mansion? It all started in the middle of the 19th century when Alexander Kudryashev’s father founded a cargo transportation company on the Volga River. After his death, it was passed to his son and his friend Nikandr Chesnokov. The firm was one of the largest in Samara and Nizhny Novgorod: it had 5 steam tugs and 25 barges. In 1884, the company was transformed into the “Chesnokov and Kudryashev” revenue house.

The merchant Alexander Kudryashev was still registered as a peasant of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate, and that is why people started saying that the revenue house adorning Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street was founded by a peasant and a burgher. The building was constructed in 1884–1886. The first floor was occupied by stores selling fashionable clothes, expensive wines, French perfumes and other luxury goods. The largest manufactory store in Nizhny Novgorod that belonged to V.N. Gorshkov and the bookstore of A.I. Popov were also located there.