The first ideas for the construction of the stairs on the Volga slope was put forward by Alexander Shulpin, the chairman of the Gorky City Executive Committee, in 1939.

That year, Gorky began actively rebuilding the destroyed buildings and industrial enterprises after the German bombing.

In the same year he went on a business trip to Moscow and presented the project to the Leningrad architects Alexander Yakovlev, Lev Rudnev and Vladimir Munts.

When the agreement was received, the Moscow government allocated money for the construction of this grandiose staircase in honor of the victory of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The chairman of the city executive committee spent about 7 million rubles on its construction, and was arrested for embezzling public funds in the Leningrad affair.