The square connects the central streets of the city: Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, Varvarskaya, Ulyanov, Minin, Upper Volga embankment and Zelensky Descent.

Before the square began to take shape, wooden houses, forges and a deep moat filled with water to prevent penetration into the Kremlin were located in its place.

[1] The passing tower was connected by a stone arched bridge with a bridgehead – a pentagonal diversion archer surrounded by a moat.

From the square through the Dmitrievskaya tower, Ivanovsky descent still passes, connecting the former upper and lower cities.

During the general demarcation of the city in 1784-1787, new streets were laid and wooden buildings in the center of the square were destroyed.

The line between the Varvarskaya and Tikhonov (now Ulyanov) streets was occupied by the manor with the outbuildings of the vice-governor Pyotr Yelagin.

Soviet Square at that time was designed round, its area significantly increased due to the demolition of some of the walls and towers of the Kremlin, which was perceived in those years as "a monument to avaricious feudalism and the tsarist autocracy, a witness to the terrible pages of the bloody past".

In 1943, at the regular meeting of the Gorky Regional Committee, it was decided to raise the morale of citizens, in the fight against Nazism.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s, single stalls and trading tents began to be installed on the square.

In the early 2000s, an initiative was launched in the city to eliminate small retail outlets in central squares and streets.

In early 2009, the administration of the city and the region considered the projects for the reconstruction of the Minin and Pozharsky Square, proposed by investors.

The town-planning council under the governor approved one of the projects, despite the need for many years of preliminary work of archaeologists, as well as the danger of deteriorating the transport situation due to the emergence of an additional center of attraction.

From the semicircle of the square five streets radially depart: Pozharsky, Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, Alekseevskaya, Varvarskaya and Ulyanov.

The idea to erect a monument to Kuzma Minin and Prince Pozharsky on Annunciation Square was close to realization in the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1912, the competition was won by a sketch of the monument of sculptor Vladimir Simonov, who received the right to create a sculpture.

May 17, 1913, in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II, who visited the city in connection with the celebration of the Romanov Tercentenary, the construction of a monument began.

During the World War II, the city's leadership decided to recall pre-Soviet history in order to raise the patriotic spirit of the people.

On the pedestal surface contours of the map of the Northern Hemisphere are drawn showing the routes of the Chkalov-Baidukov-Belyakov command to the Far East, across the North Pole to America.

In 1894, on the eve of the All-Russian exhibition, the City Duma was planning to repair the theater building, which suffered from several fires.

But there were two conditions: first, "that in this building any device of any theater, as well as a commercial establishment selling alcoholic beverages should never be allowed"; secondly, "that the income from the house should go to a special fund for Distribution of the urban poor at the discretion of the City Duma ".

In the days of the Russian empire new building public shops was built here instead of demolished wooden stalls placed along the Kremlin wall.

All attempts to organize centralized water supply failed, until in 1844 the governor-general, Prince Mikhail Urusov, took up this task.

In 1930, after the demolition of the temples, the fountain was moved to a modern place In memory of Pushkin's stay in Nizhny Novgorod in the building of Gymnasium No.