Following a massive fire in 1816, it was moved to Nizhny Novgorod, but for some decades thereafter it still was commonly referred to as Makaryev Fair.

At the time Durland visited the fair, it consisted of 60 buildings, 2,500 bazaars and 8,000 exhibits, with goods for sale, along with a broad range of performances for the public.

This fair was a commerce centre to sell up to half the total production of export goods in Russia.

By the end of the 1880s, the Main Fair Building was very outdated and it was decided to completely rebuild it.

On November 4, 2017, a new multimedia exhibition "Russia is My History" was opened in the Main Fair Building.

The main focus of the exhibition is the history of Nizhny Novgorod, starting from Finnic peoples.

[1] September 11, 2009 Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' Cyril took part in the opening of the monument to Nizhegorodians - participants in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.

In 1856 the merchants decided to build a new Orthodox cathedral in memory of the visit of the fair by Emperor Alexander II.

In the winter of 1930, according to the decision of the leadership of the Volga Flotilla, the iconostases and all the wooden ornaments of the cathedral were broken up for firewood to heat the city's houses.

During World War II, an anti-aircraft battery was installed on the site of the central tent of the cathedral, which defended the Gorky city (the name of Nizhny Novgorod in the Soviet era) from the Luftwaffe air raids.