A favorite place for strolling and shopping, Bolshaia Polrovskaia is a pedestrian street closed to all traffic except emergency vehicles and delivery vans. It takes approximately half an hour to cover the distance from the Kremlin to Gorky Square if you do not stop for shopping. Historically, Pokrovka was one of the first streets in the city. Today the street is remarkable for its architecture.
Most buildings date back to the nineteenth or the very beginning of the twentieth century.
The former building of the City Council, designed by the academician architect V. Zeidler in French baroque. At present, it houses the Regional Trade Union Center and a department store. The former building of the Verkhne-Posadskie market stalls. After the 1904-05 reconstruction it housed the municipal public library. Busts of Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy were placed in the niches of the portico.