The hill is located next to the banks of the Volga, rising from the Cosmonauts Embankment to Cathedral Square, and crosses the streets of Chernyshevsky and Michurin. Due to the significant slope, the street was named "hill."

It formed in the second half of the 18th century and was named after the merchant Stepan Babushkin, who had an estate here. In 1770, a seminary opened in Saratov, which was soon moved to Astrakhan, but in the 1820s it resumed operations at the corner of Bolshaya Sergievskaya Street and Babushkin Hill. In honor of the seminary, the hill officially became known as Seminary Street, but the people continued to call it "Babushkin Hill." By the end of the 19th century, this name became official.

In 1965, the hill was renamed "Babushkin Hill named after" in honor of the revolutionary Ivan Babushkin. Later, it was returned to its historical name.