Fyodor Stepanovich Nikitin was the youngest son of Stepan Yakovlevich Nikitin, one of the wealthiest merchants in Saratov. Stepan Yakovlevich became rich through the trade of bread and salted fish, and he is first mentioned in 1811 among the third guild merchants of the city. The profits from his trade were successfully invested in real estate, owning many houses in Saratov.

According to the census of 1850, Fyodor Stepanovich was classified as a second guild merchant in 1842, when he was 37 years old. At that time, he was married to Olga Fyodorovna, who was 31 years old, and had children: Ivan, Khrisanth, Vladimir, Raisa, and Lyubov. Later, he had another son, Evgeny, and a daughter, Nadezhda.

Fyodor Stepanovich became a hereditary honorary citizen and served as the Mayor of Saratov from 1867 to 1869. He owned a large plot of land between Nikolskaya Street (now Radishcheva) and Proviyantsky Hill on Bolshaya Tsaritsynskaya Street (now Chernyshevskogo). The hill, passing by his house, was long called "Kabanovsky" after his street nickname.

This information is taken from the act of state historical and cultural expertise of the identified cultural heritage object "Reineke Mill, 1879," located in Saratov at Chernyshevskogo Street, 116.