This building housed the provincial government and the treasury chamber, where the satirical writer M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin served from 1865 to 1866. At his initiative, a public library and a mutual aid fund for employees were organized at the chamber.

In the 1860s, the treasury chamber occupied almost the entire northern part of the building. The general office and the manager's office, where M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin worked, were located on the second floor, with windows facing the modern Belinsky Street (from the 2nd to the 7th windows from north to south). The main western facade has retained almost its original appearance. It is enlivened by the alternating windows with different frames and the rustication of the first floor. The monotony of the facade is broken by slightly protruding risalits: the central one with five windows and the side ones corresponding to the extreme axes of the building. Wrought iron canopies from the late 19th century are installed above the entrances. The northeast corner of the building was reinforced with two buttresses at the end of the 19th century. In 1957, a memorial plaque with a bronze bas-relief of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was installed on the building. It reads: "In this house, from January 1865 to December 1866, lived and worked the great Russian satirical writer M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin."