In 1810, in the main living area of ​​the time (now the museum) over the construction of the mansion of the merchant Philip Kateneva (Koteneva). The author of the project was made by the provincial architect V.I.Suranov, according to the merchant's house which had similarities to the arcade, while creating a uniform composition and showing the direction of future developments. Front of the house with a projecting portico of eight columns, based on the arcade of the ground floor, overlooks the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the "face" to the hotel courtyard (now in its place the Office PKP). The house is considered to be a two-story because of the location in the central part of the corridor for the passage into the yard. Four rooms on the first floor went to the gallery and arcade have been adapted for retail shops, and from the middle of the room on the second floor had a balcony, located between the central columns of the portico.

Before 1830 the mansion changed its owner on M.A.Ustinova - rich wine salt-tax farmer, who in turn sold it to the spiritual department (Holy Synod). While sharply there was a question about the opening of the seminary, and after examination of the best houses in Saratov Commission religious schools chose four houses (including the house Koteneva) with all the buildings and furnishings. Seminary pupils were NGChernyshevsky, I.I.Vvedensky (the first translator of novels of Thackeray and Dickens), and taught Oriental and ethnography - G.S.Sabulov historian (author of the first translation of the Koran into Russian).

When in 1885 a new building was constructed at the intersection of the seminary and the Little St. Sergius Alexander House passed a second gymnasium, and in 1904 - the second man's real name Tsarevich Alexei college (where he studied actor B.A.Babochkin). In Soviet times the building belonged to middle schools, now the Russian classical gymnasium.