The characters of "The Lower Depths" are said to have been inspired by the denizens of the Bugrov Homeless Shelter (, "Bugrovskaya nochlezhka") in Nizhny Novgorod, which had been built in 1880–83 by the Old Believer grain merchant and philanthropist Nikolai Alexandrovich Bugrov () (1837–1911) in memory of his father, A. P. Bugrov.