Design work on the Moscow–Nizhny Novgorod highway began in 1831; the road was laid mostly in a straight line, as the shortest route, bypassing the high bank of the Oka and the crossing at Murom, and on the Nizhny Novgorod stretch the route ran through forest swamps almost devoid of settlements, which made the journey dangerous. The highway was built in 1839–1843; its total length was 383 versts, and the trip from Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow took a traveler about five days. The Nizhny Novgorod section of the highway was first opened in 1843, but after only two months of use it fell into disrepair: ruts formed, bridges collapsed in places, the crushed stone sank into the ground, and the trip to Moscow began to take more than a week; the highway was closed for repairs, and postal service temporarily resumed along the old Vladimir postal road.
In the summer of 1843, the engineer Baron Andrey Ivanovich Delvig was appointed to "repair a section of the highway 49 versts long" with broad authority, and in November of that year he moved with his wife to Nizhny Novgorod to oversee the repair work — the road was needed above all to connect Moscow with the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka. The modern M7 route on the Nizhny Novgorod stretch fully corresponds to the historical route of the 19th century: the old road lies beneath the lanes heading toward Moscow, while the opposite direction was built on the site of the old shoulder and ditch.
Moscow Highway - stretches from Moscow Railway Station to Orlovskiye Dvoriki.
The highway received its name, evidently, because of the road's direction toward Moscow.