 Another major fire struck in 1863, yet despite the damages Bronnitsy still had one inn, two pubs, and 118 trading outlets; two hundred families held trading patents but the town's finances were poor and could not even pay for paving the unbearably impassable main square.In the 1850s and 1860s, Bronnitsy became home to notable members of the declining Russian nobility.Decembrist Mikhail Fonvizin (1787–1854) and his wife Natalya, a local landowner, retired to Bronnitsy after exile to Siberia.