Ruza

Ruza stands on a high bank of the river of the same name, west of Moscow. The district appears in a will of Ivan Kalita, who left Ruza together with Zvenigorod and other lands to his son Ivan. Its fortified site formed part of the western approaches to the Muscovite lands.

Ruza belonged to the Zvenigorod principality and faced the wars that crossed Moscow’s western frontier. In 1618 its defenders withstood a siege by Polish-Lithuanian forces under Prince Władysław. The Resurrection Cathedral was built between 1714 and 1721. The town received district-town status in 1781. War returned in 1812 and left Ruza badly damaged; in the following years cloth and cotton spinning developed in the surrounding district as the town recovered from the devastation of the war.