Tver

Tver stands at the meeting of the Volga and Tvertsa, where waterways and roads brought merchants into the wooded lands northwest of Moscow. The seat of its own princes from the thirteenth century, it grew into a wealthy principality and a formidable rival to Moscow. Its rulers sought the grand princely title of Vladimir and alliances beyond their borders, while the city became an important centre of church and commerce.

In 1327 Tver rose against representatives of the Golden Horde. Horde and Muscovite forces crushed the revolt, killing and carrying away many inhabitants, but Tver remained a significant power through the following century. The merchant Afanasy Nikitin left the city in the fifteenth century on a journey that took him across the Caspian Sea to India. His account, #italic A Journey Beyond Three Seas#!, preserved observations of the lands and peoples he encountered. In 1485 Ivan III took Tver and ended the principality's independence.

The city later gained renewed importance on the road between Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A great fire in 1763 led to the rebuilding of its centre under Catherine II, with neoclassical streets and public buildings replacing much of the older town. The imperial travelling palace provided a residence for the court on its journeys between the capitals, while the Volga remained the city's enduring waterway.