Vladimir

Vladimir stands on the high bank of the Klyazma. Under Andrei Bogolyubsky it became the capital of north-eastern Rus', and its white-stone Dormition Cathedral, built in 1158–60 and enlarged after a fire in 1185–89, and the Golden Gate of 1158–64 dominate its skyline. In 1337 the title of Grand Prince of Vladimir was a prize that the khans of the Horde handed out, contested by Tver, Suzdal and Moscow. Metropolitan Peter moved his residence to Moscow in the 1320s, and Dmitry Donskoy won hereditary rights to the city in 1362–63, binding it to the Moscow princes for good.

Tokhtamysh's army ravaged Vladimir in 1382, and a Horde governor's estate stood in the city during the 14th century. When Tamerlane threatened in 1395 the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God was carried to Moscow and was never returned. In 1408 the painter Andrei Rublev decorated the Dormition Cathedral anew. In 1724 Peter I had the relics of Alexander Nevsky taken from Vladimir to St Petersburg, and in 1778 it became the seat of a governorate.