Tver is a large Russian city located at the point where the Tvertsa River flows into the Volga. The city’s history officially started with its foundation in 1135, but this year is historically uncertain. Tver was established by merchants from Novgorod and became subject to the Grand Duke of Vladimir in 1209. Throughout the 13th century, Tver grew to become one of the region’s most prosperous cities, and many immigrants came here from the south, where they had fled the Tatars. By the end of the century, Tver and Moscow were quite equal and rivaled for power in Russia. Moscow emerged victorious from the battle after their collaboration with the Mongol Golden Horde, which Tver was trying to fight.

In 1485 Moscow’s troops under Ivan III captured Tver, which was given as an apanage to Ivan III’s grandson. Tver was thereby subject to Moscow, and under Ivan IV, the last heir to the Tver dynasty was executed in the 16th century. For the following many years, Tver declined as a provincial town of greater importance, but after Peter the Great’s founding of Saint Petersburg in 1703, Tver was located conveniently on the main road between the new capital and Moscow. Czars and tsarinas stayed in the city on the journey between the country’s two most important cities, and it brought renewed prosperity. A fire in 1763 left parts of the city in ruins, and Tver was then rebuilt in the style of the time, including Catherine the Great’s travel palace and the Ascension Cathedral.

At the beginning of the 19th century, measures were taken to expand and improve the city with new buildings. A new cathedral and more houses on the waterfront were built, and later in the century the railway came to the town. As with the main road, Tver became an important station between Saint Petersburg and Moscow. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Tver, like the rest of Russia, became part of the Soviet Union, and in 1931 Tver was named Kalinin after the formal Soviet head of state, Mikhail Kalinin. A few years later, the city’s cathedral was blown up by the Soviets, and during World War II, the German occupation caused great destruction. After the war, the city had to be rebuilt, and Tver got its old name back in 1990.

Today, Tver is a beautifully situated metropolis with many interesting sights. You can start a walk at the square Ploshad Lenina, where you can see Tver’s statue of the head of state Lenin, which is surrounded by a fine ensemble of buildings from the 18th century in the octagonal square. The square was laid out after the fire in 1763, and the two mansions to the north were built by the provincial government in 1783 and as commercial buildings in 1771-1773. The mansions to the south were built as courthouses and county councils respectively in 1778-1782 and 1785. Ploshad Lenina is located along the main street Ulitsa Sovetskaya, and from the square you can take a walk along the pedestrian street Trekhsvyatskaya ulitsa, which is Tver’s popular main street.

If you walk along Ulitsa Sovetskaya, you will come to Sovetskaya Ploshad, where there are administration buildings for the Tver region, and where you can see an equestrian statue of Prince Mikhail of Tver, who became Prince of Vladimir in the early 1400s. If you continue east, you come to Ploshad Pushkina, a square from the Soviet era. Here is the Stele of Military Honor of the City, inaugurated in 2011 after the award of this honor to Tver for the battles in the Battle of Bortenevskaya against Moscow and the Mongols in 1317, the liberation struggle against Polish-Lithuanian occupiers, the resistance against Napoleon’s troops and the battles against German forces during WW2. On the north part of the square you can see the former headquarters of the Communist Party in Tver, which was built in 1969.

At the western end of Ulitsa Sovetskaya there is also quite a bit to see. Here is the Tver Drama Theatre, located in the city’s historic trading house, Gostiny Dvor, built in the decades after the fire of 1763, and later converted into a theater. Opposite the theater is a lovely park that gives access to the promenades along the Volga. At the park, there are several museums such as the Tver United State Museum, located in a school building from the 18th century, which was rebuilt in the 1860s. The institution includes many museums in the Tver region, and here in the city center you can see local history collections. You can also visit the Tver Art Museum, located in Catherine the Great’s beautiful travel palace, which she used during trips between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The palace was built in 1764-1766 in classicism with baroque elements after design by M.F. Kazakov.

In front of Catherine the Great’s travel palace, you can visit the Annunciation Cathedral, which was originally built 1689-1696 on the same site as the city’s former cathedral from the end of the 13th century. The cathedral was razed to the ground in the 1930s during the Soviet Union, and the current church is therefore a reconstruction from 2014-2020. Before the reconstruction, there was a square with a statue of Mikhail Kalinin here, and the statue can now be seen along Prospect Kalinina to the southwest. In the area west of the cathedral was old Tver, and here the Victory Square was built in 1970. On the square you can see a memorial monument for the Soviet people’s victory over Germany during World War II. There is an obelisk, an eternal flame and Mikhail of Tver Church from 2002. From Victory Square you can go south to one of the city’s most rural districts, where you will find the Church of the White Trinity, which is Tver’s oldest preserved stone building. It was built by a wealthy merchant in 1564.