CITY · TVER OBLAST

Tver.

Tver lies on the Volga where the Tvertsa joins it, about 180 kilometres north-west of Moscow, on the way to Saint Petersburg. In the Middle Ages it was the capital of a powerful principality that rivalled Moscow, and its centre owes much of its look to the neoclassical rebuilding under Catherine the Great.

Region: Tver Oblast
Population: 416,216 (2021)
Founded: 1135
Airport: Moscow · MOW

Good news & stories

We are collecting good news and stories from this city. Know of something worth telling? Write to privet@russia.direct.

All good news

History

Tver's official founding date is 1135, when a small settlement stood here. It later became the capital of a powerful principality and rivalled Moscow on equal terms until 1327, when a brutally suppressed uprising against the Horde broke its strength. The Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin travelled to India in 1466–1472 and left one of the first eyewitness accounts of the country written by a European. After a great fire in 1763 the town was rebuilt in neoclassical style, and from 1931 to 1990 it was called Kalinin. Occupied and badly damaged in autumn 1941, it became that December the first major European city to be retaken from German forces.

Culture & traditions

The Travel Palace, designed by Matvei Kazakov, became a literary salon under Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna, sister of Alexander I, and the historian Nikolai Karamzin read his work there. Among the older churches the White Trinity of 1564 stands out, while the Ascension Church designed by Nikolai Lvov was consecrated in 1813. The city has an academic drama theatre, youth and puppet theatres, a philharmonic, a circus and a regional art gallery. A monument to Afanasy Nikitin was put up on the Volga embankment in 1955.

Sport

The city's football tradition is carried on by FC Tver, formed in 2020 after the earlier club Volga Tver folded in 2017. Tver is also known as the home town of ice hockey player Ilya Kovalchuk.

Practical information

Tver is on the main Moscow–Saint Petersburg railway, where Sapsan high-speed trains stop, and the M10 highway runs alongside. The city has no regular passenger flights, so air travellers usually come via Moscow. In summer pleasure boats leave the river station for trips along the Volga. The climate is humid continental, with long snowy winters and warm, sometimes hot summers, so May to September is the easiest time to visit.