Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tver (2.)

TVER, capital of the above government, lies 102 miles by rail to the north-west of Moscow, on both banks of the Volga (here crossed by a floating bridge) at its junction with the Tvertsa. The low right bank is protected from inundations by a dam. As a whole the town is but poorly built. The oldest church dates from 1 564, and the cathedral from 1689. An imperial palace, the courts, and the post-office rank among its best buildings. A public garden occupies the site of the former fortress. The population was 39,100 in 1884. The manufactures, chiefly of cotton, employ 5900 workmen (5710 at the cotton mills), and a number of nail-making workshops employ some 800 men, while more than 1000 women are engaged in the domestic manufactory of hosiery for export to Moscow and St Petersburg. The traffic of the town is considerable, Tver being an intermediate place for the trade of both capitals with the provinces of the upper Volga.

Tver dates its origin from 1180, when a fort was erected at the mouth of the Tvertsa to protect the Suzdal principality against Novgorod. In the 13th century it became the capital of an in dependent principality, and remained so until the end of the loth century. Mikhail Yaroslavovitch, prince of Tver, was killed fighting against the Tatars, as also was Alexander Mikhailovitch, who boldly fought for the independence of Tver against Moscow. It long remained an open question whether Moscow or Tver would ultimately gain the supremacy in Great Russia, and it was only with the help of the Tatars that the princes of the former eventually succeeded in breaking down the independence of Tver. In 1486, when the city was almost entirely burned down by the Muscovites, the son of Ivan III. became prince of Tver; the final annexation to Moscow followed four years later. In 1570 Tver had to endure, for some reason now difficult to understand, the vengeance of Ivan the Terrible, who ordered the massacre of 90,000 inhabitants of the principality. In 1609-12 it was plundered both by the followers of the second false Demetrius and by the Poles.