Tver is an ancient city, once the center of the powerful Tver principality, competing with the Moscow one. However, unlike most cities of this level, you will not find the Kremlin in Tver. Although, of course, he was there. Today, on the site of the Tver Kremlin, there is a beautiful City Garden, the Imperial Travel Palace and the Khimik Stadium.
Tver Kremlin in the XII-XVIII centuries
In the 12th century, a wooden fortress was built on the right bank of the Tmaka River near its confluence with the Volga. Historians still argue which of the princes was its founder. Either in the 1130-1140s it was built by the Rostov-Suzdal princes, or at the end of the XII century by the Vladimir prince Vsevolod Yurievich. But it did not last long - in 1238 it was destroyed by Khan Batu.
Immediately after that, work began on the restoration of the Tver Kremlin, and by the end of the century the white-stone Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral was built within its walls - one of the first stone structures in Russia after the invasion of the Horde. Apparently, the newly rebuilt Kremlin was well fortified: Khan Dyuden (Tudan), who had ravaged many cities, including Vladimir, Suzdal, Moscow, Kolomna and others, did not go to Tver.
In 1317 the Tver prince Mikhail Yaroslavich (1282 or 1286 - 1318) expanded the Kremlin. On the ancient icons of Saints Michael and Xenia of Tver, mother and son are depicted holding the Tver Kremlin in their hands.
Icon of Saints Michael and Xenia of Tversky with the Tver Kremlin, 17th century.
The icon shows the Tver Kremlin in detail. Like the Dmitrov Kremlin, the Kremlin in Tver had an oval shape in plan. Its area was about 19 hectares, the perimeter of the walls was about 1600 meters. From the west it was protected by Darkness, from the north - by the Volga. In the middle of the eastern wall was the main entrance to the Kremlin - the Vladimir Gate. From the south it was possible to get to the Kremlin through the Vasilievsky Gates, from the west - through the T'matsky Gate. Three gates are reinforced with arrows. Inside the wooden walls there are wooden and stone churches, a tent-roofed bell tower, princely chambers and other buildings intended for the residence of boyars and service people. Posad are spread around the Kremlin.
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In 1327, an uprising broke out in the city, which went down in history as Tverskoe. It was the first major uprising in Russia against the rule of the Golden Horde. But it was brutally suppressed by the joint efforts of the Golden Horde, Moscow and Suzdal. The Tver Kremlin was destroyed again.
In 1373, under Prince Mikhail Alexandrovich, the Kremlin in Tver was significantly strengthened and fortified: a ditch was dug, a defensive rampart was poured between the Volga and T'maka, new wooden walls and towers were built. Two years later, the Kremlin withstood the siege of the Moscow army, led by the Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich, who went down in history as Dmitry Donskoy.
In 1485, Tver became part of the Moscow principality. The Tver Kremlin became the residence of the Moscow governors, the administrative and religious center of the city. Inside there was a streltsy garrison, a prison, an order hut, a living yard, a bishop's yard.
In 1609, the Tver Kremlin was ruined by the Polish-Lithuanian troops, after which it was restored again (tea, not for the first time). The Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral was rebuilt, the Vladimir gates became stone. Over time, it was planned to rebuild other Kremlin buildings in stone. On the engravings of Nikolaas Witsen *, who visited Tver in 1665 during his trip to Russia, the Tver Kremlin appears as a powerful fortress.
* Nikolaas Witsen (1641-1717) - Dutch cartographer, politician, businessman, burgomaster of Amsterdam from 1682 to 1706. In 1664-1665, as part of the retinue of the Dutch embassy of Jacob Boreil, he traveled to Russia, visited Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov and other cities. His sketches of cities, diaries and notes formed the basis of the essay "Travel to Muscovy".
N. Vitsen. Panorama of Tver, 1665.
But the work begun in the 17th century on the restructuring of the Tver Kremlin subsided over time. By the beginning of the 18th century, the Tver Kremlin was very dilapidated, which was reported personally to the tsar. In 1707, by order of Peter I, the Tver Kremlin was reconstructed in accordance with all the rules of fortification science of that time: the Great Northern War was going on and there was a possibility that the Swedes could go to Tver.
The work was supervised by the mathematician L. F. Magnitsky (1669-1739), the author of a number of fortifications in Russia. The rampart was fortified and filled up, bastions appeared. The fortress was ready for artillery defense. Inside, on a permanent basis, it was supposed to place a garrison of 2.5 thousand people. According to the plan of the mayors of Tver, the Tver Kremlin was to become a kind of Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral in Tver.
The death of the Tver Kremlin
For some time the fortresses were maintained in proper condition, but over time they began to decay. In 1763, a huge fire broke out in Tver, which destroyed the entire central part of the city. The Tver Kremlin also burned down. Since by that time it had lost its strategic importance, it was decided not to restore it.
Catherine the Great allocated 1 million rudders for the restoration and redevelopment of the city. And what was not destroyed by the fire disappeared during the large-scale redevelopment of the city. The start was completed by a second fire that happened ten years later.
The surviving Kremlin walls and towers were torn down by the beginning of the 19th century. The moat was partially filled up and used as a gentle slope to the pontoon bridge over the Volga. Part of the Kremlin territory was occupied by the City Garden, in another, on the site of the bishop's house in 1764-1766, according to the project of the architect M. F. Kazakov, the Travel Palace was built.
Imperial Travel Palace in Tver (now the Tver Regional Picture Gallery).
In 1931, Tver was renamed Kalinin, and the region became known as Kalinin. In 1935, the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior was blown up. Thus, Tver lost the last building of the Tver Kremlin.
A veneration cross and a foundation stone at the site of the destroyed Transfiguration Cathedral.
And only finds of archaeologists now allow to restore the appearance of the lost Tver Kremlin. And also a small lowland in the City Garden reminds of him, which descends to the Volga - in this place a fortress moat once passed. At its beginning, in 2001, a memorial veneration cross was erected in honor of Prince Mikhail of Tverskoy. At the end there is a descent to the Volga, decorated with a double semicircular staircase built after the war. A beautiful view of the Trans-Volga side opens from here, a monument to Afanasy Nikitin and the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (Three Confessors) beyond the Volga, 18th century.
City garden of Tver.
That is why the presence of the Officers' House of the Tver Garrison, which stands exactly on the moat filled up in the 19th century, and the Khimik stadium as a place of competition - a sublimation of war, now seems no coincidence.
City Garden and the Garrison Officers' House.
And many questions also arise: why was the memory of the Tver Kremlin so mercilessly erased, all traces of it were diligently destroyed? Maybe it's the long-standing rivalry between Tver and Moscow, which was involuntarily felt for centuries after its termination? Or did Catherine, under the pretext of a fire, want to build an ideal city like Petersburg instead of the old one with a spontaneous medieval structure? One can only build more or less plausible assumptions …
Chapel of Mikhail Tverskoy on Memory Island at the mouth of the Tmaka River.
