Come Study Russian in its Very Heart, Tver!

The medium-sized city of Tver (population 500,000), located 170 km north-west of Moscow on the main route between Moscow and St. Petersburg, is an ideal learning environment. With its numerous educational and cultural institutions, active political life, flourishing media, and diversified industries, Tver offers students of contemporary Russia many opportunities to hone their language skills while enjoying the hospitality of the Russian provinces.

A few words about the history of Tver.

The official year of Tver's founding is 1208. However a city located on the three rivers (the Volga, the Tvertsa and the Tmaka) sprang up much earlier. There is no unanimous view on who founded Tver and when. According to some sources, it was Prince Yaroslav, the brother of Alexander the Great. On the earlier pages of its history Tver was an important political center and even competed with Moscow for the right to be the capital of all Russia. For 240 years Tver had been an independent and powerful principality, but then joined Moscow principality. The economic life of Tver remained active throughout: its weavers, tanners and blacksmiths were well respected in the whole country. Like many other Russian cities Tver was several times destroyed and then built anew: 1569, 1763 were the most excruciating years. The Soviet era brought certain changes to Tver: in 1931 the city changed its name to Kalinin, and in 1991, restored the original one, Tver.

Tver Landmarks

• Tver was the first city after Moscow where stone construction began in the 15th century.
• The iconpaniting school of Tver was one of the earliest and most famous.
• Tver had its own Kremlin (destroyed by fire in the 18th century), the remnants of which are exposed to public in the Local Lore Museum.
• Writers and poets made Tver famous: Radishev described Tver in the story "Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow"; fable writer Krylov and satire-writer Saltykov-Shedrin, lived in Tver. Ostrovsky, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and other famous people visited Tver.
• Tver architecture is very peculiar and unique. It has been fortunate to survive wars and change of political regimes without much damage. On the bank of the Volga river, there is Otroch-Assumption Monastery, where writer and philosopher Mikhail Grek worked. The Cathedral of White Trinity, the most ancient in Tver, has never stopped conducting services and collected the treasures of other churches.