Introduction

   The appearence of photographic art has played a great role in the history of culture. Today, after more than a hundred years passed, we can evaluate it in an instance of Tver, imprinted by photographers in the late XIX - the early XX centuries. Lots of old
photos allow us to plunge into the former epoch, to penetrate the atmosphere of life of Russian provincial city of the last prerevolutionary decades.
In those times little did remind in Tver about its long history, but in the contrary to the most of. other ancient Russian towns it preserved an imprint of town-building reforms of the second half of the XVIII century. The city differed due to its clear strictness, solemnity and ....lyrics.

Adam OleariusAdam Olearius
View of Tver. 1630s

   Tver was strikely beautiful - lying on the banks of three rivers, sinking in green or covered with snow, pleasing with its embank-ments and opening views. Steamships, barges, boats were inalienable part of the Volga landscapes. The city's decorum was breaking by markets with their lively sounds hubbub. Carriages, cabs, sers-by and their faces - all interest of a man, who is eager to understand the time which passed and the city in that time. The city which had stood up on the banks of the Volga in deep Middle Ages.
The scholars in the beginning of XX century came to suggest Tver had been founded (taking into account its name) initially in the mouth of the Tvcrtsa and then, perhaps, in the first half of the XIII century, was transferred to cape formed by confluence of the Volga and the Tmaka. The archaeological excavations which were held in 1930s allowed to refuse from this version. 'Ibday we have all the rights to slate the city had not been transferal from one place to another.

The icon «Duke Mikhail Yaroslavich and Kseniya Tverskiye». 1670s.

   Date of the foundation of Tver is still under discussion. It is hard to answer the question when separate settlements dispersed on the territory of the future city joined into single organizm which had all the neccessary functions for its existence. But the latest excavations revealed numerous finds of the premongol time, and their «city's» character allows to consider Tver to be a town in late XII - early XIII.
The Tver Principality had been established by the middle of the XIII century. Chronicles name Yaroslav Yaroslavich, brother of Prince Alexander Nevsky to be the first Prince of Tver. While being a Prince of Tver in the second half of 1260s - the beginning of 1270s, he was also a Great Prince of Vladimir Great Principality and put a base of the state sovereingty of Tver. In the times of Mikhail Yaroslavitch (1271-1318s), son of Yaroslav, Tver actually became the capital of Rus. But in his time the gradual decline of Tver Principality had started, though the Great Principality of Tver had existed for about two hundred years beside the Great Moscow one.
In the last quarter of XIII the stone building was restarted in Tver first among the cities of North-Eastern Rus. In 1285-1290s the Cathedral of the Transfiguration was erected in the Kremlin instead of wooden Church of Kozma and Damian. The grandiose stone temple marked the heading role of Tver in «gathering together» Russian lands. Besides architecture the book-learning and art culture were widely developed in the principality.
A number of new stone churches were erected in XIV-XV. They were built up in the Kremlin and outside its walls. Stone cathedrals were built in some of Tver monasteries: The Otroch of the Assumption, the Fedorovsky and the Zheltickov of the Assumption ones. Probably in the first half - the middle of the XV century the prince's and bishop's chambers appeared in the Kremlin. Both of the Kremlin's residencies included temples and dwelling and service buildings as well.