main interest. His photos of the city's squares were widely known. Among them were photos of Sobornaya (the Revolution), Sudebnaya (Lenin), Detskikh Sadikov(Moskovskaya) squares.
    Many owners of printing-houses from Tver and Moscow published the works of I. A. Tachalov due to their bright images. First the master's works were published by Tver publisher Nikolay Aleksandrovich Pryanishnikov. He opened his book store in his own two-storeyed house in Tryekhsvyatskaya St. It has preserved until now (an edifice of red brick near shop «Tkani» (fabric). The trade in books, brochures, pictures and photos was very brisk. In 1906 he registered in that house a printing press after buying a printing machine «American» from a Moscow store of a printing devices firm «Frants Mark and C°». In a year he published a series of post- cards with the views of Tver, taken by I. A. Tachalov.
    The name of Nikolai Mikhailovich Rodionov, the Honourable Citizen of Tver, must be mentioned among the Tver publishers of postcards of the early XX century. He owned a printing house in Tryekhsvyatskaya St. in 1889-1915. A petty bourgeois of Bakhchisaray Rafail Yakovlevich Kiikchy should be noted as well for he maintained a shop "of pictures and post-cards with images" in the House of Municipal Society in Millionnaya St. since 1913 and published not only white-black but painted cards too.

Very soon post-cards with the views of Tver started to be published in Moscow. The known series was published by M. Kampel in 1912. The views of the city were issued in 1916 by «The Contractor of Printing of the Company «Novoye Vremya» (New Time)», which was created on the basement of Famouse publishing house of Aleksey Sergeevich Suvorin. The Contactor owned a monopoly in trading at railway stations and steamers' piers. Suvorin's kiosks stood also in Tver and Vyshny Volochok. Thus being sold the post-cards of the firm were dispersed over different cities and sites, bringing fame to their publishers.
    Published in this album view photos and post-cards were found and collected in various museums', libraries' and private collections in Tver and St. Petersburg. They fixed and brought to us a unique colour of old Tver, a spirit of Its life, giving an opportunity to walk over the vanished city, Tver of the turn of XIX-XX centuries, presented in the photos and postcards looks very spacious. Streets, boulevards and squares are wide and roomy, buildings look very impressive and respectful. The Tver churches of Ascension, of the Sign, of the Miraculous Icon of the Virgin of Vladimir, of St. Ilya are very solemn. The impression of space and freedom is especially strengthening after having a look at the photos taken from the roofs of the city's houses. They are opening vast spaces with forests and numerous pastures around the city. Tver makes us wonder by its extraordinary regularity and comfort. It can be seen everywhere. Well-plastered and painted houses, carefully paved and cleaned streets, regular trees and parks and strict rows of inclined curbstones along the streets represent a view of quite comfortable city.
    And the view of the mighty Volga with lots of steamers and barges, piers, piles of fire-woods and carts strikes our imagination completely. What a touching image forgotten years ago!
Charming is this world of old photos and cards. Still moments of history are they. What do we feel today, a century later, looking at yellowed and shabby pictures of old Tver? May be it is a sense of similarity and at the same time a feel of unrecognizability of the native city, an admiration of a striking harmony of its streets and squares with the spaces of rivers and their banks, on which it has laid in such a beautiful freely way. Or probably it is a sense of nostalgic sadness on harmony, originality and beauty... Let everyone decide it for himself.

E. G. Kiryanova