b o o k a( tfje fmall village of Parlki, as ufual, in a peafant’s cottage,,
. -.inH changed horfes the next morning at Klin, iituated upon
the Seftra, a broad rivulet; this village hadbeen lately burnt,
and the peafants were engaged in rebuilding their huts :
near it we obferved a faw-pit, which, in this country, was
too curious an objeft not to attract our notice. Beyond Sa-
vidof we croffed a fmall river, and foon afterwards reached-
the banks of the Volga, which we coailed to Gorodna. The
next morning the fprings of our carriage being ready to ftart,
and one of the wheels being in a crazy ilate, we fent it on
ilowly, under the care of our fervants, and hired for our*
felves the carts of the country, called kibitkis, which we
filled with hay, and arrived, after a confiderable degree of
jolting, at Tver, which is magificently iituated upon the
elevated banks of the Volga.
Tver * owes it origin to Vlodimir Georgivitch great-duke
of Volodimir, who in 1182 raifed a fmall fortrefs upon the
point where the Tvertza falls into the Volga, in order to
protect his territories againft the incurfions of the inhabitants
of Novogorod. Afterwards, in 1 240, the great-duke
Yaroflaf II. built- another citadel- upon the fpot now occupied
by the prefent fortrefs, and laid the foundation of a
new town-, which foon encreafed in population and wealth
to fo great a degree, as to become the metropolis of an independent
fovereignty, called from the town the duchy of
Tver. Yaroilof III. fon of Yaroflaf II. and brother of
Alexander Neviki, received this duchy as his inheritance,
and tranfmitted the lucceffion to a long train of defcendants.
The laft fovereign of this hereditary line was Michael
Borifovitch, whofe filler Maria was married to the great-duke
* See Hiß. Geog. Befchreibung der Stadt Twer, See. Journ. Pet. for November, 1780.
s Ivan
fvan Vaffilievitch I. The harmony which had for fome chap.
• r r . . 1. time fubfifted between thefe two neighbouring princes was.' ,'._j
at firft: llrengthened by this alliance ; but in the courfe of a.
few years, either mutual jealoufies,.or the ambitious views
of Ivan, produced«an open rupture 'r. and in i486 the latter
befieged Tver with a large army. Michael, unable to refill,
ft) formidable an antagoniil, abandoned the town, and fled
into Lithuania, where he died in extreme indigence.. Upon
his retreat the inhabitants lurrendered Tver to Ivan Vaffilievitch.
who bellowed it and theduchy as a fief upon hiseldeft.
fon Ivan; that prince dying in 1-490, the great-duke annexed
the duchy to his other dominions in. the form of a
province, and it has never been again difmembered.
Tver is divided into the old and.new town : the former*
fituated 011 the oppofite fide of the Volga, coniills almoil entirely
o f wooden cottages;, the latter, about fifteen.years
ago, was-, a few buildings- excepted, fcarcely fuperior; but
being, in 1763, fortunately dellroyed by a dreadful, con--
flagration, it has rifen with lultre from its afhes. The em-
prefs was no fooner informed of this calamity,.than fha ordered
a regular and beautiful plan o f a new town to be
iketched by an eminent architedl, and enjoined,, that all the
houfes ihould be re-conllrudled in conformity to this model.
She raifed, at her own expence, the governor’s houfe, the
bifhop’s palace, the courts of juilice, the new-exchange, the
prifon,,and feveral other publick edifices;, and offered to
every perfon who would engage to build an houfe with
brick, a> loan of ¿300. for twelve years without intereil.
The. money advanced by her. majeily upon, this occafion
amounted to £ 60,000 ; and Hie has fince remitted one
third of this fum. The ilteets, which are broad and long,.
Iffuein a: ilraight line from a lquare, or rather an octagon,,
ict