Dmitrov is an old town north of Moscow, set above the Yakhroma River where the Moscow Canal begins its run to the Volga. It was founded in 1154 by Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, the same prince credited with founding Moscow, and named for his son Dmitry, and its earthen ramparts, the remains of a medieval fortress called the Kremlin, still encircle a hill in the middle of town. Inside stands the white Assumption Cathedral, a sixteenth-century church with a wide dome, a calm landmark above the lower streets.
The canal is the other half of the story. The Moscow-Volga Canal was dug in the 1930s, largely by prisoners of the Gulag, with Dmitrov as the headquarters of the building administration, and it opened in 1937. The waterway runs north from here past locks, pumping stations and monumental stone portals, and its grim history sits oddly with the calm water and pleasure boats of today. The anarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin lived out his last years in Dmitrov, and his house is now a small museum, a quiet footnote to the town's story.
For riders, Dmitrov is a gateway to the quiet country north of the capital. The roads east and west of the canal pass through low, rolling farmland, birch woods and small villages with wooden houses, and the Klin-Dmitrov Ridge, the highest ground in the Moscow region, rises to the west. The surface in the district varies, with good main roads and rougher secondary ones, and potholes after the winter thaw can be deep. The countryside is gentle, and the pace is slow, with plenty of stops for a roadside samovar or a cup of tea.
Dmitrov is a town of sixty thousand, so fuel, food and shops are plentiful, and the road to Moscow is fast. Yakhroma, a few kilometers north, has a large textile factory and a canal viewing point. The best time is late spring, when the birches are in leaf, and September, when the woods turn gold, but July can be hot and the roads busy with city dwellers heading for dachas. Winter brings deep snow and hard frost, and the roads, though plowed, are slick and cold, so it is a season for the brave.