Tver is the city that nearly became Moscow. In the fourteenth century its princes were Moscow's great rivals, and the two fought for the right to rule the Russian lands, until Moscow won and Tver was absorbed in 1485. Mikhail of Tver, who was killed by the Mongol Golden Horde, was later made a saint. What remains is a river city on the upper Volga, at the point where the Tvertsa joins it, roughly halfway between Moscow and St Petersburg, which made it a natural stop for anyone travelling between the two capitals.
That role gave it a place in the history of the road. The route between Moscow and St Petersburg ran through Tver, and in the eighteenth century Catherine the Great ordered the city rebuilt after a great fire in 1763. The result is a neat classical centre of radial streets and pastel buildings, including the Imperial Travel Palace, built so the royal family had somewhere to stay on the way. The Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin, who travelled to India in the fifteenth century and wrote of it, is remembered with a statue on the Volga embankment. The Volga here is still young, wide and calm, with willows on the banks.
Riders heading from Solnechnogorsk up to Tver are following an old royal road, and the route is mostly fast, with a busy modern highway running alongside and smaller roads that wander through villages with wooden houses and onion-domed churches. Surfaces vary, and trucks are heavy on the main road, so take care in the rain. The best season is late spring to early autumn, with the forests at their best in September.
Tver has some four hundred thousand people, so fuel, food and hotels are easy to find, and the villages around it, such as Sakharovo, have basics. Look for a cafe on the embankment, where you can watch the river traffic. Foreign riders should check current conditions and requirements before planning travel in Russia.