The XIV-XV centuries

At the end of the 13th century and in the first third of the 14th century Tver was the biggest center of the national liberation struggle of the Russian people against the Horde yoke. The anti-horde policy of the princes of Tver contributed to growth of the political authority of Tver. Residents of Tver were among the first people who revolted and started an armed struggle against the Horde: in 1317, they defeated the troops or Tatar war chief Kavdygay and Prince of Moscow Yury in a battle near Bartenevo village. The stone church of Fedor was built in the mouth of the Tmaka River between 1323 and 1325. In 1320, Princess Anna achieved marriage of her senior son Dmitry and Maria Gedeminovna, daughter of the Great Duke of Lithuania. Relations of Tver with Lithuania were established since that time and they were not stopped until 1485.

A powerful anti-Horde rebellion started in Tver in 1327. With assistance of Prince of Moscow Ivan Kalita it was suppressed cruelly and Tver was looted. This devastation became the beginning of the decline of political influence of Tver. Prominent masterpieces of the ancient Russian literature "Novel about Mikhail Yaroslavich Tverskoy" of Hegumen Alexander, "Panegyric to Prince of Tver Boris Alexandrovich" of monk Foma, "Novel about Mikhail Alexandrovich" etc were created in Tver. An original artistic school was formed in Tver: the city developed architecture, icon paining, book copying ("Chronicle of Georgy Amartol"), jewelry production and decorative applied art (boar spear of Boris Alexandrovich) and Tver minted its own coins. Merchants from Tver traded in Smolensk, Kiev, Vitebsk, Dorogobuzh, Vyazma, Polotsk, Vilna etc. There was a Tatar shopping arcade on the territory of the Zatmatsky suburb. Crafts in Tver reached a high level, especially processing of metals (in the 14th locks made in Tver were sold in Czechia).

In a situation of unstopping struggle against Moscow in the 14th century the princes of Tver kept reinforcing the city. A moat was dug and an earth wall was arranged from the Volga River to the Tmaka River in 1372 (in 1375, Prince of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich with a big army failed to seize Tver). Big-scale construction work was done in Tver in 1387, 1395, 1413 and 1446-47 (as a rule, it was connected with aggravation of the political situation and a threat on the part of Moscow). According to presumption of historian V. S. Borzakovsky, the stone Vladimir tower of the Kremlin of Tver was built in the 15th century; Soviet historian of architecture N. N. Voronin believed that in the 15th century the Kremlin of Tver had wooden walls and stone towers. In general, the city was filled with wooden buildings and suffered fires frequently: half a city burnt in 1318, 100 households burnt in 1405, the Kremlin, the prince's palace and 20 churches burnt in 1413, 120 households burnt in 1420. According to a hypothesis of E. A. Rikman, at the beginning of the 15th century Tver occupied the same territory that it occupied in the 13th century. The news about casting of bells in Tver belongs to the beginning of the 15th century, the news about casting of guns belongs to 1408 (famous gun master M. Krechetnikov worked in Tver in the middle of the 15th century).

Being an active opponent of the Horde since the end of the 13th century, Tver was exposed to frequent blows of Mongol-Tatars and Moscow until the second half of the 15th century. In this struggle Tver was gradually losing the leading position among the other principalities in Northeastern Rus. The role of unifier of the Russian lands went to Moscow. The hard struggle undermined the forces of Tver but even in the 14th and 15th centuries it remained a big trading, craft and cultural center and one of the most developed Russian cities.