The XIX century

Between 1809 and 1812, Tver was the center of the newly formed Tver, Yaroslavl and Novgorod Governorate General and Traveling Palace became the residence of Governor General Prince G. F. Oldenburgsky. The committee for improvement of municipal services of Tver was formed in 1809. K. I. Rossi participated in its work between 1809 and 1815. Streets and squares in the central part of the city were paved. The buildings of Rossi influenced formation of the look of the city (Nativity Cathedral, dwelling houses: Stepana Razina Embankment, 35, Novotorzhskaya Street, 73, Radishcheva Boulevard, 41/30 etc).

After beginning of the Patriotic War of 1812 the committee of Tver military force was established in Tver and people's militia was formed. Development of Tver in the second quarter of the 19th century was done under supervision of architect I. F. Lvov. Some secular and religious buildings were built according to his projects (including the Ascension Church, house of the Gentlemen's Assembly).

A. S. Pushkin passed through Tver frequently between 1820 and 1830 (the Galyani hotel where the poet stayed survived). Many writers lived in Tver in the 19th century: F. N. Glinka (between 1830 and 1835 and between 1862 and 1880), I. I. Lazhechnikov (between 1831 and 1853), A. N. Ostrovsky (in 1856), F. M. Dostoevsky (in 1859), M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (between 1860 and 1862), A. I. Ertel (between 1886 and 1889) etc. Publication of Tverskie Gubernskie Vedomosti newspaper began in 1839. The men's classic gymnasium was opened in Tver in 1804, the Tver Marian women's gymnasium was opened in 1856, the district junker school was opened between 1864 and 1865, the Tver women's teacher school was opened in 1870 and the Tver non-classic state secondary school was opened in 1875.

The cultural life of the city grew noticeably more active in the second half of the 19th century: the public library (now the library named after Gorky) was opened in 1860, the museum (now the Tver untied historic architectural and literature museum) was opened in 1866. The first congress of country doctors of Russia took place in Tver in 1871, the Tver gubernatorial academic archive commission, one of the first in Russia, was founded in 1884. At the end of the 1850s and at the beginning of the 1860s, Tver became one of the centers of liberal movement and A. M. Unkovsky (marshal of nobility of Tver Governorate between 1857 and 1859) was the leader of the noble opposition of Tver. The Tver committee on arrangement and improvement of living conditions of landlord peasants was opened in 1858. Emperor Alexander II spoke to members of the committee and tried to persuade the nobility of Tver to be compliant in the matter of liberation of peasants. An extraordinary congress of nobility of Tver Governorate that had repercussions all over Russia took place in Tver in 1862. The congress voiced a broad program of liberal transformations. The written statement of 13 representatives of the congress (including N. A. and A. A. Bakunin etc) was viewed as "a call for criminal actions." All 13 people were arrested and put into the Peter and Paul Fortress.

The governorate land assembly, the district court and justice courts were opened in Tver in the course of the reforms of the 1860s-1870s, the new city Duma (parliament) was established in 1870 and the mayor became its head. The administrative board of the city was the executive body of the Duma. Growth of the industry of Tver began since the middle of the 19th century. Traffic was started through the Nikolaevskaya Railway that connected Tver with St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1851. In 1853, V. fon Glazenap received a permit for establishment of steamship company Samolet in the Volga River in Tver. The first passenger steamships in the Volga River Tver, Rybinsk and Yaroslavl, were built in the mouth of the Tmaka River already next year. They circulated between Tver and Yaroslavl.

In 1853, merchant from Moscow N. I. Kaulin laid down the Rozhdestvenskaya manufactory in Tver, the first enterprise of the capitalist type in the city (the Tver spinning and weaving factory named after A. P. Vagzhanov). On May 1 of 1859, Emperor Alexander II approved the articles of association of Partnership of Tver Manufactory of Paper Products (the birthday of contemporary Tver Manufactory). Very soon, biggest factory owners of Russia Morozovs became owners of Tver Manufactory, having bought up all the shares. The weaving factory of Zalogin - Perevolotskaya manufactory located 2 kilometers from Tver appeared in 1860. A mechanical plant for production of parts for textile machines was built in 1873, some sawmills were built in the 1870s and a big steam mill of Konyaev brothers was built in 1879. On April 11 of 1897, the Emperor approved the articles of association of the French plant in Tver (now the Tver carriage works) and in December of 1898 the plant started production of railway carriages. More than 17,500 people (including 15,000 textile workers) were working at the factories of Tver at the end of the 19th century.

In 1866, city mayor A. F. Golovinsky surrounded the entire low Zatmatskaya part of the city with an earth wall at his own expense and guarded the local residents from annual high water floods. The following buildings were built in Tver in the last quarter of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century: buildings of educational institutions (seminary, 1876, now it is one of the buildings of the Tver Suvorov school; Tver women's teacher school of Maximovich, 1889 and 1909, now these are buildings of the Tver State University; Diocese women's school, 1900, now this is the children's regional hospital; Karpovskoe school, 1902, now the Krylov Street, 18; women's commercial school, 1905, now this is secondary school No. 6 etc), hotels, religious buildings (railway station cathedral of Alexander Nevsky, 1893, it did not survive; the Vladimirskaya dragoon church, 1890s, now Zarya club; mosque, 1906; synagogue, 1913, now the Pushkinskaya Street, 22; Resurrection cathedral, 1913, now this is a functioning; five-dome chapel in the Stantsionnoe Highway, now the Prospekt Chaikovskogo, 1913, etc), barracks for workers and houses for white collars of the Morozovskaya and Rozhdestvenskaya manufactories, 1886 - 1915; people's theater of Partnership of Tver Manufactory, 1900; post office, 1913; bank, 1914 etc. The first telephones were installed in Tver in 1893 and until 1897 they served only the police, the first automobile appeared in the streets in 1895, an intercity telephone station was built in 1898, a bridge over the Volga River built according to the Herbert system (the Old Volga Bridge) was opened in 1900, the electric tram was launched in 1901 and illumination of streets by electricity was started, a cinema theater was opened in Tver in 1905, an airplane flew to Tver for the first time in 1910, in 1916 M. A. Bonch-Bruevich made the first Russian radio lamp in Tver.