The beginning of the unification of Russian lands around Moscow


According to the testament of Alexander Nevsky, his youngest son Daniil received possession of a small Moscow principality. Daniel set out to expand the boundaries of his possessions and began to collect Russian lands around Moscow.

Moscow was in an area suitable for farming, cattle breeding and fisheries, at the intersection of important river trade routes. It was sufficiently remote from the outskirts subjected to Mongolian attacks. Thousands of peasants and craftsmen abandoned the regions devastated by the Horde and sought refuge in the Moscow principality. They mastered new lands, founded numerous settlements. Another reason for the rise of Moscow was the prudent policy of Moscow princes, who managed to take advantage of their position.

Prince Ivan Kalita began to actively rebuild Moscow and strengthen its frontiers. His nickname, which meant “money bag”, he received for his insatiable love of wealth and thrift. An energetic and capable ruler, he did not

hesitate to use any means to strengthen his power. He helped the Mongols to suppress the uprising in Tver, for which in 1328 he received a label for the great reign of Vladimir. Ivan Kalita and his successors were given the right to collect tribute from the princes of North-Eastern Russia for the khan and were responsible for its timely delivery to the Golden Horde.

Ivan Kalita managed to persuade the metropolitan of all Russia to move his residence from Vladimir to Moscow. So Moscow began to acquire the significance of the spiritual center of Russia.

XVI century. An excerpt from the “Simeon Chronicle” about the reign of Ivan Kalita

The Great Prince Ivan Danilovich seated the Great Prince of All Russia in 1328, and because of this the silence was great throughout the Russian land for 40 years, and the Tatars ceased to fight the Russian land and killed Christians, and rested, and the Christians departed from great fatigue and many hardships, or the violence of the Tatar…

Year 1333 the pious Grand Duke Ivan Danilovich built a stone church in Moscow in the name of the great archangel Michael, in the same year it was started and finished…

Year 1339 Prince Ivan Danilovich went to the Horde, and his sons, Semyon and Ivan, and Prince Andrew, his son, sent to Novgorod the Great. The same year, Prince Ivan the Great came to Russia… The same winter they planned to build the city of Moscow, and finished it the same winter until spring in the great post.


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The beginning of the unification of Russian lands around Moscow