Aleksandrov. Walking from Railway Station

The city of Alexandrov is the administrative center of the Aleksandrovsky district of the Vladimir region. It is located a hundred and ten kilometers to the north-east of Moscow.There are many versions of the origin of the cities name, but the most credible one is that the city sprang up on the site where Alexander Nevsky's squad usually stood when he visited his father Yaroslav, who reigned in the neighboring Pereyaslavl-Zalessky.But the main turn in the city history occurred in the middle of the 16th century, when Alexandrovskaya Sloboda, sloboda meaning “settlement”. (also known as the Alexandrovsky Kremlin) for seventeen years has become the main residence of tsar Ivan the Terrible and, without exaggeration, was the actual capital of Russia. All state affairs were solved here, and Moscow became a giant secondary city. The dismal oprichnina (a state policy implemented by Tsar Ivan the Terrible) was born in the Alexandrovskaya village, and in the late 17th century Peter the Great held exercises here laying foundation of the Russian regular army.In the middle of the 20th century Alexandrov was given a sad name "Capital of the 101st kilometer". Many public persons, objectionable to the Soviet power, were exiled here. Poetess Marina Tsvetaeva lived for some time in Alexandrov.The main attraction of the city is the Museum preserve "Alexandrovskaya Sloboda".