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| Population | 358,000 (census 2004) | ||
| Time zone | Moscow: UTC+3 | ||
| Latitude/Longitude | 56°09′ N 40°25′ E | ||
In the 1990s, there has evolved a new opinion that the city is older than this. They reinterpreted certain passages in the Hypatian Chronicle, which mentions that the region was visited by Vladimir the Great, the "father" of Russian Orthodoxy, in 990, so as to move the city foundation date to that year. The defenders of the previously uncontested founding year of 1108 dispute the claims of those who support the new date, arguing that the new theory was fabricated in order to provide a reason to have a celebration in 1995.
The neighbouring town of Suzdal, for instance, was mentioned in 1024, and yet its 12th-century inhabitants alluded to Vladimir as a young town and treated its rulers with arrogance. In the words of a major chronicle, they said that the people of Vladimir were "their kholops and scions". In the seniority conflicts of the 12th and early 13th centuries, Vladimir was repeatedly described as a "young town" compared to Suzdal and Rostov.
Most specialists in the history of Vladimir argue there is no archaeological or chronicle information which supports the claim that the city was founded in 990, while several Vladimir patriots feel there is sufficient evidence to support the new date.
Regardless of which founding date is most accurate, the city's most historically significant events occurred after the turn of the twelfth century. Serving its original purpose as a defensive outpost for the Rostov-Suzdal principality, Vladimir had little political or military influence throughout the reign of Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125), or his son Yuri Dolgoruky ( "long arms" - 1154-1157).
Later it became the center of Vladimir-Suzdal principality, when Monomakh's son Yuri Dolgorukii moved the seat of Great Princes of Russia from Kiev to Vladimir, thus actually transferring the capital of the country and beginning the city's Golden Age, which lasted until Mongol invasion of Russia.
At that time, Vladimir was one of Europe's largest and most beautiful cities, enjoying immense growth and prosperity. Yuri's sons, Andrew the Pious and Vsevolod The Big Nest, confirmed and enforced Vladimir's status as the capital by moving the seat of the Russian Metropolitan from Kiev to Vladimir.
Scores of Russian, German, and Georgian masons worked on Vladimir's white stone cathedrals, towers and palaces. Unlike any other northern buildings, their exterior was elaborately carved with the high Relief stone sculptures. Only three of these edifices stand today: the Assumption Cathedral, the Cathedral of St. Demetrius, and the Golden Gate. During Andrew's reign, a royal palace in Bogolyubovo was built, as well as the world-famous Intercession Church on the Nerl, now considered the jewel of ancient Russian architecture.
After the Mongols, Vladimir never fully recovered, and even though it remained capital through the middle of 14th century and continued as the seat of the metropolitans of Russia, it gradually lost its political significance to the new principalities of Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod.
Nevertheless, the highest title of Russian monarchs remained "the Grand Prince of Vladimir". The monarchs were originally crowned in Vladimir's Assumption Cathedral, but when Moscow officially superseded Vladimir as the Russian capital, a similar cathedral was loosely copied by Italian architects after Vladimir's original and built in the Moscow Kremlin. On the other hand, Muscovite monarchs built several new churches in Vladimir, notably a charming cathedral of the Knyaginin nunnery (ca. 1505).
Remains of the holy prince Alexander Nevsky were kept in the ancient Nativity abbey of Vladimir until 1703, when Peter the Great had them transferred to St Petersburg. The Nativity church itself (1191-96) tumbled down several years later, when they tried to make more windows in its walls, in order to make the interior more luminous.