Andrey moved Rus’ power to Vladimir and sacked Kiev
Before 1157 it was the Principality of Suzdal; afterward the Grand Principality of Vladimir anchored northeastern Rus’. Yury Dolgoruky shifted from Rostov to Suzdal in 1125, and his son Andrey made Vladimir the capital—then treated Kiev as a prize, not a home.
Born of Kievan Rus’ fragmentation, the realm is also called Suzdalia. The first known prince of Rostov, recorded under 988, was Yaroslav, appointed by his father Vladimir I; in 1024 he personally put down a famine-time revolt stirred by pagan sorcerers. Yury Dolgoruky, a younger son of Vladimir Monomakh, moved the seat to Suzdal after 1125 and seized Kiev in 1149, 1154, and 1155.
Andrey (r. 1157–1176) moved the capital to Vladimir at once, ringed it with new fortifications, and built in the white stone typical of the local school; nearby at the mouth of the Nerl he founded Bogolyubovo as his residence. In 1161 he expelled four brothers, two nephews, and his father’s senior boyars, seeking to rule as autocrat of the Suzdal land, and he failed to win a separate northern metropolitanate. After his forces sacked Kiev in 1169 he left his brother Gleb there and stayed home.
Gleb’s death in 1171 reopened succession fights, and boyar conspirators murdered Andrey in 1174. His brother Vsevolod (r. 1176–1212) expanded the frontier, founding Zubtsov in the west and Kostroma and Nerekhta in the east against the Volga Bulgars. His sons Konstantin and Yury quarrelled over Vladimir and Rostov; after Konstantin died in 1218, Yury restored Vladimir’s primacy and beat the Bulgars in 1220.
Mongol invasion and tribute brought destruction but also access to eastern trade, and the khan now appointed the grand prince; Alexander Nevsky (r. 1252–1263), the last to rule directly from Vladimir, still had to travel to the khan’s capital. By 1300 the land had split into over a dozen appanages, and from 1331 the prince of Moscow nearly always held the title, with the two thrones permanently joined by 1389.
Source: Vladimir-Suzdal
