Zvenigorod is a town in Moscow oblast (province), western Russia, located on the Moskva River, 33 miles (53 km) west of Moscow. Archaeological excavations (1943–45 and 1954–57) have revealed the existence of settlement there as far back as in the 12th and the 13th centuries. The first written record mentioning Zvenigorod is dated 1339 - it is the will of Ivan Kalita, the Grand Prince of Muscovy and Vladimir. From the 14th through the 16th centuries, Zvenigorod served as a defense post on the western approaches to Moscow, from Lithuania and Poland, along the Smolensk-Moscow road. The Gorodok (Citadel), an earth fortification rising about 150 feet (46 metres) above the Moskva River, was built during this period. In 1398 the ruling prince, Yuri Zvenigorodsky, founded the Savvino Storozhevskiy Monastery at the confluence of the Storozhka and Moskva Rivers, 0.6 mile (1 km) from Zvenigorod. Peter I the Great, his brother Ivan V, and his sister Sophia found refuge in the monastery during the 1682 rebellion of the Streltsy, the Russian military corps established in the mid-16th century that formed the bulk of the Russian army then. The natural environment of hills and forests made the countryside around Zvenigorod a favourite retreat for such famous Russians as the political thinker Aleksandr Herzen (1812–70), the playwright Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), the short-story writer and novelist Maksim Gorky (1868–1936), and the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93). A fine example of early Moscow architecture in the Gorodok is the Uspenskiy Sobor (Assumption Cathedral) built in the 14th century. It has a single dome, a rectangular floor plan, and frescoes by the Russian painter Andrey Rublyov (1360/70–c. 1430), founder of the Moscow school of painting. In the nearby Savvino Storozhevskiy Monastery the place of the greatest interest is the Rozhdestvensky Sobor (Nativity of the Virgin Cathedral; 1405) with its interior of 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century paintings, and a small palace built for Tsar Alexis Mikhaylovich in 1652–54.