Yuri, the sixth son of Vladimir Monomakh,…

Yuri, the sixth son of Vladimir Monomakh, had in 1108 been sent by his father to govern in his name the vast Rostov-Suzdal province in the northeast of Kievan Rus'.

In 1121, he had quarreled with the boyars of Rostov and moved the capital of his lands from that city to Suzdal.

As the area is sparsely populated, Yuri has founded many fortresses here, establishing the town of Ksniatin in 1134 (He is to found Pereslavl-Zalesski and Yuriev-Polski in 1152, and Dmitrov in 1154.

The establishment of Tver, Kostroma, and Vologda is also popularly assigned to Yuri.)

For all the interest he takes in fortifying his northern lands, Yuri still covets the throne of Kiev.

It is his active participation in southern affairs that earns him the sobriquet of "Dolgoruki", i.e., "the long-armed".

His elder brother Mstislav of Kiev had died in 1132, and "the Rus lands fell apart", as one chronicle put it.

Yuri had instantaneously declared war on the princes of Chernigov, enthroned his son in Novgorod, and captured Pereyaslav of the South.

The Novgorodians, however, had betrayed him, and Yuri had taken vengeance by seizing their key fortress, Torzhok.

Dolgoruki resumes his struggle for Kiev in 1147, arranging a meeting with Sviatoslav Olgovich in a place called Moscow, a trading center along the Baltic-Volga-Caspian route, situated on the Moscow River near the geographic center of European Russia and the Great Russian Plain.