Tver (known as Kalinin from 1931 to 1990) is one of Russia's oldest cities. It was founded in 1135. Tver is first mentioned in the chronicles in 1208. Today Tver is one of the largest industrial, academic and cultural centres in Russia, as well as the capital of the Tver Region.
The population consists of 261,500 people of working age (64.2% of the total population), 91,600 people of retirement age (22.5%), and 100,400 people aged 16-29 (24.6%), as of January 1, 2008.
The largest industrial companies in the city are: Tverskoi Vagonostroitelny Zavod (Tver Railway Carriage Works), Tverstroimash, Tsentrosvarmash, ZhBI-1, Kombinat Stroitelnykh Materialov (Construction Materials Integrated Works), Tverskoi Zavod Yacheistogo Betona (Tver Foamed Conctere Works), Melkombinat, Tverskoi Ekskavator, Tverstekloplastik, Kuzechno-Pressovoye Proizvodstvo (Press Forging Works), Tverskoi KCM-2, Sibur-PETF, Tverskoi Poligrafkombinat (Tver Printing and Publishing Works), Tverskoi Poligrafkombinat Detskoi Literatury (Tver Children Literature Printing and Publishing Works), among others.
According to current statistics, in 2008 the city's industries shipped goods worth 70,396 million roubles, that is 47% of the region's industrial production, 83.3% of which was manufactured goods, 16% of which was services involved in the production and distribution of electricity, gas and water, and 0.2% was production related to the extractive industries.