In Yuri Dolgoruki’s principality of Vladimir was laid the foundation of Moscow, and all that distinguished Vladimir from Rostoff and Suzdal distinguished Moscow in a higher degree. The advantage of Vladimir over earlier cities consisted in this, that there were none of those “ancient strong families” which held themselves separate from others. The Vladimir principality was settled by people who had come from many places and established themselves there during that historical period when out of a varied multitude of Slav stocks and families were formed one Russian people. This from the very first was the place of all Russia, this was Vladimir’s distinction. This must be said in a higher degree touching Moscow, the youngest and most recent of places subjected to Yuri, and formed later than others into a well-ordered region. When Dolgoruki’s inheritance had become a strong state under princes succeeding him, the cities therein became so assimilated to Vladimir that they recognized no longer the pretensions to primacy of Rostoff and Suzdal. In the days of Big Nest the appellation Great Russia was connected somewhat loosely with Vladimir. This appellation, before which not only Rostoff and Suzdal yielded, but Lord Novgorod, was forced to incline, became permanently connected with Moscow, when that city rose to power finally. If, after the death of Andrei Bogolyubski, Rostoff and Suzdal boyars insisted on calling Vladimir an adjunct, they could not pretend that Moscow depended on the boyars of any place, since Yuri Dolgoruki had raised it against boyars in general. The tradition was that Moscow had been founded by Dolgoruki, and then seized from him by boyars with violence which he punished with immediate death.