Uglich is an ancient Russian city, founded on the Volga in the 12th century. The city lies inside the river's bend, or a corner of sorts (Uglich is akin to Russian ugol or corner). Still, the city may have been named after the tribe that inhabited these places in olden times. In the 10th century, a Varangian army settlement appeared where of the Uglich kremlin stands, thus founding the city.
In the 13th century, Uglich became the capital of a small principality with lands on Volga's left bank, extending in the direction of the possessions of Tver' and Great Novgorod. In the mid-14th century, Uglich became a part of the Moscow principality. In the 1400s, the city becomes the capital of an appanaged principality, achieving the status of one of the significant economic and cultural centres of the Russian state. It mints its own coins; chronicles are written, books are copied and decorated. Prince Andrei Bol'shoi (1462-1491) builds stone buildings in the kremlin and local monasteries.
At the end of the 16th century, Uglich becomes witness to mysterious and tragic events with reper cussions for all of Russia. Under unknown circum stances, Ivan the Terrible's son, the tzarevich Dmitry, dies. The official version had Dmitry running into a knife during an epileptic seizure, but rumours attributed the death to the people ot Boris bodunov, the tzar Fyodor loannovich's brother-in-law. This version of events became the basis of A. Pushkin's play 'Boris Godunov'. This event had a fateful outcome for Russia. It signaled a time of discord — the bloody era of civil wars, impostors claiming to be tzarevich Dmitry, invasions, and the ravaging of the country.
Uglich was subjected to a horrible ransacking in 1610-11, and the building of stone churches resumed only at the end of that century.