Aleksandr Mikhailovich of Tver Grand Prince Alexander or Aleksandr Mikhailovich ( ; 7 October 1301 – 29 October 1339 ) was a Prince of Tver as Alexander I and Grand Prince of Vladimir - Suzdal as Alexander II . Life . Aleksandr was a second son of Prince Mikhail of Tver by his wife , Anna of Kashin . As a young man , his appanage s included Kholm and Mikulin . In 1322 , he continued the Tver princes ' opposition to the rise of Moscow when he rather spectacularly waylaid Grand Prince Yury of Moscow ( who had schemed against Aleksandr ' s father to gain the yarlyk or patent of office from the khan of the Golden Horde , the Mongol kingdom which ruled Russia and much of central Asia in the 13th and 14th centuries ) as Yury journeyed with the tribute from Novgorod to Moscow . Four years later , Aleksandr succeeded his childless brother Dmitry the Terrible Eyes who had been executed on behest of Uzbeg Khan in the Horde after Dmitry avenged his father ' s death by murdering Yury . In 1327 , a Tatar official , the Baskaki Shevkal ( the cousin of Uzbeg ) , arrived in Tver from the Horde , with a large retinue . They took up residence at Aleksandr ' s palace and , according to chronicle reports , started terrorizing the city , randomly robbing and killing . Rumors spread that Shevkal wanted to kill the prince , occupy the throne for himself and introduce Islam to the city . When , on 15 August 1327 , the Tatars tried to take a horse from a deacon named Dyudko , he cried for help and a mob of furious people rushed on the Tatars and killed them all . Shevkal and his remaining guards were burnt alive in one of the houses where they had attempted to hide . The massacre led inevitably to Tatar reprisals . Indeed , the whole incident may have been a provocation by the Tatars to destroy Aleksandr and the Tver princes . Ivan Kalita of Moscow , brother of Yury of Moscow who had been murdered by Dmitri the Terrible Eyes in 1322 , immediately went to the Horde and , before Aleksandr had time to justify himself to Uzbeg Khan , persuaded the khan to grant Moscow the yarlik or patent of office for the throne of Vladimir . The khan also sent Ivan at the head of an army of 50 , 000 soldiers to punish Tver . Alexander fled with his family to Novgorod , but he was not accepted there for fear of the Tatars , so he went on to Pskov . Pskov not only allowed Aleksandr to enter their city , but made him their prince . Desiring to save the Russian land from further devastation — had Ivan Kalita left Aleksandr in Pskov , the Tatars would have certainly sent another punitive expedition which would have destroyed that city — Aleksandr agreed to abandon the city , but the residents of Pskov would not let him go . Metropolitan Feognost ( Theognostus ) arrived in Novgorod and he and Archbishop Moisei of Novgorod ( 1325 – 1330 ; 1352 – 1359 ) excommunicated the city at the behest of Ivan Kalita . In 1329 , fulfilling the order of the khan , Ivan Kalita and many other princes declared war to Pskov . Aleksander fled into Lithuania and then to Sweden , after which the metropolitan lifted the ban of excommunication against Pskov . Aleksander returned to Pskov a year and a half later under the patronage of Gediminas , Grand Duke of Lithuania . In 1335 , Aleksandr sent his son , Fyodor , to the Horde in order to gain forgiveness . Two years later in 1337 he went there himself . Uzbeg Khan , at least for a time , forgave his old enemy and sent him back to Tver . This led to renewed hostilities with Moscow , which Tver ' could not sustain . On October 29 , 1339 , Aleksandr and Fyodor were quartered ( chopped into four pieces ) in Sarai , the capital city of the Horde , by the orders of Uzbeg Khan . Family . Alexander was married ca . 1320 to Anastasia of Halych and had eight children :