​RZHEV, or Rznov, a town of Russia, in the government of Tver, 76 m. S.W. of the town of Tver, occupying the bluffs on both banks of the Volga (here 350 ft. wide) near the confluence of the Vazuza. Pop. (1900) 31,514. It is the terminus of a branch line (85 m.) from the St Petersburg & Moscow railway, and is the centre of a large transit trade between Orel, Kaluga and Smolensk and the ports of St Petersburg and Riga. In the 12th century Rzhev belonged to the principality of Smolensk. Under the rulers of Novgorod it became from 1225 a subordinate principality, and in the 15th century the two portions of the town were held by two independent princes.