the Zvinech, Zvinyaka, Zveniga Rivers); the derivation from "town of ringing (bells)" is a folk etymology.

[9][10] Zvenigorod rose to prominence in the late 14th century after it was bequeathed by Dmitry Donskoy to his second son Yuri, who founded his residence on the steep bank of the Moskva River.

The local kremlin, called Gorodok, contains the only fully preserved example of 14th-century Muscovite architecture, the Dormition Cathedral (1399).

Zvenigorod is primarily remembered for internecine wars waged by Yuri's sons for control of Moscow during the reign of their cousin Vasily II (1425–1462).

[citation needed] By the late 19th century, the town gained popularity among the intelligentsia as a fashionable banlieue of Moscow.

The compound was encircled with stone walls and towers, patterned after those of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius.