RZHEFF Rsheff, Rjev, or Rzhoff, a town of European Russia at the head of a district in the Tver government, in 56° 16' N. lat. and 34° 21' E. long., 89 miles southwest of Tver, occupies the bluffs on both banks of the Volga (here 350 feet wide) near the confluence of the river Bazuza. It is the terminus of a branch line from the St Petersburg and Moscow Railway, has a population of 18,569 (1880; 19,660 in 1866), carries on a variety of manufactures—hemp-spinning, malting, brewing, shipbuilding, &c.—and is the centre of a great transit trade between the provinces of the lower Volga, Orel, Kaluga, and Smolensk, and the ports of St Petersburg and Riga.

Rzheff was already in existence in the 12th century, when it belonged to the principality of Smolensk and stood on the highway between Novgorod and Kieff. Under the rulers of Novgorod it become from 1225 a subordinate principality, and in the 15th century the two portions of the town were held by two independent princes, whose names are still preserved in the designations Knyaz Fedorovskii and Knyaz Dimitrievskii, given respectively to the left and the right bank of the Volga. In 1368 Rzheff was captured by Vladimir Andreevitch, and in 1375 it stood a three weeks’ seige and had its suburb burned by the same prince. It was made a district town in 1775.