AHC: Tver rises instead of Moscow:

Contemporary Russia is pretty much the direct-line descendant of the Grand Principality of Moscow, which had as its first major rival (kind of the Etruscans to its Rome) the Grand Principality of Tver. The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have instead of Muscovy unifying Russia, have Tver and its more Baltic-Western inclined system defeat Moscow and ultimately unify the old Kievan Rus region.
 
Contemporary Russia is pretty much the direct-line descendant of the Grand Principality of Moscow, which had as its first major rival (kind of the Etruscans to its Rome) the Grand Principality of Tver. The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have instead of Muscovy unifying Russia, have Tver and its more Baltic-Western inclined system defeat Moscow and ultimately unify the old Kievan Rus region.
It's not a challenge. Tver is a nice 'Russian' city and under certain circumstances it's princes might have unified Russia.
Moscow's princes were just better at kissing asses of Great Khans. So they were appointed as Grand Princes of Khan's Rus responsible for gathering taxes to Great Khan. And Moscow benefited from it immensely.

*And comparison of Tver and Etruscans is a stretch. Same religion with Moscow, same language, same historical background, even the same dynasty (the Rurikovichis) and so on.
 
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