Suzdal is a font based on a hand-lettered souvenir that I brought back from the Vladimir/Suzdal region in 2001.

Suzdal includes a character set for Modern Greek, and most of the characters used in modern Cyrillic alphabets.

The Vladimir/Suzdal region is northeast of Moscow and is part of Russia’s famed “Golden Ring” of medieval architecture. The city of Vladimir is situated north of the invasion route taken by the Mongols in the 13th century. After Kiev was destroyed, the ecclesiastical structure of Rus relocated itself to Vladimir until the fifteenth century when the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus was lured to Moscow.

The advantage of being off the invasion route spared the area from the destruction that accompanied the Mongol invasion and has made the Vladimir/Suzdal region home to some of the finest examples of medieval Russian architecture. The Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos in the Moscow Kremlin is modeled after its more ancient namesake in Vladimir.