Short answers, pulled from the story.
Vladimir's founding date is disputed between 990 and 1108. The 990 date, credited to Vladimir the Great, was made official by the 2005 Charter of Vladimir and is the date the city administration recognizes. The 1108 date comes from the 16th-century Lvov Chronicle and credits Vladimir Monomakh instead.
Vladimir never fully recovered after the Mongol-Tatars of the Golden Horde overran the city on the 8th of February 1238. Afterward the title Grand Prince of Vladimir became an honorific held mostly by the Prince of Moscow, and Metropolitan Peter moved the church's seat from Vladimir to Moscow in 1325.
The Golden Horde under Batu Khan besieged Vladimir and overran it on the 8th of February 1238. A fire destroyed thirty-two limestone buildings on the first day, and the grand prince's family died sheltering in a church. The grand prince himself escaped but was killed the following month at the Battle of the Sit River.
Vladimir's Dormition Cathedral, the Cathedral of Saint Demetrius, and the Golden Gate are listed together as the White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal on UNESCO's World Heritage List. They are the only three of the city's original white stone edifices still standing.
Vladimir sits 200 kilometers east of Moscow on the Klyazma River. It is linked to Moscow by both a railway, running since 1861, and the M7 highway, with at least 20 pairs of long-distance trains passing through Vladimir station daily.
Andrey Bogolyubsky, prince of the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality from 1157 to 1175, oversaw the building of both the Golden Gate and the Dormition Cathedral. Russian, German, and Georgian masons worked on Vladimir's white stone buildings, and the Dormition Cathedral's interior was later painted by Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny in 1408.