Moscow (city, Russia)

I

Introduction

Moscow (city, Russia) (Russian Moskva), capital and largest city of Russia, capital of Moscow Oblast, and the country’s leading political, cultural, economic, and transportation center. Moscow lies on the Moscow River in the west central European part of Russia.

The Russian rulers, or tsars, made Moscow their base of command until 1712, when the capital was moved to Saint Petersburg. Moscow was restored as Russia’s capital in 1918, and it served as the capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1922 until 1991.

Moscow has a continental climate, with long, cold winters and short, mild summers. Average annual precipitation is 690 mm (27 in), much of it falling in the winter as heavy snow.

II

Moscow and Its Metropolitan Area

Moscow is laid out in a series of concentric rings that center on the original medieval fortress, the Kremlin. The encircling wide thoroughfares—the Boulevard Ring, Garden Ring, and Outer Ring Road—delineate the historic expansion of the city’s fortifications. Like spokes of a wheel, 14 main transportation axes radiate from the center. The Moscow River winds its way from northwest to southeast through the city, reaching a width of 244 m (800 ft) in some places. The central and eastern parts of the city lie in the river valley, and in the southwest the Sparrow Hills (formerly the Lenin Hills) rise to more than 200 m (656 ft).

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The area of Moscow expanded to 885 sq km (342 sq mi) in 1960, when the city limits were extended to coincide with the Outer Ring Road. The city expanded slightly through suburban annexation in the 1980s, reaching 994 sq km (384 sq mi) for the city proper and 1062 sq km (410 sq mi) for the metropolitan area. In many places, development has encroached upon and extended beyond the Green Belt, a ring of protected parks and mostly undeveloped land that encircles the city just outside the Outer Ring Road.

Located in the heart of Moscow on the northern bank of the Moscow River, the Kremlin is a triangular-shaped complex surrounded by stone walls reaching 20 m (66 ft) in height and nearly 2.5 km (1.5 mi) in circumference. The Kremlin walls are surmounted by 20 towers, some of which contain gateway entrances into the Kremlin. Inside the walls stand gold-domed Orthodox churches and cathedrals from the 15th and 16th centuries, as well as former palaces of the Russian emperors and the patriarchs, or leaders, of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Great Kremlin Palace, the most imposing structure within the Kremlin, was completed in 1849 as the residence of Russian emperor Nicholas I. Among the Kremlin’s many ecclesiastical buildings are the Cathedral of the Assumption (completed in 1479) and the Archangel Cathedral (1508), each with five gilded domes, and the Cathedral of the Annunciation (1489; rebuilt in 1562-1564) with nine gilded domes. The 16th-century Ivan the Great Bell Tower, which rises 98 m (320 ft), is the tallest structure in the Kremlin. A modern addition to the Kremlin is the Palace of Congresses (completed in 1961), a huge concrete-and-glass building with a 6,000-seat auditorium that once held congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU); it is now used primarily for cultural performances. Other Kremlin buildings house the offices and official residence of Russia’s president.

Just outside the eastern Kremlin wall, facing Red Square, is the V. I. Lenin Mausoleum, which contains the embalmed remains of the first Soviet leader, Vladimir Ilich Lenin. Along the opposite side of Red Square is the department store known as GUM (Russian acronym for State Department Store), which was transferred to private ownership in the early 1990s. At the south end of the square stands the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed, built between 1555 and 1560 to celebrate the military conquests of Russian tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich, known as Ivan the Terrible. Other Red Square landmarks include the State Historical Museum and the reconstructed Kazan’ Cathedral, built originally in 1626. Lying to the east of Red Square, the commercial quarter known as Kitay-gorod—an early Kremlin suburb of artisans and traders—contains the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and numerous landmarks. Southwest of the Kremlin, construction of a replica of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior—the largest church in Russia—began in 1995; the original 19th-century cathedral was demolished in 1931 under the order of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Under Soviet-era planning, residential areas were separated from industrial sections of the city. Guidelines were established for the number of shops and other facilities to be provided for given numbers of people, some on the ground floors of apartment buildings. About 90 percent of Moscow’s approximately 3 million housing units were built after 1955, most in the form of multistory apartment blocks. These include brick buildings five to nine stories high, built in the late 1950s as part of a government effort to alleviate a housing shortage, and high-rise apartment buildings in planned suburban communities, built after 1970 on the city’s outskirts. While some of the apartment buildings built in the 1950s are in need of renovation, all apartments have piped water and sewer service, and nearly all have hot water and a bath. Most buildings have central heating and telephone service. In January 1992 the city government allowed tenants to claim ownership of their apartments by registering and paying a small fee.

III

Population

Moscow proper had a population (2003 estimate) of 10,469,000. The city’s annual growth rate slowed significantly between 1970 and 1990—from 1.21 percent to .26 percent—in part because of declining birthrates. The influx of people from other parts of Russia, and to a lesser extent from the adjoining successor states of the former Soviet Union, now accounts for most of the city’s growth. Moscow attracts people in search of jobs, better living conditions, and the excitement of the city; it also serves as a stopover point for many of those leaving the country.

Russians are the largest ethnic group in Moscow. There are also sizable numbers of Jews (considered both an ethnic and religious group in Russia), Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Tatars, as well as increasing numbers of non-Russian refugees and other immigrants from Afghanistan, Caucasia, the Baltic States, and Central Asia. Orthodox Christianity is the predominant religion in Moscow. The city also has communities of Protestants, Muslims, Jews, and Roman Catholics. Russian is the first language of most Muscovites, or residents of Moscow.

IV

Education and Culture

Moscow State University (founded in 1755), the largest and most important educational institution in Russia, is one of more than 75 institutions of higher education in Moscow. The Russian Academy of Sciences and its affiliated research institutions have headquarters in the city. The Russian State Library has one of the largest collections in the world.

Moscow has several world-renowned cultural institutions. The Bolshoi Theater, built in 1825, is home to one of Russia’s oldest ballet companies, the Bolshoi Ballet. Russia’s finest art collections outside of the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg are housed in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and State Tretyakov Gallery.

As the seat of the patriarchate (jurisdiction of the patriarch) of the Russian Orthodox Church since 1589, Moscow holds great importance for believers. The city contains several monasteries, including the Danilov Monastery (founded in 1282), where the Moscow branch of the Russian Orthodox patriarchate has its offices.

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