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Introduction

The capital and largest city of Russia , Moscow has always played a central role in the country’s history. In the Middle Ages it was the capital of the powerful principality of Muscovy. For much of the 20th century it was the capital of the Soviet Union , representing the authority of that superpower’s communist government. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moscow became the political center of newly independent Russia as well as its industrial, educational, and cultural capital.

Moscow is situated in far western Russia on the banks of the Moskva (Moscow) River, a tributary of the Oka. The center of the city is the Kremlin , located on a high bank of the river. The Kremlin began as a fort first built by Prince Yuri Dolgoruky in the 12th century. It was protected originally by a wooden fence and later by brick walls. During the following centuries churches, palaces, and government buildings were built within the walls. Today the Kremlin walls enclose the largest concentration of historic buildings in Russia.

Next to the Kremlin is Red Square. It was originally a marketplace at a time when a trade and artisans’ settlement had developed outside the Kremlin walls. It became the major center for political and social events and today is used for big parades and public celebrations and demonstrations. At the southern end of the square is the 16th-century Cathedral of St. Basil, and at the northern end is the 19th-century State Historical Museum. The Lenin Mausoleum is on the west side, and the massive department store GUM is on the east.

With the Kremlin and Red Square as the original core area, the city grew outward in a series of rings, marked by defensive walls. The brick walls of the Kremlin date from the late 15th century. In the 16th century additional walls of stone and earth were built around the city. In the 19th century these walls were pulled down and replaced with wide circular boulevards known as the Boulevard and Garden rings. Beyond these boulevards the city has expanded in all directions, with roads radiating out from the central rings like the spokes of a wheel.

Central Moscow—the area within the Garden Ring—functions like a typical downtown. In this area are concentrated most of the government offices, most of the hotels and larger stores, and the main theaters, museums, and art galleries. In the 1990s the resident population of the inner city declined as many large apartment buildings were transformed into offices. The residential neighborhoods that remain within the Garden Ring consist mostly of luxury apartments for the wealthy.

The architecture of central Moscow features buildings representing every period of the city’s development from the 15th century to the present day. Examples of 17th-century church architecture include the Church of All Saints of Kulishki, built in the 1670s and ’80s, and the Church of the Nativity of Putniki (1649–52). Other notable buildings include the elegant Pashkov House (1785–86), now part of the Russian State Library; the Manezh (Riding School; 1817), which is now used as an exhibition hall; and the Bolshoi Theater (1821–24), rebuilt in 1856 after a fire. Soviet-era additions to central Moscow include several elaborate “wedding-cake” (tiered) skyscrapers as well as concrete-and-glass high rises. The Gazprom and Lukoil office buildings, built in the 1990s, are among the more notable examples of later architecture.

The main street in the city center is Tverskaya Prospekt (formerly Gorky Prospekt), which leads northwest from Red Square. It is lined with large stores, hotels, theaters, and restaurants. Some of the notable buildings are the National Hotel, the Central Telegraph Office, and the Mayor’s Office.

The Moskva River follows a circuitous course through the city. It forms a large loop southwest of the city center and then flows northward again to pass the Kremlin walls. To the east of the Kremlin the Yauza River joins the Moskva. The high south bank of the southwestern loop of the Moskva forms the Vorobyëvy Hills (or Lenin Hills), which reach 655 feet (200 meters). Many foreign embassies and the Moscow State University complex, dominated by an ornate Stalin-era building, stand on the Vorobyëvy Hills. Across the river is the sports complex known as Luzhniki Park. Just upstream, on the south bank of the river, is Gorky Park. The city’s largest park, it has an amusement park in addition to gardens and woodlands.

On the outskirts of the city a large number of residential and other building construction projects were undertaken after World War II. Major new housing areas arose between the Garden Ring and the Moscow Ring Road, which circles the city some 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the center. The northern suburbs contain the large Sokolniki Park, a botanical garden, and the All-Russian Exhibition Center. The latter—still commonly known by its Soviet-era name, the Exhibition of Economic Achievements—was opened in 1939 to showcase the economic and scientific accomplishments of the Soviet Union. Today the exhibits are interspersed with amusement park rides, markets, and other attractions. Nearby is the 1,758-foot (536-meter) Television Tower, the tallest structure in Russia.

People and Culture

The great majority of the people of Moscow, called Muscovites, are ethnic Russians. The largest minority groups are Ukrainians, Belarusians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and Tatars. During the Soviet era, migration contributed to a rapid rise in Moscow’s population. Beginning in 1932 the government restricted migration by requiring people to have a special permit to live in the city. Today, people still need to register their place of residence with the government.

It is rare for people in Moscow to have a single-family home. Most Muscovites live in apartments, which can be in old houses that have been subdivided, in Soviet-era apartment blocks, or in new buildings. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, registered Moscow residents were given the government-owned homes in which they lived. After that, however, housing prices rose so steeply that, in the early 21st century, only a small percentage of Muscovites could afford to buy an apartment in the city. In fact, due largely to the housing market, Moscow became one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in.

Moscow contains dozens of theaters and concert halls. One of the best known is the Bolshoi Theater, which is home to Russia’s leading theater company for ballet and opera. Organized in the 1770s, the company also performs at the State Kremlin Palace and tours extensively throughout the world. Other renowned theaters include the Maly Theater, the Moscow Art Theater, and the Obraztsov Puppet Theater. Musical performances are held in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and at the Moscow P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory.

Several of Moscow’s many art galleries and museums have an international reputation. Among the most famous are the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Oriental Arts, and the Literature Museum. Historical institutions include the Armory Museum, the State Historical Museum, the Central Lenin Museum, and State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.

Moscow is a major educational center, with dozens of universities and specialized institutions of higher education. The largest and most prestigious is Moscow State University, founded in 1755. The Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian State Library, one of the world’s largest libraries, are also located in the city.

The leading sports complex in Moscow is Luzhniki Park, in the Vorobyëvy Hills. It was one of the main arenas for the 1980 Olympic Games. Dynamo Stadium on Leningrad Prospekt is the home ground for one of Moscow’s several football (soccer) teams. Most districts of the city have their own sports halls, swimming pools, and ice rinks.

The economy of Moscow, like that of Russia as a whole, was transformed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During the Soviet era the city’s economy was dominated by the manufacturing and engineering sectors. In the 1990s, as the formerly government-controlled economy shifted to one based on private ownership, these sectors declined dramatically and were largely replaced by service industries. The number of people employed in manufacturing in Moscow decreased by half from the late 1980s into the ’90s.

Nevertheless, Moscow remains the largest industrial center in Russia. Engineering and metalworking still rank among the city’s most important industries, designing and manufacturing such products as machine tools, ball bearings, automobiles, precision instruments, and electronics. Aerospace design and manufacture is one of the most important engineering sectors in some of Moscow’s surrounding towns. Oil refining, chemicals, food processing, and construction are also valuable industries.

Moscow’s wide-ranging service sector includes such industries as finance, retail trade, education, and research. As Russia’s economy was privatized, Moscow developed into a financial center, with dozens of banks and several securities exchanges. Most foreign investment in the Russian economy passes through the city’s financial institutions. The opening up of Russian society also spurred Moscow’s emergence as a major tourist destination.

Moscow is the hub of Russia’s transportation network. Rail lines radiate out in all directions, connecting the capital with other Russian cities as well as Central Asia and eastern and central Europe. These railways carry much of the country’s freight and are also vital to passengers commuting between Moscow and its suburbs. The Moscow Little Ring Railway and the Greater Moscow Ring Railway link the radial lines. For travel within the city, which is typically congested with traffic, public transportation is critical. The centerpiece of the mass-transit system is the Metropolitan (Metro) subway, whose lines copy the city’s radial street pattern.

A major river port, Moscow is connected to the Volga River to the north by a canal built in the 1930s. By means of this canal, shipping from Moscow can reach the Black, Baltic, and Caspian seas.

Moscow is served by two international airports: Sheremetyevo-2 to the north and Domodedovo to the south. Sheremetyevo-1 handles mostly domestic flights.

Archaeological evidence shows that a settlement existed on the site of present-day Moscow during the late Stone Age. The traditional date of the city’s founding, however, is 1147, when Prince Yuri Dolgoruky hosted a feast on the site. At the time, Moscow was a small settlement on the bank of the Moskva River. To protect the site, in 1156 Prince Dolgoruky built the original kremlin—a wooden fort atop earthen embankments.

Moscow developed into an important trading town. It was centrally located among the system of rivers that formed the trade routes across European Russia. Like most other Russian towns, Moscow was attacked on many occasions by the Mongols (Tatars), but it managed to survive. It was sheltered to a considerable extent by the surrounding forests and by the swamps of the Oka River to the east.

As Mongol power declined beginning in the 14th century, Moscow grew steadily in size and importance by absorbing surrounding principalities. It became the center of power of what was called the Grand Principality of Muscovy. Within the Kremlin, palaces for the prince and nobles, monasteries, and churches were erected. Outside the Kremlin walls, the trading and artisan quarter expanded. By the second half of the 15th century Moscow had become the undisputed center of a unified Russian state. Defensive brick walls more than a mile long were built around the enlarged Kremlin.

Despite its new fortifications, Moscow still faced attack. In 1571 the Crimean Tatars captured the town, burning everything but the Kremlin. New stone walls built between 1584 and 1591 helped Moscow turn back another attack by the Crimean Tatars in 1591. The next year an outer ring of earthen walls was built to protect the expanding city. In addition, such fortified monasteries as the Novodevichy and Donskoy were built to defend the city from the south.

These improvements in security allowed artisan activity to flourish. Different groups of tradespeople—for example, armor makers, blacksmiths, and weavers—occupied particular suburbs of Moscow. State workshops made weapons and gunpowder.

The development of Moscow was temporarily eclipsed by the founding of St. Petersburg in 1703 and its choice by Peter the Great in 1712 to be Russia’s capital city. Nobles, merchants, and artisans moved to St. Petersburg. However, Moscow soon began to recover from the loss of its role as capital. New industries, especially textiles, fueled economic growth. The city’s key role in Russia’s cultural life was enhanced by the founding of Moscow University (now Moscow State University), the country’s first, in 1755.

In 1812 Moscow was occupied by Napoleon ’s French troops. An accompanying fire leveled more than two thirds of the city’s buildings. Again, through a great rebuilding program, the city recovered rapidly. Moscow became the center of Russia’s railroads and developed heavy engineering and metalworking industries. The population reached nearly 1 million by 1897 and doubled to 2 million by 1915.

In 1918, following the Russian Revolution , Lenin moved the Soviet government to Moscow. The city thereby regained its status as capital. During the 1930s Joseph Stalin drew up a grandiose plan for the development of the city, but it was never completely fulfilled. The most successful venture was the Metro, begun in 1933.

Moscow suffered little damage in World War II despite the fact that German invaders reached the outskirts of the city. By 1939 the population had reached 4.5 million, and by 1959 it was about 6 million. To relieve overcrowding, much of the old housing around the historic core of the city was torn down and replaced by massive apartment blocks. A new development plan introduced in 1960 laid the groundwork for the city’s expansion in the coming decades. It required the careful designation of new residential areas, industrial zones, and green spaces and also annexed surrounding towns to the city.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moscow was at the forefront of Russia’s historic changes. Private enterprise and foreign investment led to a proliferation of new businesses as well as a skyrocketing cost of living and an increase in criminal activity, including organized crime. The city also experienced several deadly attacks by rebels seeking independence for Chechnya or other republics in Russia’s Caucasus region, including a hostage crisis at a theater in 2002 and suicide bombings in the Metro in 2010. Population (2013 estimate), 11,843,643.

Additional Reading

Brooke, Caroline. Moscow: A Cultural History (Oxford Univ. Press, 2006). Graham, L.R. Moscow Stories (Indiana Univ. Press, 2006). Kelly, Laurence. A Traveller’s Companion to Moscow (Interlink, 2005). Rice, Christopher, and Rice, Melanie. Moscow (DK, 2007).

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Russia is the largest nation in the world, with land in both Europe and Asia. The capital of Russia is Moscow and the national language is Russian.

One of the world's richest and most powerful countries , Russia has undergone huge change in the last century.

Russian landscapes vary hugely, ranging from polar conditions, mountains and forests in the north to enormous grasslands called steppes and warm beaches in the south of the country. Russia is known for being a very cold country and has a high snowfall.

Top 10 facts

1. Russia is the largest country in the world. Over 142 million people live in Russia.

2. Russia borders 14 different countries on two continents and has the longest coastline in the world.

3. Most Russian people live in cities. The largest, the capital Moscow, has 12 million inhabitants. St Petersburg is the second-largest city.

4. Russia has lots of natural resources ; it sells more gas than any other country and is the second-largest exporter of oil.

5. Russia is home to the longest river in Europe, the Volga (3690km long), and the deepest lake in the world, Lake Baikal (over 1km deep in places) .

6. Russian is the official language, spoken by the majority of Russians. Russian is a Slavic language and uses an alphabet called Cyrillic. The main religion is Orthodox Christianity.

7. The currency of Russia is the Russian ruble.

8. Brown bears live in forests across Russia and are considered the country's national animal. 

9. Chess, ballet and gymnastics are very popular hobbies in Russia and lots of children take classes in them from a very young age.

10. The Russian space program was very successful. In 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first person to travel into space. The first woman in space was also Russian, Valentina Tereshkova.

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Did you know?

Russia is so large that it has 11 different time zones , more than any other country in the world!

The Winter Palace in St Petersburg used to be the home of the Russian royal family (it is now a museum). There are 1500 rooms and 117 staircases in the palace! There are so many works of art on display that it's been estimated that it would take 11 years to see them all!

People who have seven or more children in Russia are awarded an Order of Parental Glory.

At Christmas Russian children receive gifts not from Father Christmas but from Grandfather Frost and the Snow Maiden.

Only a third of Russian people own a car and most people travel by train.

It takes six days to travel the length of the Trans-Siberian railway (9288km)!

Russia has the largest number of forests in the world and is also home to over 40 national parks and 100 wildlife reserves .

White Nights is the name of the summer evenings in St Petersburg; from mid June to July it is light all day and all night in the city.

Russian people love to grow some of their own food: two thirds of people who live in cities have an allotment.

The Metro (Underground) in Moscow is filled with paintings, chandeliers and statues and was built to be a 'palace for the people'. It is the busiest underground railway system in Europe, carrying 2.4 billion passengers every year.

Yakutsk in the north of Russia is the coldest city on Earth, with average winter temperatures of -40°C. The city is built on stilts because the ground it sits on is frozen all year round and can be very unstable.

Look through the gallery and see if you can spot the following:

• Moscow at night
• The Russian flag
• The Ural mountains
• A dacha , a traditional Russian country house
• The Russian winter landscape
• Traditional decorated bread
• A Russian Orthodox church
• Red Square in Moscow
• Matruschka stacking dolls
• St Petersburg
• Singers wearing traditional costumes
• Blini, Russian pancakes served with sour cream and caviar
• The Winter Palace in St Petersburg, the official residence of the Russian monarchs from 1732 to 1917
• Peterhof Palace
• Pelmeni dumplings
• The Russian currency is the ruble
• Moscow's GUM, the largest department store in Russia

Russia is the largest country in the world and in its entirety occupies about one-ninth of the total land on earth. Russia spans two continents, Europe and Asia.

Russia shares land borders with 14 other countries. Some of them used to belong to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a communist state from 1922 to 1991. The USSR was also known as the Soviet Union.

From the 1400s Russia was ruled by emperors called tsars , but in 1917 the Russian Revolution abolished the monarchy and in 1922 the world's first communist state, the USSR, was established . The communist government aimed to create a fair way of life for everyone, not just the rich ruling class. By 1929, however, a general called Joseph Stalin had seized power and imposed lots of new rules on the people, causing huge suffering. In World War II the Russians fought against Nazi Germany and millions of Russians were killed in the fighting.

In 1945 the USSR became one of the world's superpowers. In the following decades the USSR and the United States of America were on opposite sides in many conflicts; this is known as the Cold War.

In 1989 the communist regime fell; two years later the USSR split into 15 independent countries (the Russian Federation).

Under communism religion was banned, but the Church is now very popular, and around 75 per cent of Russians are Orthodox Christians . Around 10-15 per cent of the population are Muslim.

The Kremlin in Moscow is Russia's centre of government and the home of the Russian president. Vladimir Putin has been president of Russia since 2012; he was also president from 1999 to 2008 and was the country’s prime minister from 2008 to 2012.

The country's second-largest city, St Petersburg, was renamed Leningrad in 1924 to honour the Russian Revolution leader, Lenin. The city's name was changed back to St Petersburg in 1991.

Russia has a growing economy. The country is a manufacturer of machines, transport equipment and chemicals, and also has huge resources of oil, gas and minerals like coal, metals and diamonds. Oil, gas and minerals make up 80 per cent of what Russia exports to other countries. Fishing and farming are important industries, and Russia also produces lots of wood products like paper.

The massive region of Siberia, known as the Asian part of Russia, occupies three quarters of Russian land but only a quarter of the Russian population live there. It is very, very cold with average winter temperatures of -25°C. Siberian tigers, who live in the forests of Siberia, are one of the world's most endangered species. It's estimated that there are only 500 Siberian tigers left in the world.

Summers can be very hot in Russian cities, and lots of people have a small house in the country (called a dacha ) where they go at weekends and grow fruit and vegetables. Picking mushrooms and berries are old Russian traditions.

Lots of traditional Russian foods are made from ingredients that grow well in the cold Russian climate, like beetroot, cabbage and potato. Pirogi is a type of pastry with sweet fillings like fruit and honey and savoury fillings like mushrooms, rice and salmon. Soup, rye bread and porridge are often on the menu.

Russians love tea, but they don't use a kettle to make it! Instead they have a very large metal hot water boiler called a samovar . Russians traditionally add sugar, lemon or jam to their tea!

New Year is Russia's biggest festival, celebrated with a special dinner and fireworks. Before Lent (the 40 days before Easter), Russians celebrate Maslenitsa (Pancake Week). During the festival they eat thin pancakes ( blini ) with sour cream, jam or caviar (fish eggs) and make large straw dolls which are burnt on a bonfire.

Russian nesting dolls,  Matryoshka , are famous around the world. They are wooden figures that open and contain smaller and smaller dolls inside, painted as if they are wearing traditional Russian dress.

Russia has been a world leader in sport, space exploration and culture, renowned for its music, arts and literature. Some of the most famous composers in the world are Russian, including Tchaikovsky, the composer of The Nutcracker. Famous writers include Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace , and playwright Anton Chekhov. Ballet is a hugely popular art form and the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and the Mariinsky Ballet in St Petersburg are two of the best ballet companies in the world.

Russian athletes and sportspeople are incredibly successful, especially at the Olympic Games. One of the most popular sports in Russia is ice hockey; there are lots of ski resorts, too, and some people swim in ice-cold waters, making a hole in the ice to jump in! Football is the most popular spectator sport.

Story-telling is a big part of Russian cultural tradition. One of the most famous traditional characters is Baba Yaga, a wise but scary witch who lives in a house with chicken legs.

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