MOSCOW,Russia

The capital of Russia for most of the 20th century, Moscow was also for 74 years the capital of the Soviet Union and its major industrial, scientific, and cultural center. Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the capital city of Russia under the czars had been St. Petersburg. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Russia and 10 other former Soviet republics formed a new and fragile Commonwealth of Independent States with its capital at Minsk, also the capital of Belarus. Moscow remained the capital of the newly independent Russia.
Moscow is situated 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 was a fort first built by Prince Yuri Dolgoruky in the 12th century. It was originally protected by a wooden fence and later by brick walls. During the following centuries churches, palaces, and government buildings were built within the walls. Today it forms the largest concentration of historic buildings in Russia. (See also Kremlin.)
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 are the 16th-century cathedral of St. Basil and the Rossiya Hotel, the city's largest. The massive Lenin Mausoleum stands beside the Kremlin walls, and on the opposite side of the square is the department store GUM. The north side of the square is bounded by the state historical museum.
With the Kremlin and Red Square as the original core area, the city grew outward in a series of circles, marked by old city walls. The brick walls of the Kremlin date from the 15th century. In the following centuries walls of stone and earth were built. In the 19th century these walls were pulled down and replaced with wide circular boulevards known as the Boulevard and Garden rings. Within the area of the old walls there are many narrow crooked streets and lanes. Beyond the circular boulevards the city has expanded in all directions. Because of the relatively flat terrain, there are few construction problems.
The Moskva River follows a circuitous course through the city. It forms a large loop to the southwest of the city center and then flows northward again to pass the Kremlin walls. At this point the river divides into two channels around a long flat island. The southern channel is a drainage canal, dug in the 18th century to prevent floods.
To the east of the Kremlin the Yauza River joins the Moskva. A number of bridges cross both rivers. The high south bank of the southwestern loop of the Moskva forms the Lenin Hills, which reach 655 feet (200 meters).
Many foreign embassies and the huge ornate building of the University of Moscow stand on the Lenin Hills, while across the river there is a large stadium with a complex of sports buildings. A number of other tall buildings, similar in architectural style to the university, are located in the center of the city. They include a hotel, an apartment building, and government offices. They were built in the early 1950s during the Stalin regime. A major new street, Kalinin Prospect, is lined with modern high-rise administrative and apartment buildings. The largest was the headquarters of the Council for Economic Cooperation.
The main street in the city center is Tverskaya Street (formerly Gorky Street), which leads northward from Red Square. It is lined with large stores, hotels, theaters, restaurants, and apartments. Some of the notable buildings are the Council of Ministers, the Central Telegraph Office, and the Intourist, Minsk, and Peking hotels.
The city contains several parks, of which the Gorky Park of Culture and Leisure on the bank of the Moskva River is the largest. In addition to lawns and flowers, it has a fun fair. Smaller parks are scattered around the city center and along the boulevards. All the parks are landscaped and neatly kept.
On the outskirts of the city there have been a large number of residential and other building construction projects undertaken since World War II. Major new housing areas have arisen, especially in the southwest and the north. The northern suburbs contain the large Sokol'niki Park, a botanical garden, and the Exhibition of Economic Achievements.
Opened in 1959, the exhibition consists of a number of pavilions that display the economic and scientific achievements of the former Soviet Union. Nearby are the impressive obelisk in honor of space exploration and the Television Tower, the tallest structure in Russia. It stands near the All Union Television Center, which contains television and cinema studios.
The outer ring of boulevards is connected with a number of major chaussees, or roads, that lead to towns in the surrounding region. Tverskaya Street leads into Leningrad Prospect, which divides into Volokolamsk Chausee and Leningrad Chausee. The latter leads northward to the Sheremetyevo international airport and to St. Petersburg. Warsaw Chausee leaves the city in the south, while three highways lead to towns in the east.

People

The population of Moscow in the early 1990s had soared to nearly 9 million, an increase of more than 1.5 million from 1970. The majority of the population of Moscow are Russians, but there are also people from many neighboring ethnic groups.
Because of the desire of many Russians to live in their capital city, the government has tried to limit excessive growth. This control is achieved by forbidding residence in the city unless one has an apartment. Apartments are scarce.
It is rare for people in Moscow to have a single-family home. Formerly, only high Communist party officials or other favored persons lived in villas, while the majority lived in apartments. With economic reform, a program to establish private ownership of apartments was initiated by the Russian government in 1991. Apartments are either in old houses that have been subdivided or in large modern buildings, sometimes in the suburbs.

Culture, Education, and Recreation

Moscow contains a wide variety of cultural attractions. One of the best known to foreigners is the Bolshoi Theater of Opera and Ballet. Ballet is particularly popular with Soviets, and it is difficult to get tickets for most performances. The ballet also performs in the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin. There are more than 30 major theaters and concert halls, including the Stanislavsky, Variety, Children's Musical, and Central Puppet theaters. Musicians perform in Tchaikovsky Hall, the Conservatory of Music, and the hall of the House of Trade Unions.
There is a permanent Moscow Circus housed in a building near the university. There are many cinemas, most of which show films produced by Mosfilm and other national film studios. Moscow has a large number of art galleries and museums, of which the most famous are the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, the Museum of Oriental Arts, the Museum of Folk Art, the Literature Museum, and the History Museum. Such institutions as the Lenin Museum, Marx-Engels Museum, and Museum of the Revolution are devoted to political matters.
Moscow is a major center of education with a large number of schools and other educational establishments. There are more than 70 institutions of higher education that specialize in such subjects as economics, medicine, construction, transport, sport, and education. The most prestigious is Moscow State University with more than 30,000 students. One of the largest in the world, the Lenin Library is a major educational asset. The Russian Academy of Sciences and a number of scientific institutes are also located in the city.
The complex of sports facilities in southwestern Moscow is known as Luzhniki Park. Near the city center there is a huge circular open-air swimming pool, which is heated in winter. Dynamo Stadium on Leningrad Prospect is the home ground for the leading Moscow soccer team. Nearby is the Hippodrome, where horse racing takes place. Betting on the races is permitted. Most districts of the city have their own sports halls, swimming pools, and ice rinks.

Economy

Moscow is the largest industrial center in Russia. About half of the industrial workers are employed in engineering. A wide variety of products are manufactured. These include machine tools, automobiles, ball bearings, and electrical equipment. New industries, such as radio electronics and computer technology, are growing rapidly. Chemicals and textiles are also produced.
Moscow was also the center for planning and running the Soviet economy. Gosplan, the state planning agency, and the ministries that controlled the various branches of the economy were located in the city. Gosbank, the state bank, and a large International Banking Center managed many of the Soviet Union's financial affairs.

Transportation

Moscow is served by a number of railroads from various parts of the country that join a circular railroad, which encircles the city and keeps rail traffic away from the center. Several stations such as the Belorussia, Leningrad, Kazan, Kiev, and Yaroslavl are located where the lines from these places meet the circular railroad. Connections to the city center and elsewhere are easily made by subway.
The Moscow Metro is justly famous for good service and clean and attractive stations at very low fares for riders. Lines extend into the suburbs. Buses, trolleybuses, and streetcars also provide transportation. People lucky enough to own automobiles rarely drive them to work but use public transportation instead. Most cars seen on the streets belong to government ministries and carry officials.
In order to keep traffic from the streets of the city, a ring highway was built around Moscow in the 1960s. It is one of the few four-lane highways in the country.
The Moskva River is connected to the Volga to the north by a canal built in 1937. By means of this canal, shipping from Moscow can reach the Black, Baltic, and Caspian seas. Northwest of Moscow the canal broadens into a reservoir, used for supplying drinking water. A river port on the reservoir is the starting place for cruises and water excursions. There is also a river port and passenger terminal on the Moskva.
Moscow's international airport is at Sheremetyevo, 19 miles (31 kilometers) to the northwest of the city. It is the headquarters of Aeroflot, the Russian national airline.

History

By the beginning of the 12th century, a small settlement existed close to a kremlin, or fort, on the bank of the Moskva River. It was located on the southwestern border of the Vladimir-Suzal principality, whose Prince Yuri Dolgoruky was the first person to be associated with the city.
The city was attacked on many occasions by the Mongols and Tatars but 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. The local princes were successful in dealing with the Mongols and Tatars and often bribed and paid tribute to the attackers.
Moscow lay at the center of river systems that permitted movement by water in several directions. Such rivers as the Volga, Oka, Don, Dnepr, and Western Dvina were major means of trade and communication in early Russia, and Moscow was close to the headwaters of all these rivers.
By the 16th century Moscow was a major city protected by brick walls. Ivan the Terrible built the cathedral of St. Basil on Red Square to commemorate his defeat of the Tatars, and other stone and brick buildings began to appear. An outer ring of earthen walls was built to protect the expanding city, and such fortified monasteries as the Novodevichi and Donskoy were built to defend the city from the south.
In the 16th century the city had about 100,000 inhabitants. By 1700 the number had doubled. Workshops and factories appeared, and handicraft industries developed in industrial suburbs of Moscow.
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. Most nobles and merchants moved to St. Petersburg. Moscow did not recover from the loss of its role as a capital city until after the 1917 revolution. Occupation by the French troops of Napoleon and the accompanying great fire of 1812 further hindered its development. By 1914 Moscow's population was 1.8 million, less than St. Petersburg's 2.1 million.
In 1918 Lenin ordered the return of the government to Moscow. It was a secure location far from the western borders. Moscow had become the center of a web of railroads that led to all parts of the country and had developed as an industrial center with textiles as the major manufacture. By 1926 it had become the largest city in the country with 2 million inhabitants.
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. A huge high-rise building, planned for the center of the city, was never built, but a number of skyscrapers in an elaborate "wedding-cake" style were completed in the early 1950s.
Moscow suffered little damage in World War II despite the fact that the German invaders were stopped only a few miles from the city. By 1939 the population had reached 4.5 million, and by 1959 it was about 6 million. In 1960 a new development plan was inaugurated. A row of modern buildings appeared along Kalinin Prospect, and the Palace of Congresses was opened in the Kremlin. In 1967 the Rossiya Hotel was built, followed by the huge television tower with a revolving restaurant near the top. Seven new bridges were opened and the circular highway completed.
In 1960 several small towns around Moscow such as Tushino, Babushkin, and Perovo were annexed to the city. In 1971 a new development plan was adopted. It aimed at curbing the spread of the city and at stimulating the growth of surrounding towns. New residential areas were developed, especially in the southwestern region. Attempts were made to maintain open green areas around these large blocks of apartments.
Some industries have been moved out of the city center to these new suburbs or to the many satellite cities that circle Moscow. No new industries are to be established in Moscow itself. It is hoped that this will slow the rate of population growth and stabilize it by the year 2000. Population (1991 estimate), 8,801,500.

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