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Moscow (Москва)
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| Moscow is the epicenter of the "New Russia". It's a chaotic mix of Western consumerism, thinly-veiled authoritarian tendencies, age-old bureaucratic obstacles, plus a hint of corruption and lawlessness. | ||
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Moscow's beginnings, however, were rather modest. First mentioned in 1147 as the site of a hunting lodge of the Grand Prince of Kiev, it remained subject to the nearby town of Vladimir until 1301. Moscow's prospects began to look up during the reign of Ivan I — known as "Moneybags" for his enthusiasm for collecting Mongol (Tatar) taxes — when the town became the seat of the Russian Orthodox church. By the end of the 15th century, once Moscow had become the strongest Russian principality, Ivan III ("the Great") stopped paying tribute to the Tatar khans, married the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, and commissioned Italian architects to rebuild Moscow's Kremlin ("fortress") walls. |
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| This building spree continued under Tsar Ivan IV, better known as "the Terrible." Ivan murdered his oldest son in a fit of rage, leaving the invalid Fyodor as his successor. His death without an heir in 1598 brought on the "Time of Troubles," when Moscow was repeatedly invaded by Polish and Cossack armies. |
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The election of Michael Romanov as tsar in 1613 returned a measure of stability. In 1712, however, his grandson, Peter the Great, abandoned the town where he grew up — and witnessed the murder of his family during the Streltsy Rebellion — in favor of a new capital, St. Petersburg. |
| Of course, Moscow was far too important to be forsaken completely. Russian tsars continued to be crowned in the Kremlin's Cathedral of the Assumption, the seat of the Orthodox church, and the city was rebuilt along Neo-Classical lines after being burned to the ground during Napoleon's 1812 invasion. With the collapse of the monarchy, the Communists moved the capital back to Moscow in 1918. They proceeded to remake the city in their image, with huge concrete apartment blocks replacing churches, monasteries, and other unnecessary buildings. Nevertheless, Moscow retained some of its earlier charm, and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior — destroyed by Stalin in 1931 — was rebuilt in the 1990s. |
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This page was last updated 17 December 2005.
