Moscow, capital of Russia, located in the far western part of the country. Since it was first mentioned in the chronicles of 1147, Moscow has played a vital role in Russian history. It became the capital of Muscovy (the Grand Principality of Moscow) in the late 13th century; hence, the people of Moscow are known as Muscovites. Today Moscow is not only the political centre of Russia but also the country’s most populous city and its industrial, cultural, scientific, and educational capital. For more than 600 years Moscow also has been the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Character Of The City
If St. Petersburg’s rule (the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s), yet glitzy automobiles and Western-style supermarkets, casinos, and nightclubs are equally visible. Many Orthodox churches, as well as some synagogues and mosques, have been restored, Moscow’s novel theatres have reclaimed leadership in the dramatic arts, and traditional markets have been revived and expanded. These markets, which under the Soviets were known as kolkhoz (collective-farm) markets and sold mainly crafts and produce, are now more sophisticated retail establishments.
It has become habitual to compare Moscow with St. Petersburg, its rival and the former (1712–1918) capital of Russia. While St. Petersburg has absorbed western European influences, Moscow is viewed as a traditional Russian city. Unlike its rival, Moscow has a well-defined city centre marked by the Kremlin.

Landscape
City site
Moscow is located in western Russia about 400 miles (640 km) southeast of St. Petersburg and 300 miles (480 km) east of the border with Belarus. It stands on the Moscow River, a tributary of the Oka and thus of the Volga, in the centre of the vast plain of European Russia. The city and its surrounding area, the Moscow oblast (province), lie in the northwest corner of the most highly developed and densely populated part of Russia. Moscow is situated in the broad, extremely shallow valley of the Moscow River and its tributaries.

The advances and retreats of glaciers during the Pleistocene Epoch (about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago) deposited a thick mantle of boulder clays and morainic sands and gravels into which the sinuous Moscow River cut its wide valley in successive stages, marked by four corresponding levels. Geologically recent alluvial deposits cover their surfaces. Beside the river itself is a narrow belt of floodplain; a few feet above this is the first terrace, which yields to the successively higher second and third levels. The last of these terraces, rising up to 100–115 feet (30–35 metres) above the river, is the most extensive, and much of Moscow is built on it. Northward the third terrace merges imperceptibly with a plain of clays and sands, which slopes up very gradually to the Klin-Dmitrov morainic ridge some 40 miles (60 km) north of the city. Similarly, eastward and southeastward the surface gradually merges into the vast, almost completely flat, and very swampy clay plain of the Meshchera Lowland, which extends far beyond the city limits.
Almost everywhere, surface relief is minor. The legend that Moscow was built on seven hills, as Rome was, is an exaggeration, though there are a few small hills in and around the city centre. Only in the southwest of the city is there an upland area—on Cretaceous rocks, covered by glacial morainic material. This is the Teplostanskaya Upland, which rises more than 400 feet (120 metres) above the Moscow River and which includes the highest elevation within Moscow’s limits, 830 feet (250 metres) above sea level. One of the sweeping bends of the river has cut into the edge of the Teplostanskaya Upland a steep cliff, the Vorobyëvy Hills (also known as the Sparrow Hills or the Lenin Hills), from the top of which there are panoramic views of the city.

Long periods of occupation have extensively altered the natural setting of Moscow. The “cultural layer,” consisting of debris of buildings demolished long ago and of other materials deposited by humans, is up to 50 feet (15 metres) deep in some parts of central Moscow. Almost all the small rivers and streams that once flowed into the Moscow River through the city area have now been put into underground conduits or have been filled in. There are still visible tributaries, however—i.e., the Yauza and two of its appendages on the left (northern) bank and the Setun. The Yauza and the Moscow are controlled by stone embankments for most of their winding courses through the city. The Moscow River has been diverted in places, with cuts made through the necks of its loops, and it has also been both widened and deepened; in certain places it is 800 feet (245 metres) wide. In the past the river was icebound from November to April, but a channel is now kept open throughout the winter. The Yauza receives additional water from the Volga, by way of the Moscow Canal and its branch, the Likhobory Canal. Two dams on its lower course have raised the level of the Yauza and have made the lower reaches navigable.
Part of Moscow’s water supply comes from some 1,000 deep bores in the city that tap the artesian water of the underlying Carboniferous beds. Overuse has greatly lowered the levels of these underground waters, however, and most water needs are now met by surface sources—i.e., the reservoirs north of the city built in connection with the Moscow Canal, in particular the Ucha Reservoir. Water is also drawn from the Moscow River and pumped into underground storage reservoirs. The discharge of untreated sewage and industrial effluents polluted the Moscow River and adjacent groundwater until the mid-1960s, when antipollution and water-purification measures were enforced.

Climate
The climate of Moscow is dominated by westerly winds from the Atlantic. Precipitation is moderate, about 23 inches (580 mm) a year. Snow is common, beginning usually about mid-November and lasting generally until mid-March; the city is well-equipped to keep the streets clear. Winters are long, yet they are significantly milder than in similar climatic regions of North America. Southerly airstreams occasionally bring days with temperatures above freezing. Conversely, northerly winds from the Arctic bring very sharp drops in temperature, often accompanied by clear, brisk weather with low relative humidity. Thus, although the January average temperature is 14 °F (−10 °C), there can be considerable variation; temperatures have dropped to near −45 °F (−43 °C). Spring is relatively brief, and the temperature rises rapidly during late April. Summers are warm, and July, the warmest month, has an average temperature in the mid-60s F (about 18 °C); temperatures nearing 100 °F (38 °C) have been reached in August. Rainy days are not uncommon, but the summer rainfall often comes in brief, heavy downpours and thunderstorms. Autumn, like spring, is short, with rapidly falling temperatures.
Until the late 1950s there was increasing air pollution in Moscow. Smog was common, often with heavy concentrations of sulfur dioxide. A major campaign to control noxious emissions was launched, assisted greatly by a changeover from coal to natural gas as the principal fuel. Some factories that had contributed to pollution were moved out of the city. Slight improvement in Moscow’s air had been marked, but since the 1980s the growing number of motor vehicles and the increase in the number of power generators have once again bolstered the concentrations of such exhaust pollutants as carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide in Moscow.

City layout
A map of Moscow presents a pattern of concentric rings that circle the rough triangle of the Kremlin and its rectangular extension, the Kitay-gorod, with outwardly radiating spokes connecting the rings; the whole pattern is modified by the twisting, northwest–southeast-trending Moscow River. These rings and radials mark the historical stages of the city’s growth: successive epochs of development are traced by the Boulevard Ring and the Garden Ring (both following the line of former fortifications), the Moscow Little Ring Railway (built in part along the line of the former Kamer-Kollezhsky customs barrier), and the Moscow Ring Road.

People
The inhabitants of Moscow are overwhelmingly of Russian ethnicity; the largest minority groups are Ukrainians, Belarusians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and Tatars. In addition, it is estimated that there were about a few hundred thousand undocumented immigrants from Vietnam, Afghanistan, and China residing in the Moscow area at the beginning of the 21st century.
Many residents of Moscow were not born in the city but migrated there during its rapid growth. Beginning in 1932, the Soviets restricted migration to Moscow, instituting a system of compulsory residence registration widely known as propiska. The system’s barriers were on many occasions sidestepped through marriage or through apartment exchanges (whereby a Muscovite would trade his communal apartment for one in another Russian city). Another option for those desiring to move to Moscow was to become a limitchik (an unrestricted migrant worker who usually performed the menial jobs scorned by native Muscovites). In the 1970s about two-fifths of new migrants were limitchiks, but that proportion declined in the 1980s. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a time period when limitchiks could qualify for housing registration, which usually meant they received a room in a communal apartment; however, many limitchiks left the city as the removal of state price controls made basic living expenses unaffordable. The workers who remained usually lived in substandard conditions. The allowances made for limitchiks were discontinued altogether in the 1990s; after 1994 the limitchik disappeared as a phenomenon.
This cessation of migrant labour in the city, along with the nationwide price liberalization, caused an economic downturn in Moscow, as in other large Russian cities. At that time some Muscovites believed that it would be easier to eke out a living outside the city. By 1995, however, this downward trend stopped, and growth of the city’s population resumed. Throughout the 1990s Moscow’s population swelled by about 2 million, to 10 million inhabitants. At the beginning of the 21st century, migration to Moscow remained strong, but former administrative restrictions on migration had been overshadowed by economic ones; Moscow had become one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in. The privatization of real estate and the decline in public housing construction made the acquisition of new dwellings extremely difficult.

Intercity transport
Compared with other large cities in most developed countries, Moscow historically had few privately owned cars; however, since the 1990s, private ownership of vehicles has increased dramatically, leading to significant traffic congestion. The situation is further complicated by the lack of parking facilities. As a result, mass transit has played and continues to play a crucial role in the lives of many Muscovites. The most important element in Moscow’s transportation system is the Metropolitan (Metro) subway. Begun in 1935, it is renowned for the elaborate architecture of its stations, especially the older ones, which are highly decorated with marble, stained glass, statuary, and chandeliers. Trains usually arrive at three-minute intervals, although the wait is even shorter during rush hours. The network copies the city street pattern, with a series of radial lines linked by a single ring subway. Although the lines extend to most parts of the city, the stations are spaced far apart, so that it is usually necessary to use them in conjunction with bus, trolley, and streetcar lines.
The inflexibility of fixed-line forms of transport has posed other problems. Although Moscow has, for the most part, a dense network of surface transport, new routes sometimes tend to lag behind housing construction, so that certain new suburbs are rather poorly served for some time after their completion. One solution has been to replace streetcar lines with bus routes. In the mid-2000s the city government responded to growing automobile traffic problems by approving a project to convert sections of inner city railway back to passenger service (the railway had stopped carrying passengers in the 1930s to solely transport freight) and to renovate the city’s tram lines. Fares on all forms of transport are similar to those in other major cities but are more expensive than they were under Soviet rule.