History of Moscow

Reconstruction took decades and shaped post-fire Moscow — Empire-style mansions, the straight lines of the boulevards, the cleared Theatre Square with the new Bolshoi Theatre building opened in 1825 by architect Osip Bove. By the middle of the century the city had become the largest trading and industrial centre: in 1851 the Nikolaev Railway to St Petersburg opened, and by the 1860s–1870s the cotton mills of the Morozovs and the Prokhorovs were in operation. Museums and hospitals were founded on private donations — the Tretyakov Gallery, handed over to the city in 1892, and the Museum of Fine Arts (today’s Pushkin Museum), opened in 1912, both emerged out of this tradition of merchant patronage.

Moscow grew up on a low terrace at the confluence of the Neglinnaya and the Moskva River — at a point where the water and overland routes from the Chernigov lands to the Vladimir Opolye converged. Archaeology records Slavic settlements on Borovitsky Hill as early as the 11th century, but the city’s written history begins with a short chronicle line entered under the year 1147.

From princely estate to town

The Hypatian Chronicle preserves an invitation sent by the Suzdal prince Yuri Dolgoruky to his ally Svyatoslav Olgovich: “Come to me, brother, to Moscow.” That phrase became the starting point — it was this line that was chosen in the middle of the 19th century as the city’s founding date, although the text itself makes clear that a princely estate and a trading post already stood here. Nine years later, in 1156, on the orders of the same Yuri, the first wooden fortress was cut on the hill — a ring of walls roughly 850 metres long. It became the nucleus of the future Kremlin.

For its first century, Moscow stood out in no way among the border towns of the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality: a trading village with a fort, an appanage of junior princes. The turning point came in 1238, when Batu’s forces burned the town and laid waste to the surrounding villages. Moscow rebuilt itself slowly, and it was only at the end of the 13th century that it received its own prince — Daniil, the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky. The Moscow dynasty began with him.

The rise of Moscow

The 14th century turned a small appanage principality into the centre of North-Eastern Rus. Daniil’s son Ivan Kalita secured from the Horde khans a yarlyk for the grand principality and the right to collect tribute from the other Russian lands. Around 1325 Metropolitan Peter moved to Moscow — the city became not only a political but also the spiritual centre of Rus. By the end of the century Moscow could already raise an all-Russian army: in 1380 Prince Dmitry, later nicknamed Donskoy, led it to Kulikovo Field against Mamai. The victory did not free Rus from dependence on the Horde at once, but it cemented Moscow’s role as the unifier.

The complete end of the yoke came in 1480 — the standoff on the Ugra River, when the forces of Ivan III and Khan Akhmat never joined open battle. It was under Ivan III that Moscow took on its present appearance. Shortly before, Aristotele Fioravanti had built the new Dormition Cathedral (1475–1479), and in 1485–1495 Italian masters — Pietro Antonio Solari, Marco Ruffo, Aloisio da Carezano — replaced the old white-stone walls with red-brick ones. The Palace of Facets rose at the same time. After Ivan III’s marriage to Sophia Palaiologina, the double-headed eagle appeared on the coat of arms, and in the works of the bookmen the idea of “Moscow as the Third Rome” began to be heard.

In 1547 the young Ivan IV was crowned tsar in the Dormition Cathedral — from that moment Moscow became the capital of a centralised Russian state. The city grew around the Kremlin in concentric rings: Kitay-gorod was walled in the 1530s, the White City at the end of the 16th century, and the Earthen City at the turn of the 16th–17th centuries. Growth came with catastrophes: in that same year 1547 the great fire broke out, and in 1571 the Crimean khan Devlet Giray burned almost the entire posad. In memory of the taking of Kazan, in 1555–1561 the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat — the future St Basil’s Cathedral — rose on Red Square.

The beginning of the 17th century nearly cost Moscow its independence. After the Rurikid dynasty died out, the city was twice occupied by Polish-Lithuanian detachments, and Gonsiewski’s garrison wintered in the Kremlin. Liberation came in October 1612: the militia of Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky drove the Poles out of Kitay-gorod and the Kremlin. The following year the Zemsky Sobor elected Michael Romanov to the throne — in the same Dormition Cathedral. The seventeenth century became a time of recovery and growth: beyond the Earthen Rampart the artisan settlements expanded, the palaces in the Kremlin were rebuilt, and by the end of the century about 200,000 people lived in Moscow — more than in any other Russian city.

The old capital of the empire

In 1703 Peter I founded St Petersburg, and in 1712 he moved the court there. Formally, the status of capital passed to the new city on the Neva, and Moscow became the “first-throned city” — a place of coronations, but not the centre of power. This did not mean decline. The 18th century brought the city a university, founded on Lomonosov’s initiative in 1755, the Foundling Home, the Manège, and the rebuilding of the noble estates at Kuskovo and Ostankino.

The year 1812 proved to be the turning point. After the Battle of Borodino the Russian army fell back on Moscow, and at the council in Fili Kutuzov took the decision to give up the city without a fight. The French entered on 14 September, and the fire broke out that same night. Most historians hold that both the retreating Russian units and Moscow’s governor Rostopchin himself had a hand in the arson. About two thirds of the built-up area burned out in six days. Napoleon spent thirty-five days in the devastated Kremlin and left without receiving any capitulation.

Reconstruction took decades and shaped post-fire Moscow — Empire-style mansions, the straight lines of the boulevards, the cleared Theatre Square with the new Bolshoi Theatre building. The architect Osip Bove opened the theatre in 1825. By the middle of the century the city had become the largest trading and industrial centre: in 1851 the Nikolaev Railway to St Petersburg began operating, and by the 1860s–1870s the cotton mills of the Morozovs and the Prokhorovs rose up. Museums and hospitals were founded on private donations — the Tretyakov Gallery, handed over to the city in 1892, and the Museum of Fine Arts (today’s Pushkin Museum), opened in 1912, emerged out of the tradition of merchant patronage.

The 20th century: the capital returned

After the October Revolution, the Soviet government feared the approach of German troops to Petrograd and on 12 March 1918 moved the capital back to Moscow. From that moment the city once again became the political centre of the country — now of Soviet Russia, and from 1922 of the USSR. In the 1920s and 1930s Moscow went through a radical rebuilding: the demolition of the Sukharev Tower and the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the widening of Gorky Street, the laying of the first metro line. The metro opened on 15 May 1935. The general plan adopted at the same time gave the city its ring structure of arterial roads.

The war left one of the hardest episodes in the city’s history — the Battle of Moscow in the winter of 1941–1942. German units came up to the north-western outskirts, reconnaissance groups broke through to Khimki, and a state of siege was declared in the city. The counter-offensive of 5 December 1941 pushed the front back by 100–250 kilometres and wrecked Operation Typhoon. The parade on Red Square on 7 November 1941, from which the troops marched straight to the front, is still among the central dates in the city’s memory.

The post-war years are the “Seven Sisters”, laid down in 1947. Among them is the main building of Moscow State University on the Sparrow Hills, with a 240-metre spire. The All-Union Agricultural Exhibition opened in 1939, was expanded after the reconstruction of the mid-1950s to 325 hectares of pavilions and fountains, and has borne the name VDNKh since 1959. In 1967 the 540-metre Ostankino TV Tower came into service. In the summer of 1980 Moscow hosted the XXII Olympic Games — the Olimpiysky sports complex, hotels, and the Sheremetyevo-2 air terminal were built for them.

After 1991

With the break-up of the USSR, Moscow remained the capital of the Russian Federation. The 1990s changed it greatly, both economically and visually: the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was rebuilt — it reopened in 1997, Manezh Square was reconstructed, and construction began on the Moscow-City business cluster on the Presnenskaya Embankment. In 2011–2012 the city annexed extensive territories to the south-west — so-called New Moscow increased the capital’s area roughly 2.4 times.

The last decade has added several large objects to the city’s map: Zaryadye Park on the site of the demolished Rossiya Hotel (2017), the Moscow Central Circle (2016, 54 kilometres and 31 stations), and four Moscow Central Diameters, which have linked the suburbs by through routes running across the centre. According to 2026 data, the population of Moscow has passed 13.2 million people — it remains the largest city in Europe and the hub into which almost all of the country’s rail and air routes converge.