The first settlement

In the 8th century, the river Oka was used as a trade route, and the area around the upper part of Volga became a meeting place for various tribes such as Germans, Indians and the slaves who came to inhabit the places.

Actual settlements in the large area between the Volga and Oka rivers are believed to be established in the 1000s; in the central part of present-day Moscow was a small village around the year 1100.

Moscow’s official foundation was in 1147, when Jurij I Dolgorokij, prince of Suzdal, met here with a prince from Novgorod. The meeting brought the village, located in the western part of Vladimir-Suzdal, into the history books.

In 1156, Jurij Dolgorokij expanded and fortified the city by establishing a moat and the first wooden defenses.

 

Mongol invasion

The Asian Mongols ravaged and conquered vast land masses during the 13th century, and their advance and subsequent administration had consequences for the entire East Slavic area that has become present-day Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

In 1237-1238, the grandson of Genghis Khan, Batu Khan conquered Vladimir-Suzdal, under which Moscow belonged. The capital Vladimir and Moscow itself were burnt, and the Mongols built their new capital Saray to the south. They even became known as the Golden Horde.

 

Grand Principality

The internal Russian battles under the Mongols supremacy were important to which cities and regions flourished. In 1283, Moscow became a prince with Daniel as the first prince.

The cities of Moscow and Tver were some of the beneficiaries of economic prosperity, but in 1327 Tver’s prince joined the rebellion against the Mongols. Moscow Prince Ivan I joined the Mongols, destroying Tver and thereby one of the city’s competitors in the region.

The rival Tver had fallen, and Moscow was now able to attract and establish the Russian Orthodox Church’s headquarters in the city. Ivan I was also given the title of Grand Duke of the Mongols, which meant a greater status and power than before.

While the Mongols continued to ravage on a regular basis in the Russian territory, Moscow, as a partner, enjoyed relative peace and freedom. The ruler of the city was used as part of the Mongols and other Russian peoples and states, and the peace with the Mongols prompted many prosperous people to move to Moscow, which grew.

 

Expansions of the empire

Moscow, with its economically significant river trade, had the opportunity to form an independent city state. However, the city state continued to pay money to the Golden Horde well into the 15th century, when Prince Ivan the Great increased Moscow’s power and sphere of influence considerably.

With victories over other Russian princes, Moscow was able to expand its territory through the same century. Novgorod was conquered in 1478 and Tver fell seven years later. At the end of the 15th century, Ivan III, nicknamed the Great Kingdom, stretched to Novrogod to the northwest, the Barents Sea to the north, Ural to the east and Tula to the south. Ivan, for good reason, called himself the entire ruler of Russia, and he called on Italian architects to expand the central power base, the Kremlin, with cathedrals, among others. It was also during Ivan III that the Red Square was built.

By this time, most of the ethnic Russian territory was thus gathered and strengthened, and the Mongols had begun their final retreat after the Battle of Ugra, which despite its name never developed into a real battle.

 

The 1500-1600s

Moscow’s defense was continually strengthened over the following centuries; for example, the boroughs of Murbyen / Китай-город, the White City / Белый город, and the City of Earth / Земляной город were established as a kind of circular defense around the Kremlin.

However, attacks and destruction also occurred. In 1547 a large part of the city burned, and in 1571 the Crimean Tatars plundered the city, which was again burnt down; only about 30,000 of the city’s 200,000 were left after that.

From Moscow, Ivan increased the sphere of cruel Moscow with the colonization of Siberia. It infected Moscow, which had a population of more than 200,000, making it one of the world’s largest cities.

Between 1584 and 1591, a city wall was constructed and it quickly proved useful. The Crimean Tatars attacked again in 1591, but this time the fortifications could hold them back. The following year, the defense was expanded again with an external earth tower with 50 towers. The location of the earthviolence can now be seen on a city map, as the ring road Garden Ring/Садовое кольцо is now here. Outside the violence, several fortified monasteries lay as southernmost hedges.

Boris Godunov was prime minister and later czar around the year 1600, and the city was then hit hard times. First, a severe famine struck in 1602-1603, and then troops from Poland-Lithuania came and occupied the city in 1610. It took two years before a rebellion led to their defeat and retreat.

The hardships were not over with that. In 1626 and again in 1648, large parts of the city’s many wooden houses burned, and in the years 1654-1655 the majority of Moscow’s inhabitants died in the plague epidemic that hit.

Meanwhile, the Romanov dynasty had been established as tsars. It began with Mikhail Romanov in 1613, and the dynasty sat on the Russian zartrone right up to the Bolshevik political upheaval in 1917. With Mikhail Romanov’s accession, Moscow, despite fires and plagues, entered a time when the city was once again flourishing, and the kingdom was expanding continuously. to the south.

 

Peter the Great’s New Russia

Zar Peter the Great traveled around Europe 1697-1698, and it became of great importance to Moscow. The Czar founded St. Petersburg in 1703, and the Russian capital was moved from Moscow to the new city, taking over Moscow’s role as the politically and culturally dominant city in the kingdom.

The Russian nobility built mansions in the new capital, and from a size of about 200,000 inhabitants, that number dropped to about 150,000 in the mid-18th century.

However, the declining population did not continue, as Moscow’s considerable size and economic importance was maintained over time, and the number of citizens again began to rise rapidly.

In the reign of Peter the Great, Moscow’s streets were being paved, permanent street lighting was introduced in 1730, and 25 years later, the city’s university was founded. Although the capital was in St. Petersburg, the city’s defense was also expanded.

 

Napoleonic times

Moscow’s status was no longer capital, but its importance to Russia was emphasized by its being French Napoleon’s invasion target.

The French troops achieved massive advances through Europe and the large Russian territories. In 1812 the decisive battle was fought; it took place at Borodino 130 kilometers west of Moscow and was on Napoleon’s road towards the city.

Here 44,000 Russian soldiers and 35,000 French were killed. After the battle, the Russians withdrew and Napoleon was able to take Moscow. Instead of the czar’s surrender and negotiation for peace, the city was evacuated and partially burned. Napoleon and the French forces left the city within a month.

 

The prosperous 19th century

A great deal of construction work was carried out following Napoleon’s siege and short-term conquest of Moscow, and the city’s population quickly rose rapidly as the 19th century began industrialization, which brought with it new districts and city plans.

The railways’ entry into the Russian metropolis also gained momentum throughout the century. Several railway stations were built on the periphery of the city center, and with the Trans-Siberian Railway one could get from Moscow to eastern Russia on the Pacific coast.

 

New capital of the Soviet Union

Up to the early 1900s, political decisions continued to be made by the Tsars in the capital of St. Petersburg, but tensions in the country and in Moscow increased over the years, and it ended with a revolution.

During the October 1917 Revolution, Moscow was the Russian city, with the most fighting in the streets. The Kremlin was occupied by the communist Bolsheviks and the revolutionary hero and communist leader Vladimir Lenin decided to move the capital from Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) to Moscow. He aligned himself with his government in Moscow, and it marked the beginning of Moscow’s next heyday as one of the world’s most important political centers.

Moscow became the center of the whole country and part of the world reorganization. Moscow itself, under Josef Stalin, was subject to the most comprehensive urban planning of world history. The boulevards, institutions and countless new residential neighborhoods were built and linked by the world famous metro, whose first line opened in 1935.

Germany invaded Russia in 1941, and the German troops reached the outskirts of Moscow. Only 40 kilometers from the city, they were stopped by Russian resistance – and the cold Russian winter, which had also caused Napoleon problems.

After World War II, Moscow was expanded with colossal new residential areas and large-scale buildings, following Stalin’s desire to show Soviet ability in the form of a monumental capital, if none existed.

The city’s population increased significantly, as did the city’s importance throughout the Soviet Union. From a population of 1.8 million at the time of the revolution in 1917, the city grew million by million, and today it is Europe’s largest city.

 

Moscow today

Following President Mikhail Gorbachev’s glass nest in the 1980s, Boris Yeltsin went on the barricades in 1991 and established Moscow as the new Russia’s capital, which in recent years has been a city with a great deal of investment in new buildings as well as maintenance of monuments for the city’s historic events.

The whole story is represented from the buildings of the princes, the elegance of the tsars, the monumental grandeur of the Soviet Union and today’s ambitious and forward-thinking Russia.

All over the city you will find prosperity, shopping opportunities, good food and attractions, of which the many inhabitants are large consumers.