Moscow is a cultural, economic, and religious center. It is a world class city. Signs of life in the vicinity of the Moscow date back to the stone age. The earliest historical references to the city date back to 1146 AD. In the mid 1150's, the city had build a moat and a wooden wall for protection of the citizens in the city. As it was with the times, war always seemed to be on the doorstep and the city was taken in the early 1200's and burned to the ground.
Resilience is a must for survival and you'll find the same level of resilience with every successful team, organization, city or nation. Moscow's people and position on the Volga River put resulted in an expanding city on the rise again and began to thrive. Of course, it has had it's share of challenges over the years. In 1654, over half of it's citizens died from the plaque.
In 1712, St Petersburg replace Moscow as the capital of Russia. Of course, that's bound to happen when the head of state, Peter the Great, builds a city (on the east side of the Baltic Sea). St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 and, as previously stated, became the capital in 1712.
Later, in 1771, over 100,000 people died of the plaque causing an even more tragic loss of life than the first plaque. Still, the citizens of Moscow moved forward. Over the years, Moscow has survived invasions by Napoleon and the Nazi's. Then, of course, the Cold War where Russia was a Super Power until the fall of the Russia in 1989.
Life goes on. Now, the prevalent religion in Moscow is Christianity with the Russian Orthodox Church being the prominent church. The population is over 10 million people which has been declining with the lower birth rates since 2002. It's decline has been significant; 700,000 per year. The population was over 17 million in 2002.
Anyway, are you ready to visit. Understanding the basic history is just a start. Furthermore, we didn't get into the current food, places to stay, nightlife or things to do. Although, you'll want to check out this website for
Moscow Hotels. Otherwise, we'll get into more details about Moscow in later posts.