Moscow was first mentioned in writing in 1147. In 1156 it was expanded by Yuri Vladimirovich Dolgoruki as a border fortress of the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal. Destroyed by the Tatars in 1237/38, it became the seat of the Danilovichi, a branch of the princely family of Vladimir-Suzdal, in the last quarter of the 13th century. With the relocation of the metropolitan seat from Vladimir to Moscow (1317 or 1325), the emerging city also became an ecclesiastical and cultural center.
Under Ivan I Danilovich, the city expanded rapidly and became the starting point for the unification movement of Russia (the “gathering of Russian soil”): After the subjugation of Novgorod (1478) and the final liberation from Tatar rule (1480), Moscow was both capital and political Center of the powerful Moscow state, since the Turkish conquest of Constantinople it has also been the new center of the Orthodox world (Moscow as the “third Rome”). In the 16th and 17th centuries the city experienced a strong economic boom; Foreign specialists settled in the “German suburb” (Russian: Nemezkaja sloboda).
In 1605-06 and 1610-12 Moscow was occupied by Poles. Peter I, the Great, moved the capital to Saint Petersburg in 1712, but Moscow remained the coronation city and seat of certain central authorities as well as the spiritual and economic center of Russia. In 1755, the first Russian university was founded in Moscow. Compared to Saint Petersburg, which was open to Europe, there was a more national atmosphere in Moscow. In the 18th and 19th centuries it was considered the second capital of Russia, which prompted Napoleon I to attack Moscow in 1812. The fire in Moscow, which broke out on September 14, 1812, the day the Napoleonic troops marched in, and destroyed the city, marked the turning point in the Russian campaign of 1812.
With industrialization, the city’s economic importance grew: in the 19th century, Moscow’s light industry was the leader; in addition, the city became the transport center of the empire in 1851 (construction of the Nikolaibahn to Saint Petersburg). The number of residents exceeded the million mark in 1902 (1914: 1.7 million, 1917: 2 million). In 1917 Moscow was one of the centers of the October Revolution. With the move of the Soviet government from Petrograd here (March 11, 1918), Moscow became the capital again (initially the RSFSR, 1922–91 the Soviet Union and since then Russia).
During the Russian civil war, in which the city was never seriously threatened by White Guard troops, but was cut off from important supply lines, the population temporarily fell considerably (at the end of the war around 800,000 residents); soon afterwards it increased again sharply (1923: 1.5 million, 1929: 2.3 million, 1932: 3.6 million, 1939: 4.1 million). In the 1920s and 30s, Moscow, which was the seat of the Comintern, was home to many representatives of the international communist movement. With the three Moscow show trials (1936–38), in which numerous top Soviet officials were convicted, the Stalinist purges reached a climax. During the Second World War, the city was one of the main targets of the Wehrmacht during their Russian campaign; with the “Battle of Moscow”, which was caused by a September 30th / 2nd 10.
The city, which was only partially destroyed during the war, became the political center of the socialist world after its rapid reconstruction (including the seat of the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact). The population rose from 5 million (1959) to more than 8 million (1985); In 2002 the 10 million mark was exceeded. In 1980 the Summer Olympics (boycotted by more than 40 countries because of the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan) took place in Moscow. Already in August 1991 the center of a failed coup attempt against the Soviet President M. S. Gorbachev, was Moscow on 3rd / 4th 10. 1993 scene of an armed uprising by nationalist and communist forces, which was suppressed by the Russian army (storming of the “White House”, the parliament building). According to zipcodesexplorer, as the capital of the Russian Federation, Moscow experienced an economic and urban development boom in the 1990s (though also marked by growing social differences), accompanied by conflicts between the city administration and the institutions of the Federation over privatization and the concentration of Russian capital. Several serious terrorist attacks in Moscow since 1999 (including victim bomb attacks on apartment blocks in 1999, rebel attack and mass hostage-taking in a musical theater in 2002, suicide attack on the subway in 2004, suicide attacks in the subway in 2010.
World Heritage Sites in Russia
World Heritage Sites (K) and World Natural Heritage (N)
- Historic Center of Saint Petersburg (K; 1990)
- Churches on the island of Kizhi in Lake Onega (K; 1990)
- Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow (K; 1990)
- Architectural monuments of Veliky Novgorod and the surrounding area (K; 1992)
- Historical and cultural monuments on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea (K; 1992)
- Vladimir Cathedral, monasteries and churches of Suzdal and the village of Kidekscha (K; 1992)
- Fortified Monastery of the Holy Trinity and St. Sergius in Sergiev Posad (Troize-Sergijewa-Lavra) (K; 1993)
- Assumption Cathedral in Kolomenskoye (K; 1994)
- Primeval Forests in the Komi Republic (N; 1995)
- Lake Baikal (N; 1996)
- Volcanic region of Kamchatka with the Klyuchevskaya Sopka Nature Park (N; 1996)
- Golden mountains of the Altai in southern Siberia (N; 1998)
- Western Caucasus (N; 1999)
- Kazan Kremlin (K; 2000)
- Monastery in the village of Ferapontowo (Vologda region) with wall paintings by Dionissi (K; 2000)
- Curonian Spit (K; 2000)
- Central Sichote-Alin nature reserve (N; 2001; expanded to include the Bikin river valley in 2018)
- Uws-Nuur Basin (N; 2003)
- Citadel, old town and fortress of Derbent (K; 2003)
- Wrangel Island Nature Reserve (N; 2004)
- New Maiden Convent in Moscow (K; 2004)
- Yaroslavl Old Town (K; 2005)
- Measuring points of the Struve-Boges (K; 2005)
- Putorana Mountains (N; 2010)
- Lena-Felsen Nature Park (N; 2012)
- Daurian Landscapes (N; 2017)
- Assumption Cathedral of the island city of Svyashsk (K; 2017)