Moscow was a relative latecomer to the disparate group of independent city states that grew up in central Russia in the 9th century. It only appears in the annals from 1147 AD onwards. Moscow was the creation of Prince Yury Dolgoruky (Long-Armed Yury, reference to his land-grabbing reputation), and the city acted quickly to outflank its older rivals. By taking a leading role in driving out Mongolian overlords in the 15th century, Moscow became the capital by default.

The city’s empire-building ambitions were temporarily stymied by the private project of Tsar Peter I to create a purpose-built capital in St Petersburg (1723 onwards), although this did preserve Moscow’s medieval Kremlin (citadel) in a largely unmodified state. Soviet power moved the role of capital back to Moscow in 1918 for purely pragmatic reasons, because the German army of the First World War had advanced to within 21 miles of St Petersburg.

Unrestrained power and ambition enabled Stalin to impose unfeasibly immense building projects on the capital in the 1930s and 40s, the Seven Sisters (seven near-identical Stalinist-baroque skyscrapers scattered throughout the city) being the most obvious relic of the period. More immediately attractive is the other great Soviet era project, the Moscow Metro, built in an extravagant and flamboyant style. Later architecture of the 1960s was considerably uglier, but contemporary projects, funded by oil-boom cash, are rapidly tearing down the nastiest Soviet monsters, leaving the city looking like a huge building site in many areas and the winds of change are blowing.

The city’s long-time mayor Yuri Luzhkov is a figure of enormous controversy but, to his credit, he has entirely rebuilt the road network and city infrastructure with a steely determination that has prioritised pragmatism over prettiness in some cases.

POLITICS

Despite the dismantling of the Communist system, the state continues to play a much larger role in Russian society and business than in many other European countries. Consequently politicians—and their advisors and PR-shiki—exercise incredible influence in even the most footling of projects. Strangely, however, the President himself is forbidden by the constitution from representing any individual political party.

President Putin’s huge popular power base covers a wide range of differing parties, all of which are broadly pro-Kremlin when the chips are down. The Our Home Is Russia and Motherland parties represent the largest factions in the Putin camp. The era of non-aligned mavericks seems to be over and the publicity-hungry Vladimir Zhirinovsky now obediently votes for Putin, while National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov has been effectively discredited. The largest dissenting group from Kremlin policies is probably the Communists, but a series of internal feuds and scandals have left it split and unable to keep up. Communists appeal primarily to rural and provincial Russians who have gained little or nothing from reforms that have favoured Moscow’s own commercial interests. The further one travels from Moscow, the more these envies are translated into deep-seated apolitical hatred for everything the capital represents, and no wonder, when salaries can be 10 times higher in Moscow than in a sizeable Siberian city. The only credible opposition to the Putin power base comes from the Union of Right-Wing Forces, which is not at all the brown-shirt organisation it might sound. It is, in fact, dominated by liberal intellectuals, which probably accounts for its spectacular failure in elections, gaining only 5% of the vote.

City governors and mayors in Russia enjoy similar power to American state governors, and are separately elected. The Kremlin has recently attempted, somewhat unsuccessfully, to return many of these powers to the central government, and mayors and governors remain largely untouchable.

RELIGION

All state monitoring of religious belief ceased with the end of the USSR, but as a result there are no official figures about the popularity of differing faiths. Moscow is a huge melting pot of the ex-USSR’s many ethnicities, most of whom retain their differing beliefs and confessions. The vast majority of Muscovites are Russians, most of whom have a loose allegiance to the Russian Orthodox church.

The Orthodox church has remained distant from the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches on matters of doctrine and philosophy for many centuries, but points to its age old traditions which date back to the world’s first Christian kingdom (Armenia) in the 3rd century. While not imposing an official role on the Orthodox Church, politicians are careful to be seen (and filmed) attending its services and have acted to prevent uncontrolled proselytising by non-native faiths that fail to register their financial details correctly. Moscow has been a major Jewish centre since 18th century regulations largely excluded wealthy Jews from the social life of St Petersburg. Several branches of Jewish faith maintain synagogues. Other religious minorities were similarly excluded—the stern sect of the Adepts of the Ancient Rite (wrongly but frequently called The Old Believers) retained many converts from Orthodoxy, despite being fiercely banned in the 19th century. Moscow’s Georgian, Armenian, Latvian and Polish communities all maintain their own well attended churches, which simultaneously fulfil social functions. The Russian Empire embraced traditionally Islamic regions (the Caucasus, Turkestan) from the 18th century onwards, and the Moscow mosques serving these communities distance themselves from radical tendencies. Evangelical communities have also been established.

ECONOMY

Moscow can readily be considered a city state within the country of Russia whose economy is often remote from the rest of the nation. Some would even say it crossed purposes with national interests. Capital retention by Moscow is out of all proportion to population distribution and a few bankers would claim that 90% of the country’s money is in Moscow. It’s an open secret that Russia’s economic boom is perilously dependent on the petroleum and gas industries. Plodding bureaucracy, purposely obtuse legislation and rampant official corruption conspire to hamstring attempts to diversify the economy into other areas.

Many businessmen allege, with some credibility, that the idiotic formation of Russian business and taxation law is purposely set up to create 'bribery windows’ for the officials charged with policing it. Corruption is commonplace in the new Russia. However, the support service industry serving this immense gravy train lives very well off it. Moscow is effectively a meritocracy, and smart young Russians from all over the country can quickly establish themselves in jobs paying immensely more than in their far flung home towns. Regional work-permit laws are easily side-stepped by companies keen for fresh bright talent, and the semi-legal status of these employees caps potential complaints about working conditions.

The dire economic conditions in Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbours (especially Belarus and Moldova) provide a ready and willing source of highly qualified semi-legal guest workers, while the construction boom relies on reliable skilled labour from Ukraine and central Asia. As always, Russian law in these areas exists more as a controlling factor to limit earnings and working conditions. If the law were actually applied in reality, the city would grind to an unswept, half-built halt, as few Muscovites deign to turn their hands to anything of practical value.

POPULATION

Like all Russian statistics, you really need a whole box of salt, rather than a mere pinch, when interpreting the population figures. Moscow’s geographic boundaries have not been redesignated since the 18th century, giving a largely unrealistic figure of 12.5 million as the official population. However, any attempt to actually locate the city limits (every Russian city has a road check-point on its city limits, so they are easily found) will quickly show no visible barrier between the identical dense high-rise housing on either side of the line. Moscow Metro lines, bus routes and telephone numbers defy these boundaries, and if one uses the city’s phone prefix (095) as a more reliable guide, then around 15-16 million people live in this conurbation, with a further two to three million unregistered dwellers who might be tourists, Russian guest workers from other cities, semi-legal guest workers from ex-USSR neighbours, or entirely illegal immigrants (of whom there are large numbers, mostly from ex-USSR Asia). A living standard around 4-5 times higher than the rest of Russia is the draw that keeps them all here—and conformity to Moscow’s dress codes (ethnic dress will quickly prompt an unwanted meeting with the cops for the semi-legal), and more especially to Moooscow’s penetrating drawl, are the price they pay for staying.