Moscow was found in a chronicle of the XII century. 

History of moscow, Moscow city history, Moscow state University
[Moscow city view from Moscow State University’s(MSU) rooftop /TimeLabPro, 2017]

When the time of Kievan Rus was drawing to an end and the kingdom was collapsing into appanage states, the first mention of Moscow was found in a chronicle of the XII century (therefore the year of the city's establishment is estimated 1147). Yuri Dolgoruky (1090-1157), the prince of Rostov-Suzdal, began to develop and inhabit new cities at that time. Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yuryev-Polsky, and Dmitrov all appeared in this way.


At the time, there were a few dispersed settlements along the Moskva River. Their site was ideal for the construction of a fortified city and a border post. The Kremlin's wooden walls were constructed here to protect the residents of the old settlements. The city was eventually renamed Moscow, after the Moscow River.


By reading a biography, it is difficult to comprehend a person. You won't be able to distinguish the city based on the scanty list of dates and events. As a result, we recommend beginning your familiarity with Moscow's history with particular structures in order to see the city, experience its past, and learn something fresh that is not found in conventional reference books.


On Tverskaya Street, directly across from the Moscow City Hall, there is a remarkable monument: a medieval knight on horseback, Yuri Dolgoruky, the founder of Moscow. In truth, no one knows what the prince looked like, and this location in the heart of the city, like so many other streets, squares, and courtyards, is a jumble of stories, historical facts, personal fates, and ideologies that have replaced one another.


A remarkable monument to the famous hero of the Russian-Turkish war, General Skobelev, the darling of the army and the people, stood before Dolgoruky, opposite the residence of the Governor-General of Moscow (today the City Hall). On June 24, 1912, the monument was inaugurated, and on May 1, 1918, it was dismantled in accordance with the order "On the removal of monuments to tsars and their servants." On the same location as the monument, a monument to the Soviet Constitution was constructed in 1918, which was later augmented by the Statue of Liberty in 1919 and lasted until 1941. A memorial honoring Yuri Dolgoruky was finally built in 1954.


Palisade on Borovitsky Hill, Moscow 

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The Cathedral of Intercession of Theotokos (St. Basil’s)

According to archaeologists, the first settlements of unknown pre-Slavic tribes were located on the high Borovitsky hill (where St. Basil's Cathedral currently stands) in the second millennium BC.

Furthermore, every medieval city's natural development process. It was necessary to protect the settlement. The palisade appeared, followed by the castle walls, and finally the Kremlin. Roads (now highways) branched from it on the outskirts of Russia's other major cities. In Soviet times, the notorious Vladimirsky tract, through which inmates ringing in shackles were sent for lengthy periods of time, was dubbed "Entuziastov highway"

Outside the Kremlin's walls, artisans of various specialities settled - the villages developed and expanded, and they were encompassed by additional walls. The Kitaygorodskaya wall, the White City wall (now the Boulevard Ring), and the Zemlyanoy Val all appeared in this order. This is a moat with a barrier that is already 16 kilometers long (now the Garden Ring). Kamer-Kollezhsky Val was designated as Moscow's customs boundary in 1742. The ring's circumference is 37 kilometers. There were outposts at the city's gates that left their mark on the present map. Few people are aware that one old landmark has been preserved in Moscow; seek for it in Rogozhskaya Zastava Square.

As a result of natural causes, the city has evolved a radial-circular structure, which today obstructs the solution to the traffic congestion problem. By the way, other modern cities that arose in the Middle Ages and were once bolstered by fortresses are facing the same issue. Our forefathers had no idea that their method of city expansion would pose a dilemma for future city governments. By the way, the worst traffic congestion in history occurred in Moscow on January 6, 1931. There were no trams, buses, cabs, or taxis operating on this day. Moscow had been rendered utterly immobile. The government were obliged to build a metro to remedy the situation. In November 1931, seven laborers with a single wagon and a horse allocated to them "gnawed" the first shovels into the icy ground at 13 Rusakovskaya Street, not far from Sokolniki.


Fires, riots, and diseases often disrupted the normal stream of city life, as they should throughout history. Khan Batu destroyed Moscow in 1238, and Tokhtamysh burnt it a century later, followed by Davlet-Girey. Natural fires were also common; for example, the Vsesvyatsk fire in 1365 nearly destroyed the city. During terrible epidemics, the streets of Moscow were filled with dead, and there was no one to bury them, according to the chronicles. The city was nearly depopulated during the epidemic of 1654, which killed up to 150 thousand people, according to some estimates.


Pre-Napoleonic Moscow

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[Statue in Moscow, Russia /TimeLabPro,2017]

When the French invaded the city in 1812, flames broke out. Historians are still debating whether the mayor's strategic strategy or Muscovites' volunteer arson was to blame. Napoleon was obliged to flee to the north after a fire in Moscow, where he spent many days at the Petrovsky traveling palace. He saw the city burn from here, but he never got to see it.

During Nicholas I's reign, work on the palace's repair began. On Maroseyka and Pokrovka, where the French command was quartered, pre-Napoleonic Moscow may now be seen. There are pre-fire mansions that have been maintained.During Nicholas I's reign, work on the palace's repair began. On Maroseyka and Pokrovka, where the French command was quartered, pre-Napoleonic Moscow may now be seen. There are pre-fire mansions that have been maintained.

Following the liberation, the city had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Only 115 of the 290 churches that existed in Moscow until 1812 have survived, while only 2626 of the 9158 dwellings have survived. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior was built on the site of the Alekseevsky nunnery in celebration of the victory over Napoleon's troops in 1839. The temple was built using funds collected from all across Russia, and it was only completed in 1880.


The Alexander Garden, the Manege, the Teatralnaya and Krasnaya squares, designed by architect Osip Bove, and the Triumphal Gates (Arc de Triomphe) at the Tverskaya Zastava, which are currently placed on Triumph Square, were all built in remembrance of the victory in Moscow. Large-scale repair and restoration work on the Arc de Triomphe began in December 2011 in preparation for the 200th anniversary of Russia's victory in the Patriotic War of 1812.

Even later, they annihilated Moscow. The Kremlin was seriously damaged by bombardment in 1917. During the Soviet period, architectural landmarks, especially churches, were demolished pursuant to various broad and not so specific designs. Beautiful old structures vanished, yet something new constantly arose.

A water pipeline from Mytishchi was built in the 18th century, supplying pure water to all of Moscow until the latter part of the 19th century, gas lights were replaced by electric lanterns, wooden pavements were replaced by cobblestones, which were replaced by asphalt.



The Ascension Church, a dresser, and Igumnov's home


Despite the city's many disasters, Moscow has managed to retain structures from nearly every era.

The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin on Seny, within the boundaries of the Moscow Kremlin, is the oldest surviving church. Princess Evdokia, Dmitry Donskoy's widow, ordered it erected in 1393-1394. The main gateway and some of the windows of the ancient structure have been maintained up to half the height of the walls. Theophanes the Greek and Daniel the Black with his followers painted the temple in 1395. The architect Ton incorporated the church in the new Grand Kremlin Palace while it was being built in 1838, reconstructing it on all sides with rooms and new walls, although the original basement from the 14th century was retained.


The sixteenth century. For a long period, Grand Duke Vasily III had no children. Nothing worked, according to tradition, until the prince decided to build a temple particularly for praying for childbirth on a steep bank, at the base of which a magical spring gushed. In Kolomenskoye, the Church of the Ascension looked like this. The architect is unknown, but it was the Moscow principality's first tent-roofed church, the first departure from Vladimir-Suzdal traditions.

The temple's roofs above the porches were changed in the 19th century, by the way. As a building material, planks and beams were taken from Alexander I's palace, which was demolished in 1872. Elements from the deconstruction of Catherine II's palace, as well as materials from the dismantling of Alexei Mikhailovich's palace, were utilized in the construction of Alexander I's palace in 1825. Moscow is a city with several layers.

The year is the year is the year is the year is the year is the year is the In Moscow, artists live in communities based on their occupation. According to contemporaneous descriptions, there were Barashskaya (ram - an artisan who made royal tents, later - an upholsterer), Basmannaya (artisans who basmili, that is, made patterned jewelry on metal or leather).

Craftsmen frequently constructed churches in their neighborhoods, gathering funds from all around the world. So the church of Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Mirliki, was built in Khamovnaya Sloboda, where weavers resided and provided white - uncouth - linen for the royal court. The weavers regarded Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Mirliki, as their patron. The temple was constructed between 1679 and 1682. A refectory and a tent-roofed bell tower were built to the church after 1694, and it is now known as the Moscow Leaning Tower of Pisa due to its vertical deviation.

Like a birthday cake, the temple is unexpectedly light and beautiful. Some historians credit its creation to Yaroslavl craftsmen, who have been producing distinctive glazed tiles that are pleasant to the sight since that turbulent 17th century, one of the most difficult in Moscow and Russia's history.

Nikola's temple Khamovniki is one of the few buildings in the world that has survived almost entirely intact since its creation.

The year is the year is the year is the year is the year is the year is the According to tradition, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna not only adored and secretly married her favorite Alexei Razumovsky on Pokrovka, in the Resurrection Church, which is now just ruins. A wedding present and a place for their meetings was a palace of remarkable beauty in white and blue tones (house number 22).

The house-chest of drawers, as it is known in Moscow because of its resemblance to carved places with a convex old chest of drawers, was constructed in the second half of the 18th century by an unknown master of the school, Francesco Rastrelli, and is possibly the only Elizabethan baroque monument in the capital.

The Apraksins, then the Trubetskoy princes, were the initial proprietors of the palace, according to reliable sources. They taught dance classes at their home, and Alexander Pushkin learned ballroom dancing there when he was a little child. Fyodor Tyutchev, a young man from the area, was also taken to the Trubetskoys. The Trubetskoys became the building's proprietors for over 90 years: four generations of this family lived here, and the home has witnessed many famous individuals.


Mikhail Pogodin, the future great historian, was Trubetskoy's girls' teacher. The manager was Pogodin's long-time acquaintance Vasily Korniliev, Dmitry Mendeleev's uncle. He married the daughter of Commander Billings, a Siberian and North American explorer who took part in James Cook's third round-the-world voyage.

The destiny of Leo Tolstoy is likewise linked to the home on Pokrovka. The plot to prevent Maria Volkonskaya and Nikolai Tolstoy from marrying took place in the home on Pokrovka in May 1821. Leo Tolstoy's parents married in Yasenevo's Church of Peter and Paul on July 9, the same year. Even Trubetskoy could not afford to retain landlord homes and houses after serfdom was abolished. In the same year, Prince Ivan Yuryevich of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment and his mother Olga Fedorovna sold a home on Pokrovka to Moscow University for the construction of the 4th male gymnasium, one of the greatest in Moscow.

The mansion was converted into an educational institution, and it was here that Nikolai Zhukovsky, the founder of Russian aviation, learnt science. It was also here that Konstantin Stanislavsky met Savva Morozov, the future sponsor of his theater. The list of gymnasium celebrities goes on and on. The composer's father, Nikolai Scriabin, and Pavel Khokhlov, a Bolshoi Theater opera artist, as well as the historian, academician Alexei Shakhmatov, who revolutionized the study of Russian chronicles, are among them. Fyodor Getye, the first chief physician of the Soldatenkovskaya (Botkinskaya) hospital, the personal physician of Kremlin officials, and his colleague, Alexander Puchkov, the founder and first director of the Moscow ambulance station, created in 1923, were both students at the gymnasium.

This structure is still standing today. The gymnasium was only closed after the revolution, and the house was converted into regular community apartments. They were heated by house decorating during the Civil War: parquet, stair rails, doors, furniture, and everything else was burnt in stoves. The nineteenth century. House 5 on Maly Kazenny Lane. One of the most beautiful and tragic love tales ever told took place here, in a home that has endured to this day. Vasily Ivashev, the young owner and a superb cavalry guard, fell in love with the daughter of a French governess with little chance of marriage.

However, when Vasily took part in the Decembrist rebellion and was stripped of his nobility and banished to the Siberian mines, Camilla le Danteu traveled to him despite all odds. Despite the adversity, their marriage turned out to be a joyful one. Her mother, who educated the Decembrists' children in French, also came to them. Camilla Ivasheva died at the age of 31 eight years after the wedding, leaving three children. Vasily Ivashev did not do well against her. The feature film "Star of Captivating Happiness" was based on this story.

Returning from the love tale to the house story. It was purchased in 1832 for the Orthopedic Institute, and in 1845 it housed the Police Hospital, a hospital for the homeless of all ranks and without payment. It was led by Fyodor Gaaz, a well-known figure in Moscow, a German by origin, previously wealthy, and owner of Moscow's most costly and beautiful exit - a carriage drawn by thoroughbred horses - who lost his money after assisting ill inmates. It is unknown how many people the doctor assisted who were in desperate need, hardship, or disease.

But the reality remains in history: the captives owed Gaaz the removal of the shackles, a cruel Middle Ages relic. Shackles killed more people than illnesses because they touched their legs, which quickly became infected. And, in other cases, it took months to get through the stage without medical help. Gaaz filed many petitions to have this cruel practice revoked until he was eventually heard. Haaz died in 1853 in a tiny apartment at the hospital where he had spent the last years of his life. About 20,000 people were brought to the Vvedenskoye grave of the "holy doctor" by Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow to say their goodbyes. In 1909, a memorial honoring Fyodor Gaaz was unveiled in the hospital's courtyard, with his favorite quote inscribed on it: "Hurry to do good." Flowers are still delivered here over a century later. In 1909, a memorial honoring Fyodor Gaaz was unveiled in the hospital's courtyard, with his favorite quote inscribed on it: "Hurry to do good." Flowers are still delivered here over a century later.

The peaceful Zamoskvorechye had become a favored haunt of patriarchal Moscow businessmen by the nineteenth century. The location was not regarded as elite. However, it was here that a wealthy businessman, Nikolai Vasilyevich Igumnov, purchased a parcel of land for the construction of his home. According to legend, the initials I. N. V. - cypress alleys, metaphorically planted a century ago - may still be seen on the satellite map of the Abkhazian settlement of Alakhadzy. Nikolai Vasilievich owned gold mines in Siberia and was a co-owner of the Yaroslavl big manufactory. Igumnov wanted to impress the Moscow people as a guest, so he went all out.

Igumnov enlisted the help of Nikolai Pozdeev, a young and brilliant Yaroslavl architect who was at the time the city architect of Yaroslavl, to design the idea and build the palace. The home on Bolshaya Yakimanka was designed in the pseudo-Russian style as a magnificent palace. Construction bricks were delivered straight from Holland, while tiles and tiles were bought from Kuznetsov's porcelain factory.

The palace is now a federally significant piece of historic property, but when it was first built, Moscow society responded with disdain, calling it provincial poor taste. Furthermore, word got throughout the city that the merchant had constructed a house for his kept dancer, and he only came to see her from Yaroslavl on occasion. Furthermore, while contemporaneous accounts differ in terms of tragedy, they all agree on one thing: the dancer vanished one day. The most famous story among horror fans: after unexpectedly arriving from Yaroslavl, Igumnov saw his sweetheart playing a young cornet and imprisoned her alive in the house's wall.

The destiny of the building's architect was more realistic, but no less terrible. The merchant, who had been booed by the Moscow crowd, refused to pay him and humiliated him, prompting the disgraced and bankrupt architect to commit himself. In this house, the owner did not find happiness. Without abandoning his goal of overcoming Moscow society's elitism, the businessman organized a ball in a home on Yakimanka in 1901. He also instructed that the dancing hall's floor be laid out in gold ducats. The Emperor was informed the next day about how the Moscow merchants danced on his portraits, which were struck on coins. The response was swift: Nikolai Igumnov was banished from the Mother See without the right to return by the highest authority.




In the next article we will discuss How Moscow became the capital of Modern Russia and Historical Timeline of Moscow.
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