The first historical reference to Moscow dates from 1147 when it was a small, obscure town in a small province. In 1156, Prince Yury Dolgoruky built a wooden wall and a moat around the city. Later the Mongols burned the city to the ground and killed its inhabitants, but Moscow recovered and became the capital of an independent principality.

In 1300 Moscow was ruled by Daniil Aleksandrovich, the son of Alexander Nevsky and a member of the Rurik Dynasty. Its favorable position on the headwaters of the Volga River contributed to its steady expansion. Moscow was also stable and prosperous for many years and attracted a large numbers of immigrants from across Russia. By 1304 Yury of Moscow contested with Mikhail of Tver for the throne of the principality of Vladimir. Ivan I eventually defeated Tver to become the ruler of Vladimir, and the sole collector of taxes for the Mongolrulers. By paying high tribute, Ivan won an important concession from the Khan. Unlike other principalities, Moscow was not divided among his sons, but was passed intact to his eldest.

When the growth of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania began to threaten all of Russia, the Khan strengthened Moscow to counterbalance Lithuania, allowing it to become one of the most powerful cities in Russia. In 1380, Prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow led a united Russian army in a decisive victory over the Mongols in the Battle of Kulikov. After that Moscow took the leading role in liberating Russia from Mongol domination. In 1480 Ivan III finally broken the Russians free from Tatar rule. Moscow became the capital of an empire which would eventually encompass all of Russia and Siberia, and parts of many other lands.

The tyranny of later Tsars, such as Ivan the Terrible, led to a decay of the state, even as the empire was expanding. In 1571 the Tatars from the Crimean Khanate seized and burned Moscow. From 1610 through 1612 troops of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom occupied Moscow, as its ruler Sigismund III tried to usurp the Russian throne. In 1612, the people of Nizhny Novgorod and other Russian cities rose against the Polish occupiers, besieged the Kremlin, and finally killed the Polish troops. In 1613, an assembly of the Empire elected Michael Romanov tsar, thus establishing the Romanov dynasty.

Moscow ceased to be Russia's capital when in 1703 Tsar Peter the Great constructed St. Petersburg on the Baltic coast as the new capital. When Napoleon invaded in 1812, the Moscovites evacuated and burned the city on September 14 as Napoleon's forces were approaching. Napoleon's army, plagued by hunger, cold, and poor supply lines, retreated. Eventually, Russian armies entered Paris, along with other allies, to put an end to Napoleon’s rule. Throughout the rest of the 19th Century, Russia enjoyed steady expansion, while lagging behind socially and technologically the rest of Europe.

In January 1905, the office of the City Governor, or Mayor, was officially introduced in Moscow, and Aleksandr Adrianov became Moscow's first official mayor. Following the success of the Russian revolution in 1917 Lenin, fearing possible foreign invasion, moved the capital from St. Petersburg back to Moscow on March 5 1918.

As a vital junction of USSR railroads and supply lines, Moscow, along with Leningrad and Kiev, was designated one of the three strategic targets of a German offensive in 1941. In November 1941, the German Army Group Center was stopped at the outskirts of the city and then driven off during Battle of Moscow.

Moscow was the scene of a last ditch attempted coup by communist hardliners in 1991, who took then General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev into custody. The coup was put down by Russian leader Boris Yeltsin with the help of loyal army troops and a popular uprising. The Soviet Union collapsed soon after. Currently Moscow is the capital of the Russian Federation, a country attempting to define a new role in the post Cold War world.

The Kremlin

The Kremlin is oldest part of Moscow, dating back to the city’s foundation in 1147, and situated at the very heart of the city on top of a hill. It is a fortress surrounded by a thick red wall interspersed with 20 towers. The fortress complex consists of a number of glittring, golden-domed churches and palaces, museums, residences, offices, assembly halls and monuments. It was a royal residence during Tsarist rule and from 1918 to 1991, the seat of the Communist government.

Cathedral Square is the religious center of Moscow, the historic heart of the Kremlin, and is home to a number of churches. The Annunciation Cathedral was set aside for the private use of the Tsar and his family and contains beautifully painted murals and icons on the interior walls. It also has nine, glittering copper-gilt domes. The throne of Ivan the Terrible can be found in the Cathedral of the Assumption, which was used for the coronation of Tsars. Most of the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church were buried here and their tombs line the walls of the spacious, richly colored interior. The zakomary or arched gables are a visual extension of the vaulting within the cathedral.

The Belfry of Ivan the Great is the tallest structure within the Kremlin walls and a visible city landmark. At its foot lies the world’s biggest bell, at 200 tons, broken in a fall from its bell tower in 1701, and nearby is the world’s largest cannon, at 40 tons, the Tsar Cannon. Neither object has ever been used for its intended purpose.

Also within the Kremlin is the Armory Palace, the richest and oldest museum housing a fantastic collection of treasures gathered over the years by the church and Russian state, including jewel-studded coronation capes, thrones encrusted with diamonds, royal coaches and sleighs and the renowned jeweled Fabergé Easter eggs, each containing an exquisitely detailed miniature object of precious metal inside. The Diamond Fund Exhibition in the same building contains the 180-carat diamond given to Catherine the Great by Count Orlov.

Red Square

Red Square is a dramatic open cobbled space in the center of Moscow. It was originally the city’s market place that also served as a public gathering place to celebrate festivals, listen to government announcements or to witness executions, especially common during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The Soviet state turned it into a memorial cemetery, and constructed Lenin’s Mausoleum to one side. A crystal casket containing the preserved body of the founder of the Soviet Union is still open to public viewing today. The communist government destroyed several ancient buildings around Red Square, including the Resurrection Gate and chapel, to make space for and to allow easy tank access to the demonstrations and military parades that frequented the area. The current Resurrection Gate and chapel are replicas that were built in the 1990s. The square is dominated by the walls and towers of the Kremlin on one side and the façade of the GUM department store on the other. The most impressive and historic parade that occurred in the square involved the gathering of thousands of Russian soldiers ready to march to war against the Nazis in 1941. The word ‘red’ doesn’t apply to the color of the brickwork, neither is it a reference to communism. It was likely a reference to the executions that took place in the square.

Bolshoi Theater

Moscow's oldest theater, the Bolshoi, dates from 1824 and is Russia's most famous theater, with its world-renowned opera and ballet companies. Completely rebuilt after a fire in 1856, the grand building is a masterpiece of Russian neoclassicism architecture, including an eight-columned entrance porch topped by a horse-drawn chariot of Apollo, patron of the arts. The glittering five-tiered interior is richly adorned with red velvet furnishings, gold decoration and chandeliers. The auditorium is the largest in the world. The Bolshoi Theatre has hosted some of the world's most celebrated premieres and performers, including Swan Lake, Spartacus and concerts by Richard Wagner. An evening performance at the Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre constitutes one of Moscow's best nights out on the town.

St. Basil’s Cathedral

St Basil’s Cathedral with its multicolored domes is the most famous image of Russia, standing on the edge of Moscow’s Red Square. Its striking design was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible to commemorate his victorious military campaign against the Tartar Mongols at Kazan in 1552. Legend has it that Ivan was so overwhelmed by its beauty that he had the architect blinded to prevent him from creating anything to rival it. The cathedral comprises a central chapel surrounded by eight red brick tower-like chapels, each crowned with a different colored and uniquely patterned onion-shaped dome. The church escaped demolition many times during the city’s turbulent history. Upon the beginning of the Soviet regime the cathedral was closed and later turned into a museum. The interior is a dimly lit labyrinth of corridors and delicately decorated chapels, one of them housing a priceless 16th century screen decorated with icons that shields the inner sanctuary.

Tretyakov Gallery

The Tretyakov Gallery houses a collection of some of the great masterpieces of traditional Russian art from before the Revolution. It also has the world’s finest collection of Russian icons from the 11th to the 17th centuries. The most famous of these icons is the 12th-century Vladimir Virgin. There are also works by Theophanes the Greek, Dionysius and Andrey Rublyov, some of Russia’s greatest icon painters. The gallery’s collection of paintings, graphics and sculptures covers Russian art from the 18th to the 20th century. The gallery was named after its founder, Pavel Tretyakov, an art collector who donated about 2,000 works of art from his private collection to the city of Moscow, forming the basis of the collection to which state acquisitions were later added. He also donated his own house, which became the original site of the art gallery.

Novodevichy Monastery

The Novedevichy Monastery was founded in 1524 by Grand Prince Vassily III. However the present towers and walls were built between 1685 and 1687. The Monastery contains the Sobor Smolensk Bogomateri or Cathedral of the Virgin of Smolensk, with a distinctive bell tower dating from 1690. The cathedral itself was built in 1525 and contains 16th-century frescoes, as well as a magnificent late 17th-century iconostasis. There is a convent that was a place of exile for noblewomen who were either in mourning or in disfavor, including Sophia, Peter the Great’s sister, who instigated a coup against him from here in 1698. The adjacent Novodevichy Cemetery contains the graves of distinguished Muscovites, including Nikita Krushchev, Nikolai Gogol, Sergei Prokofiev and Anton Chekhov.

Visiting Moscow

Coming in from an overseas flight, Sheremetevo-2 is the airport one flies into. There are also four airports to handle travel to domestic destinations and the ex-Soviet states. There's a bus network with comfy-enough buses that run to places within about a 435mi radius of the city. Moscow also has 9 main rail stations, and one can board trains to most parts of Russia and Europe as well as China and Mongolia.

The Moscow Metro system is not only a great way to get around the city, but is an attraction in and of itself. Up and running just four years after building started in 1931, the Metro is one of the Soviet regime’s few artistic accomplishments. The stations have unique designs are often palatial and provide an introduction to the development of Soviet art and architecture over more than half a century. Mayakovskaya Station has a central hall with a ceiling of Socialist Realist mosaics supported by stainless steel and red marble columns. In Revolyutsii ploshchad, bronze sculptures of Red Army soldiers hold up the arches in the passageways. Komsomolskaya, the busiest station in Moscow, has upper walk-through galleries and offers a Russian history lesson in the mosaics near the Circle Line platforms.