Moscow (Moskva) city (state capital), history - - Pictures
Human settlement on Moscow's territory dates from the Stone Age, which began about 2.5 million years ago and lasted in this region until about 4000 BC. By 1100 AD Moscow was a small town at the confluence of the Neglinnaia and Moscow rivers. Records from 1147 show the city as a possession of Yuri Dolgoruki, prince of the Vladimir-Suzdal' principality in Kievan Rus, the first significant East Slavic state. Still a relatively minor city, Moscow survived the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, when all of Kievan Rus fell under the rule of the Tatar khanate, or empire, known as the Golden Horde. Moscow prospered under the Moscow princes during Tatar rule, which ended in the late 14th century. In its favored position at the intersection of trade routes, Moscow expanded in size and importance. The capital of its own principality from the 14th century, it became the capital of a unified Russian state in the 15th century. In 1589 it became the ecclesiastical capital of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 1712 Russian emperor Peter the Great ordered that Russia's seat of government be moved from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. However, Moscow remained sufficiently important to be a target of conquest by French emperor Napoleon I. In 1812 Napoleon's troops defeated Russian forces at Borodino, near the outskirts of Moscow. As French troops advanced, Muscovites evacuated the city, setting fire to many buildings as they left. Napoleon and his troops occupied the largely deserted city for 39 days, until food shortages forced them out. The fire destroyed more than two-thirds of Moscow's buildings. In 1813 a commission was appointed to rebuild the city, and plans and designs executed over the next 30 years changed the face of Moscow dramatically.
