Two-day Celebrations Commemorating The 871st Anniversary Of Moscow

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Two-day celebrations commemorating the 871st anniversary of Moscow

Two-day celebrations commemorating the 871st anniversary of Moscow's founding start in the Russian capital on Saturday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th September, 2018) Two-day celebrations commemorating the 871st anniversary of Moscow's founding start in the Russian capital on Saturday.

Moscow was first mentioned in 12th century chronicles as a fiefdom of Prince of Rostov and Suzdal Yuri Dolgoruky, and the year 1147 is considered to be the date of its founding.

Many artifacts and archaeological sites prove that tribes of hunters and fishermen began to settle on the territory of what is now Moscow during the Neolithic era, the last part of the Stone Age. During the Bronze Age, this territory was populated by people of the Fatyanovo culture, who were cattle breeders, while people of the Dyakov culture settled there during the Iron Age. The Slavic Vyatichi and Krivichi tribes settled in the area during the second half of the first millennium AD.

Archaeological excavations show that a fortified town was located on Borovitsky Hill where the Neglinnaya and Moskva rivers met toward the end of 11th century. The town was surrounded by Posad, a thriving suburb where craftsmen and merchants lived.

According to chronicles, the villages of nobleman Stepan Kuchka stood on the banks of the Moskva River, where Moscow is now located, in the mid-12th century. According to legend, Prince Yuri Dolgoruky defeated Kuchka and turned the town into one of his outlying residences.

The town was called Kuchkov for some time and was later renamed Moskva/Moscow after the Moskva River.

According to the Tver Chronicle, a new, larger fortress, made of timber and earth, was built around 1156 on Borovitsky Hill. The fortress was named the Kremlin in the 14th century. The city's area expanded five- or sixfold. Moscow became an important city and the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality's line of defense.

In 1237-1238, the city was burned to the ground by the forces of Mongol ruler Batu Khan, but it was later rebuilt.

Prince Daniel I, the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky of Vladimir-Suzdal, inherited the city in 1283, founding the Grand Principality of Moscow, which eventually absorbed its parent principality.

In the late 13th century, Moscow and its suburbs began to attract people from various Russian regions who spurred the Moscow region's economic development. Moscow's growth and rise were largely facilitated by its location at the junction of commercial routes leading toward the upper reaches of the Volga, Oka and Dnieper rivers. The first stone churches were built in the Kremlin in the late 13th century, forming its main Sobornaya (Cathedral) Square.

In the 14th century, Grand Principality of Moscow and its capital of the same name became the center of Russian unification. However, the reunification process was developing against the backdrop of a bitter rivalry between Grand Principality of Moscow and Principality of Tver. Moscow's rulers also organized a military campaign to liberate Russia from the Tatar-Mongol yoke in the 14th and 15th centuries. The residence of the Russian Orthodox Church's metropolitans was relocated from the city of Vladimir to Moscow around 1326. This heralded Moscow's growing political influence. The Kremlin's territory was expanded, and new oak walls and towers were built after the fire of 1331.

Moscow then turned into a large city, with many merchants and craftsmen living in the Great Posad, later known as Kitai-Gorod, as well as numerous Sloboda communities in Zarechye, later Zamoskvorechye, and Zaneglimenye, an area west of the Neglinnaya River.

In the second half of the 14th century, the Kremlin's walls were rebuilt with limestone, and the construction of white-stone cathedrals started at the Grand Prince's residence. This served to coin the expression "White-Stone Moscow." Numerous monasteries, which also served as fortresses, were established, including the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery (1380), Rozhdestvensky Monastery (1386), Sretensky Monastery (1397), as well as Danilov Monastery (1282), Andronikov Monastery (1362) and Simonov Monastery (1379) that were located further from the Kremlin.

An all-Russia army was formed in Grand Principality of Moscow and in 1380, it defeated the forces of Golden Horde ruler Khan Mamai on Kulikovo Field. In 1382, the forces of Khan Tokhtamysh invaded, ravaged and burned Moscow. In 1408, the people of Moscow repelled Khan Yedigei's forces.

In the second half of the 15th century, Moscow became the capital of a centralized Russian state, later to known as Tsardom of Russia, that did away with the Mongol-Tatar yoke in 1480. During that period, the Assumption (1475-1479), Annunciation (1484-1489) and Archangel (1505-1508) cathedrals were built on the Kremlin's Sobornaya Square. The Bell-Tower of Ivan the Great was also built there in 1505-1508. New brick walls were built around the Kremlin in 1485-1495, and the Red Square was also established.

The city's population continued to grow. In the 16th century, a system of circular defensive fortifications was established in the city. A stone wall called Kitai-Gorod was built around the Great Posad. Bely Gorod (White Town) stone walls and towers were built along what is now the Boulevard Ring. The Posad that extended beyond Bely Gorod was reinforced by an earthen wall with wood walls and 50 towers along what is now the Garden Ring. These structures were named Skorodom, or Wood City, and later renamed Zemlyanoi Gorod (Earthen City). Combined with radial roads and streets that converged on the Kremlin, these fortifications formed the basis for the city's radial-ring layout.

The Polish-Lithuanian invasion of 1610, crop failures and several fires inflicted substantial damage on the city. Moscow's population decreased considerably, as the craft industry and the commercial sector also fell into decay. In 1612, a people's militia commanded by Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky liberated Moscow, and the city began to be quickly rebuilt.

In 1712, St. Petersburg became the capital of the Tsardom of Russia, which became the Russian Empire in 1721. Moscow remained the country's major religious, political, economic and cultural center, and Russian emperors continued to be crowned there. In 1730, the authorities began to install street lamps. In 1781, the city's first water supply system was completed. Moscow's area expanded toward the 32-kilometer (20-mile) long Kamer-Kollezhsky Val that was built in the late 18th century for customs clearance and duty-collection purposes. Kamer-Kollezhsky Val had 16 outposts.

During the Patriotic War of 1812, Moscow was occupied by Napoleon Bonaparte's Army between September and October of that year, and sustained major damage. The city was later rebuilt, with central squares acquiring a new image. The Bolshoi and Maly theaters were built, and Moscow University buildings were overhauled. The Neglinnaya River was diverted underground, and Alexander Garden was laid out near the Kremlin's northern wall. The former Bely Gorod and Zemlyanoi Val fortifications were replaced with a system of boulevards and wide streets of the Garden Ring.

In the 1830s and 40s, Moscow continued to evolve into an industrial and commercial center, while retaining the features of a city for the nobility. The city's territory again expanded. The street lamp system continued to improve. Oil lamps were replaced with gas lamps in 1867, followed by electric carbon-arc lamps in 1883. The first horse-drawn trams took to the streets in 1872 on railway tracks. The Moscow-St. Petersburg telegraph line started operating in 1872, and a telephone line linked both cities in 1898. The first electric trams appeared in 1899, followed by a modern water distribution system in 1903.

Moscow gradually turned into a key national railway hub, which further spurred its economic development. In 1851, the Nikolayevskaya, now Oktyabrskaya, Railway linked Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Nizhny Novgorod and Northern railways were opened in 1862, followed by the Kursk, Belarusian, Ryazan-Ural, Kiev, Savyolovo and Baltic railways in 1868, 1870, 1862-1899, 1899, 1900 and 1901, respectively. In 1903-1908, the Smaller Moscow Belt Railway (SMBR) was completed, with other railways linking the city with most Russian regions and seaports.

Moscow became one of the largest industrial centers of the European part of Russia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1913, it had about 1,000 industrial enterprises employing about 160,000 people. At the beginning of the 20th century, the city acquired the features of a major global financial center, where a large number of banks and other financial institutions were concentrated.

Moscow witnessed the crucial events of the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. The Soviet government that was established after the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution decreed on March 12, 1918 that Moscow would become the capital of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In 1922, as the RSFSR became part of the Soviet Union, Moscow was established the capital of the USSR as well. The city launched an ambitious urban development program. As the population swelled, Moscow's transport infrastructure continued to develop. Regular bus traffic was launched in 1924, followed by the first trolleybuses in 1933. The Moscow Metro was officially opened in May 1935. All of the city's main squares and streets were paved in the 1930s.

During the first months of World War II, many local factories were evacuated to eastern regions of the Soviet Union. A state of siege was declared in the city on October 24, 1941, followed by a military parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941.

From September 30, 1941 through April 20, 1942, the Battle of Moscow raged on the city's outskirts. During this battle, Nazis suffered their first defeat in the war, and Adolf Hitler's Blitzkrieg plan was thwarted. After the war, Moscow's Red Square hosted the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945.

During the postwar period, skyscrapers starting being erected in Moscow, considerably altering the cityscape. In the mid-1950s, the city launched a large-scale housing construction program to accommodate the swelling population. New, large districts were established. In 1960, the city's limits were extended to the Moscow Ring Road (MKAD), completed in 1958-1961. Since the mid-1980s, Moscow has established several districts beyond the MKAD.

The Soviet Union was officially dissolved in late 1991, with Moscow becoming the capital of the Russian Federation and a Federal city in 1993. Its population continued to increase. In 1995-2012, the city's population soared by 2.9 million, while the area remained the same.

On July 1, 2012, the city's area more than doubled by incorporating areas southwest of Moscow and reached 255,000 hectares.

Not only is modern Moscow a sprawling megacity, but it can also claim the right to being a promising financial center.