According to pharmacylib, the name of the city Moscow comes from the river that crosses it called Moskva or Moskvá, in old Russian literally, the city of the Moskvá river.
The origin of the name is unknown, although there are several theories. One theory suggests that the origin of the name comes from an ancient Finnish language, in which it means “dark” and “cloudy”. The first Russian reference to Moscow dates from 1147 when Yuri Dolgoruky exhorted the prince of the Novgorod Republic to “come to me, brother, to Moscow.”
History
Early years
Following the sack of 1237 – 1238, after the Mongols burned the city and killed its residents, Moscow recovered and became the capital of an independent principality in 1327. Its favorable position at the head of the Volga River contributed to the constant expansion. Moscow became a stable and prosperous principality for many years and attracted large numbers of refugees from all over Russia.
In 1380, Prince Dmitry Donskoi of Moscow led the Russian army in a major victory over the Tatars at the Battle of Kulikovo, which was not decisive, however. Only two years later Moscow was sacked by Khan Toqtamish. In 1480, Ivan III finally broke the Tatar rule, allowing Moscow to become the center of power in Russia. Under the reign of Ivan III, the city became the capital of an empire that would eventually encompass all of present-day Russia and other lands.
Attacks on the city
In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything except the Kremlin.
From 1654 to 1656 the plague killed half the population of Moscow. The city ceased to be the capital of Russia in 1712, after the founding of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great on the Baltic Sea coast in 1703.
When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, the Muscovites burned the city and evacuated it, as Napoleon’s forces approached on September 14. Napoleon’s army, plagued by hunger, cold, and poor supply lines, was forced to withdraw and was nearly wiped out by the devastating Russian winter and attacks by Russian military forces.
The December to March of 1918, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, Moscow became the capital of the Socialist Republic Russian Soviet Federative five years later of the Soviet Union. During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet State Defense Committee and the Red Army General Staff met in Moscow.
In 1941, sixteen of the national volunteer divisions (more than 160,000 people), twenty-five battalions (18,500 people), and four engineering regiments were formed among the Muscovites. In November, the German Army Group Center was arrested on the outskirts of the city and then expelled in the course of the Battle of Moscow. Many factories were evacuated, along with much of the government, and as of October 20 the city was declared in a state of siege. The rest of its residents built anti-tank defenses, while the city was bombarded from the air.
It is to be noted that Stalin refused to leave the city, which meant that the general staff and the council of people’s commissars remained there. Despite the siege and the bombing, construction of the Moscow metro continued during the war and at the end of the war, new metro lines were opened.
The 1 of maypole of 1944, the Medal was instituted for the defense of Moscow and in 1947 another medal In memory of the 800th anniversary of the founding of Moscow .
The 8 of maypole of 1965, commemorating the 20th anniversary of victory in World War II, Moscow was one of twelve Soviet cities awarded the title Hero City. In 1980, it hosted the Olympics, which were boycotted by the United States and other Western countries.
In 1991, Moscow was the scene of an attempted coup by members of the government opposed to Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms. When the USSR was dissolved that same year, Moscow continued to be the capital of the Russian Federation.
Since then, the emergence of a market economy in the country has produced an explosion of western lifestyle, retail and services. In 1998, the first World Youth Games were organized.
Political-administrative division
The city of Moscow is governed by a mayor and is divided into ten administrative districts and 124 okrugs (it is an organization very similar to that of Vienna). All the ókrugs have their shield and flag. Almost all of them have their own television station.
Moscow is the center of Russian political power. The Kremlin is located in the heart of the city, on the central okrug. There is the official residence of the President of Russia and numerous military barracks. In Moscow are the embassies of foreign countries.
