The largest city in Europe and the city that has buried empires — where the Kremlin has been the seat of power for 500 years, the Moscow Metro is the world's most ornate underground rail system, and Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Tchaikovsky all worked within a few miles of each other
Moscow (12.5 million city; metro 17 million) is the capital and largest city of Russia and the largest city in Europe by population. The historic core — Red Square (Krasnaya Ploshchad, meaning 'Beautiful Square' in Old Russian), the Kremlin (a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990), and the GUM department store — forms one of the most photographed urban ensembles in the world. The Moscow Metro (opened 1935) is the world's busiest metro system outside Asia and the most architecturally elaborate — its Stalinist stations (Komsomolskaya, Mayakovskaya, Novoslobodskaya) are monumental halls of marb…
Moscow was founded in 1147 by Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy of Suzdal, though the archaeological record suggests habitation as early as the 2nd millennium BCE. The city became the capital of the Muscovite state by the 14th century, the Tsardom of Russia in the 16th century, and was briefly replaced by St. Petersburg as capital (1712–1918) before Lenin moved the government back to Moscow in 1918. Napoleon occupied Moscow for 35 days in September–October 1812; the city was burned (apparently by Russian inhabitants themselves) to deny the French resources, and Napoleon's subsequent retreat from Moscow…