MOSCOW, Russia, the second capital of the empire, and until Peter the Great selected Saint Petersburg as a northern capital, the sole capital and imperial residence, situated in a highly cultivated district on the Moskva, 400 miles direct by rail southeast of Saint Peters burg. It is the capital of a government of the same name (area, 12,847 acres; pop. .3,662,900), and is especially esteemed by the Russians as the place of the coronation of the tsars, the favor ite residence of many of the nobility, the com mercial emporium of central Russia and west ern Asia, and a principal seat of Russian manufactures. It is the holy or white mother city in the creed of the people, and no tsar would omit visiting it at least twice a year, or presenting in the city his eldest son after he has reached his majority.
As a general rule the temperature ranges from a winter mean of 14° F. to a summer mean of 66°, the annual mean being 40°. Sec tions of the city are walled. A considerable portion of the enclosed space is unoccupied by buildings, has an undulating surface and is traversed by the navigable Moskva, which is crossed by five bridges, and entering at the mid dle of the west wall makes a series of ser pentine windings, in the course of which it re ceives the Iaousa and the Neglina, and leaves the city at the southeast corner. The river is frozen for five months of the year. The general view of the town, as seen from Spar row Hill, an eminence on the southeast, is peculiarly striking and picturesque. Its hun dreds of churches and convents, surmounted by gilt and variously colored domes and spires, its imperial and other palaces, its boulevards. gardens, ponds and, above all, the high walls and numerous stately towers of the Kremlin or citadel, produce an effect unequaled by any other European city. It formerly comprised five principal divisions: the Kremlin, Kitai gorod, Byeloigorod, Semlyanigorod and the Sloboden or suburbs.
Public Buildings, The Kremlin, situ ated on the north bank of the river, forms the centre of the town, and in it are found the principal civil and ecclesiastical buildings. The Kremlin has always been held in al most superstitious veneration by all Russians. "Above Moscow there is nothing but the Krem lin; above the Kremlin, nothing but the sky.'" Here in the first place is to be seen the Great Palace, a lofty building in a mixed style of architecture, erected in 1838-49, having the Treasury, forming a sort of wing, on the right, while also connected with it is the Terem or old palace of the tsars, belonging to the 16th and 17th centuries. The Cathedral Square, on the summit of the Kremlin, contains the Us penskiy Cathedral (cathedral of the Assump tion), in which the emperors are crowned, built in 1475-79, a clumsy building with heavy pillars, which support five cupolas, these, like the walls, glittering with grotesque frescoes of sacred subjects, painted on a golden ground; another cathedral here is the Archangelskiy Cathedral (of the Archangel Michael), founded in 1333 and rebuilt in 1505-09, containing the tombs of many tsars down to Peter the Great; a third is the Blagovieshchenski Cathedral (of the Annunciation), founded in 1397. The arse
nal is an immense building lining one side of the northern angle of the Kremlin, the opposite side being occupied by the senate. The chief attraction is the upper story of the treasury, containing of the early tsars, several thrones, warlike trophies and miscellaneous curiosities; the arsenal contains an immense quantity of weapons and arms, the cannon taken from the French during their retreat and numerous other military trophies. Near the centre of the buildings of the Kremlin is the tower of Ivan the Great, which rises to the height of 322 feet, contains numerous bells and is surmounted by a gilded dome, on which the cross is displayed above the crescent. The great Tsar Kolokol, or king of bells, the largest in the world, stands at the bottom of the tower on a granite pedestal, to which it was raised in 1832, after having remained for more than a century buried on the spot where it had fallen while an attempt was being made to hoist it. The Kremlin also contains a bronze statue of Alexander II (1898). Outside of it the chief buildings are the cathedral of Saint Vassili (Saint Basil), one of the strangest specimens of architecture anywhere to be met with, having no less than 20 gilded and painted domes and towers, all of different shapes and sizes; and the temple of the Saviour, built (completed 1883) to commemorate the French retreat, at a cost of $10,000,000, and which is regarded as the most beautiful church in Rus sia. Other buildings worthy of notice are the great riding school, the Gostinnoi Dvor or principal bazaar in the Kitaigorod, a colossal building of three stories, where the leading wholesale merchants carry on their business; the Riadi, in the same quarter, occupied by handsome shops. Among the principal educa tional establishments is the university, the largest in the country, founded in 1755 by the Empress Elisabeth; it consists of four faculties, is attended by nearly 10,000 students and has a library of about 400,000 volumes, an observa tory and botanical garden. A popular univer sity, bearing the name of its founder, Gen. Alphonse Shaviaysky, was opened in 1908. The gallery of art contains 2,000 pictures, mainly Russian, bequeathed by the brothers Tretiaka. There are several good museums, the largest and most important being the Ru miantzof, in a fine building, with library and reading-room. The foundling hospital, in which children are received without questions being asked, sunports annually 5,000 children, 1,500 being in the institution at one time. The num ber of the open and planted spaces throughout the city is great, hut otherwise the streets are narrow, uneven and crooked, lined by mean-looking brick and wood houses. Beside the imperial palaces in the Kremlin are the Petrofskoi Palace and gardens outside of the Saint Petersburg gate, the principal fashionable resort during the summer season, and the palace of the Empress Elisabeth; and among the favorite pleasure grounds are the beautiful gar dens of the Kremlin and the Galitzin garden on Sparrow Hill. Moscow is the residence of two archbishops and of the governor-general of the province.