HISTORIC MOSCOW

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 November 1941, Page 6

HISTORIC MOSCOW

GROWTH DURING MANY ' CENTURIES FORMER OUTPOST AGAINST MONGOLS. MODERN INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. As a town Moscow is nearly 800 years old, dating back to the time when a prince of Rostov erected wooden walls around his villa and estate- ; and dependent settlements. In the i early 14th century it became the most important outpost for the princes of Russia against the raids of the Mongol invaders, but later its central position on the spacious Russian steppes was responsible for its growth as a great trading town on the crossroads from Europe, Asia, and Persia. With the development of rail communications less than 100 years ago Moscow’s place as a transport and industrial centre became assured. NAPOLEON’S EXPERIENCE. Perhaps the most famous pages in Moscow’s history are those relating to Napoleon’s invasion in 1812. The Russian troops evacuated the city six days after the battle of Borodino, and on the following day (September 14) the French occupied the Kremlin. That night the capital was set on fire and the inhabitants abandoned it. This was a signal for a general rising of the peasants against the invaders, and the lack of supplies, together with the impossibility of wintering in a ruined city extremely vulnerable to guerilla raids, compelled Napoleon to leave Moscow on October 19. After a few years of desolation the city was rebuilt. Moscow is today—or was until a few weeks ago—a crowded modern metropolis of more than 4,000.000 people. The city had suffered during the Bolshevist revolution and during the wild period which followed, and by 1920 its population had fallen from 2,000,000 to'Boo,ooo. Planned industrial development, however, soon attracted new citizens, with the result that an acute housing shortage developed. RAPID FACTORY GROWTH. In 1923 electrification schemes were inaugurated in Russia, and these paved the way for the intensive development of Moscow as an industrial ceri--tre. Railways from all parts of the * Soviet led to the capital, and rich and'® varied supplies of raw materials Were ■ available for the city’s growing factories. With one of the most extensive electric power systems in Europe, and with newly developed fuel from a nearby brown coal basin, the factories of Moscow during the last few years have been turning out most of the ballbearings for all Russian machinery, quantities of automobiles and trucks (Russia is second only to the United tates in its production and use of trucks), chemicals, electrical equipment, railway locomotives, machine tools and textiles.

Apart from its rail communications, Moscow’s transport needs are also served by canals and waterways. The Moscow-Volga canal, in size comparably with the Panama canal, makes this inland city a port which actually supports its own shipyards. The central Government of the Soviet is principally located in the Kremlin, the ancient fortress around which the city has gradually grown. In the surrounding districts are great theatres and museums, and many famous churches, with their typical cupolas and spires doininatirig the landscape.

In appearance the city presents a striking summary of the national life, with wooden houses in the suburbs, the low-built houses of the former aristocracy, the many-storeyed modern flat buildings, the huge factories, the Oriental splendour of churches and cathedrals, the magnificence of the former Imperial palaces and the strictly utilitarian aspect of the most recent buildings. All this goes to form the city which the Russians still regard as “Holy Mother Moscow,” the capital of a country which comprises one-sixth of the earth’s surface and which contains one-twelfth of the world’s inhabitants.