MOSCOW, 1912

Moscovia, Moskovia, Moscov, Muscovy, Moscovia or the most popular one, Moskva. Moscow is one of those cities of Russia whose name hardly changed through history. The most popular one being St. Petersburg that changed its name twice to Petrograd (1914) and Leningrad (1924) and a couple of others, but Moscow remained unchanged since its first mention in 1147. Although the current capital, Moscow had to compete with nearby cities to gain prominence as it was quite a recent one. In fact, Moscow wasn't even the capital of the predecessors to today's Russia. Cities like Ryurikovo Gorodische, Kiev (which now is in Ukraine), Vladimir-on-Klyazma, Yaroslavl, St. Petersburg, Samara, Ufa, Omsk, Kuybyshev, Sverdlovsk and Kazan were made administrative headquarters and capitals at various points in Russian history.

Competing with neighboring city of Tver, Moscow's first prominence came in 1327 when along with the Mongols, the Prince Ivan Kalita defeated and captured Tver thus becoming a religious metropolitan outside Vladimir (the then capital of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, the predecessor to Grand Duchy of Moscow). Interestingly, the Mongols had previously destroyed Moscow as well in 1238 along with Vladimir as well. The Grand Duchy of Moscow (known in simple English as Muscovy or Moscovia) rose to importance in the 14th century when principalities and territories such as Kolomna, Kostroma and Vologda were annexed, expanding the territory slowly. Gradually in the next two centuries most of today's European Russia would be added to establish the Russian Tsardom in 1547.

During this time, the largest medieval fortress complex in Europe was constructed in Moscow, the Kremlin Complex (between 1482 to 1495). It now contains more than 15 buildings, 20 towers and more than 1.5 miles of walls which are up to 21 ft. thick.

An interesting less-known connection of the emerging Muscovy with the to-be established East India Company took place in 1533 when some London Merchants decided to establish world's first chartered joint stock company: the Muscovy Company (original title: The Mysterie and Companie of the Merchant Adventurers for the Discoverie of Regions, Dominions, Islands and Places Unknown), for whom they got permission in 1555. Seems like an early connection of the English and Russians had already started, something that would affect India in the next coming centuries.

By 16th century the Tsardom of Russia had pretty much occupied today's European Plain and Fennoscandia after conquering Finnmark, Ostroboothnia (part of today's Finland) and Kazan Khanate. Moscow still remained its capital and while the Russians were expanding without any resistance beyond the Urals, Moscow maintained its prominence throughout. Though, in 1610 Moscow was captured by the newly formed Polish-Lithuanian Union - a gigantic union of kingdoms that expanded from today's Latvia and Lithuania in the north to Poland in the west and occupying major portions of Belarus and Ukraine in the east and south. This phase of occupation is also known as 'Time of Troubles' that ended with the establishment of the Romanov Dynasty that would rule Moscow and Russia for the next three centuries.

It's interesting to note that the 17th century was the time of extreme troubles for the Russians as they were under constant oppression under the Polish and German mercenaries and were fighting series of wars and rioting against them. History is proof how time changed and in the Second World War, the oppressed came out to be victorious, so much so that the German leader, Adolf Hitler, had to commit suicide when Berlin was occupied by Russians.

After establishing the Russian Empire in 1712, Peter I (or Peter Alekseyevich Romanov) shifted the capital to the newly established St. Petersburg (originally Sankt-Pieter-Burch or Sankt Peterburg). But still, Moscow remained the place where the royalties were being crowned, hence not completely lost its importance. Shortly before this event, in 1708, Moscow was established as a province. In 1812 (just a century later), Moscow was again captured by Napoleon Bonaparte briefly (for a couple of months) since the Muscovites had already burned the city partially before the French could take over.

A century later the capital shifted back to Moscow and it witnessed the fall of the Romanovs, rise of the Soviet Union and even during the disintegration of all the Republics in 1991, the capital seat remained unchanged. Another interesting tangent here is that early Russian historians believed Moscow as 'Third Rome' - an idea that was shortly forgotten between late 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was widely believed that Moscow would succeed Rome and Byzantine Empires to expand eastwards an Muscovite Empire. So much so that this theory was implied by historians of 1950s and 60s to justify Russian expansionist campaigns.

The 20th century saw rise of communism and figures like Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, who established a post-Romanov era of Russia bringing revolutions, revolts and a gigantic entity called the Soviet Union or USSR. Not getting much into the communist angle, an interesting event took place in the 1920s with respect to cinema and motion pictures - emergence of Dziga Vertov and his range of documentary-styled work, the most notably Man with a Movie Camera, 1928 (Человек с кино-аппаратом). Another masterpiece created by another filmmaking genius Sergei Eisenstien, Battleship Potempin, 1925 (Бронено́сец Потёмкин) gave a new direction to both Russian and world cinema. Both their works (alongwith several others) are considered as pioneers in filmmaking world, in terms of its craft and storytelling.

From the 20th century borders of Suschefskaya and Sakolniki Park in the north to Hamovnicheskaya, Prechistinskaya in the west; Rogoskaya, Basmannaya in the east to Serpuhofskaya and the Donskoi Monastery in the south, Moscow has expanded rapidly throughout the century resulting to push its current boundary to the most recent plan of Greater Moscow in 2012. The below map here is of 1912, two years prior to the First World War, the times when Moscow would see an interesting series of fate-changing events.