We’re starting to dig a little into Moscow. I’m loathe to repeat the Calling Moscow series here (14 episodes!), but I may use it as a resource if it helps get the point across.
After immersing myself in related tales of glorious St Petersburg, I have to say that the benchmark has been set rather high… so I’m looking to hear from those on the ground who live Moscow on a daily basis to really show (and learn) what Moscow is about. On top of that, we’ll have a sprinkling of Trans-Siberian rail-trippers who dash in and out over a couple of days, leaving with some broad-stroke impressions, snapshots, of the place.
Hey, I know just what it’s like: there’s usually a point in travel conversations (this is it, by the way) where I wheel out my long weekend in Prague. I walked around 20 miles through ancient streets and monuments, some apparently intact, others tainted by modernity… but can I tell you one single thing about real life there? Not a chance. The tourist bubble is a hard one to burst, and usually we end up trapped inside it like escapee Patrick McGoohans hot-footing it out of Perranporth.
Anyway, as promised, some nuts-and-bolts info on Moscow. A good place to start. The wild(er) digressions and flights of fancy come later.
Population
Approximately 10.5 million. That’s more than a million over London, making it Europe’s largest city. St Petersburg weighs in at almost half that figure. Quality not quantity though, right?
I saw a snapshot of the Moscow Metro in full swing (you are not allowed to take snapshots of either Moscow’s or St Peterburg’s underground: expect a fine if you try) and it looked like a vision of Hell [not much different from London’s then? Ed]. Crowded is not the word. A giant, subterranean sardine tin for humans pretty much covers it. Mind you, a YouTube video of St Petersburg during ‘rush hour’ (no one’s really rushing in that) shows that it favourably compares in the stakes to visualise Dante’s ‘thick and clamorous crowd’ I could just picture myself back-stepping up that escalator, double-time.
Size and density
Moscow sprawls (I seem to use that word a lot when talking about cities) across approximately 1440km2, making it less dense than London, and about half the density of Paris. By contrast, St Petersburg is positively spacious. For the sake of comparison, approximate population per square kilometre:
Paris………………….21,000
Moscow………………9,700
London……………….4,760
St Petersburg……….3,240
Layout
Moscow follows a classic spider-web design of radiating, concentric rings and broken arcs radiating from the Kremlin like ripples in a pond. Similarly to a cross-sectioned tree-trunk, the rings delineate periods of the city’s historical growth and development, and are still referred to in the city’s nomenclature today: the Garden and Boulevard Rings marking once fortified lines, the Moscow Ring Road, Little Ring Railway, the Third and Fourth Transport Rings, The Moscow Automobile Ring Road or MKAD. Piercing and linking the ripples are radial spokes of major thoroughfares. As a contrast, the serpentine coils of the Moskva river meander across its web, around islands and under bridges, entering Moscow from the north west and exiting south east. Further out, swathes of greenery and suburban parks encroach, and the pond rings fracture into minor routes, diminishing though still echoing their major urban brothers.
Next time: more Moscow (we’re only just getting started).
[Photos by Vladimir Fofanov, sennenka and Vladimir Starykh]
