The Reconstruction of Moscow

Red Square at fhe beginning of the twentieth century

OLD MOSCOW

Ancient Moscow of the nobles and merchants present ted a symbol of Russian backwardness, Asiatic ways, merchant extravagance, clerical obscurantisnij and ex- treme exploitation of the workers and toilers. Ancient Moscow went down in history as "the 4 big Village," a "big village" which was filthy, boorish and municipally backward, famous for its abundance of monasteries and drink-shops, pubs and chapels. M oscow wa S an exceptionally backward and poorly laid-out city, a city that had developed planlessly and chaotically, a city with narrow, crooked, filthy, ill-smell- ing, dusty and unpaved streets, with numerous lanes and blind alleys, with a hodge-podge of architectural styles, with a huge number of churches and monasteries as the city's predominant feature, with public utilities—electric power, water-supply, sewera'ge and particularly transpor- tations—at an extremely low level, and a preponderance of foreign capital in these-branches. Eight centuries have passed since the Russian feudal lords built the Kremlin fortress од the high left bank of the Moscow River to protect themselves from the inter- nal and external enemy. As the spider weaves its web,

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