MOSCHUS, a genus of quadrupeds, of the order of paca, having no horns. See MAMMALIA Index.

MOSCOW, the chief province of the empire of Russia, deriving its name from the river Moskva, or Moikva, on which the capital is situated. It was from this duchy that the czars of old took the title of dukes of Moscow. The province is bounded on the north by the duchies of Tver, Rostov, Sudal, and Wladimir; on the south by Rezan, from which it is separated by the river Oca; on the east by the principality of Chachine, and the same river Oca parting it from Nizh-Novgorod; and on the west by the duchies of Rzeka, Bielar and Smolensko. It extends about 200 miles in length, and about 100 in breadth; and is watered by the Moikva, Oca, and Cifma, which fall into the Wolga: nevertheless, the soil is not very fertile. The air, however, though sharp, is salubrious; and this consideration, with the advantage of its being situated in the midst of the best provinces in the empire, induced the czars to make it their chief residence. In the western part of Moscow is a large forest, from whence flows the celebrated river Dnieper, or Borysthenes, which, traversing the duchy of Smolensko, winds in a serpentine course to Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland.

Moscow, the capital of the above province, and till the beginning of the last century the metropolis of all Russia, is situated in a spacious plain on the banks of the river Moikva. E. Long. 37° 31' N. Lat. 55° 45'. The Russian antiquaries differ considerably in their opinions concerning the first foundation of Moscow; the following relation, Mr Coxe says, is generally esteemed by the best authors the most probable account.

Kiev was the metropolis, when George son of Vladimir Monomakh ascended in 1154 the Russian throne. That monarch, being insulted in a progress through his dominions by a rich and powerful nobleman named Stephen Kuteikho, put him to death, and confiscated his domains, which consisted of the lands now occupied by the city of Moscow and the adjacent territory. Pleaded with the situation of the ground lying at the confluence of the Moikva and Neglina, he laid the foundation of a new town, which he called Moikva from the river of that name. Upon the demise of George, the new town was not neglected by his son Andrew, who transferred the seat of empire from Kiev to Vladimir; but it fell into such decay under his immediate successors, that when Daniel, son of Alexander Nevski, received, in the division of the empire, the duchy of Muscovy as his portion, and fixed his residence upon the confluence of the Moikva and Neglina, he may be said to have newly founded the town. The spot now occupied by the Kremlin was at that time overgrown with a thick wood and a morass, in the midst whereof was a small island containing a single wooden hut. Upon this part Daniel constructed churches and monasteries, and various buildings, and enclosed it with wooden fortifications: he first assumed the title of duke of Moscow; and was so attached to this situation, that when in 1392 he succeeded his brother Andrew Alexandrovitch in the great duchy of Vladimir, he did not remove his court to Vladimir, but continued his residence at Moscow, which then became the capital of the Russian dominions. His successors followed his example; among whom his son Ivan considerably enlarged the new metropolis, and in 1367 his grandson Demetrius Ivanovitch Doniski surrounded the Kremlin with a brick wall. These new fortifications, however, were not strong enough to prevent Tamerlane in 1382, from taking the town after a short siege. Being soon evacuated by that desultory conqueror, it again came into the possession of the Russians; but was frequently invaded and occupied by the Tartars, who in the 14th and 15th centuries overrun the greatest part of Russia, and who even maintained a garrison in Moscow until they were finally expelled by Ivan Vasilievitch I. To him Moscow is indebted for its principal splendour, and under him it became the principal and most considerable city of the Russian empire.

Moscow continued the metropolis of Russia until the beginning of the 18th century, when, to the great dissatisfaction of the nobility, but with great advantage probably to the state, the seat of empire was transferred to Petersburgh.

Notwithstanding the predilection which Peter conceived for Petersburgh, in which all the succeeding sovereigns excepting Peter the II. have fixed their residence, Moscow, according to Mr Coxe, is still the most populous city of the Russian empire. Here the chief nobles who do not belong to the court reside; they here support a large number of retainers; they love to gratify their taste for a ruder and more expensive magnificence in the ancient style of feudal grandeur; and are not, as at Petersburgh, eclipsed by the superior splendour of the court. Moscow is represented as the largest town in Europe; its circumference within the rampart, which encloses the suburbs, being exactly 39 versts or 26 miles; but it is built in so straggling and disjointed a manner, that its population in no degree corresponds to its extent. Some Russian authors rate its inhabitants at 500,000 souls, a number evidently exaggerated. According to a computation, which Mr Coxe says may be depended upon, Moscow contains within the ramparts 250,000 souls, and in the adjacent villages 50,000. The streets of Moscow are in general exceedingly long and broad; some of them are paved; others, particularly those in the suburbs, are formed with trunks of trees, or are boarded with planks like the floor of a room; wretched hovels are blended with large palaces; cottages of one story stand next to the most superb and lately manions. Many brick structures are covered with wooden tops; some of the wooden houses are painted; others have iron doors and roofs. Numerous churches present themselves in every quarter, built in a peculiar style of architecture; some with domes of copper, others of tin, gilt or painted green, and many roofed with wood. In a word, some parts of this vast city have the look of a sequestered desert, other quarters of a populous town; some of a contemptible village, others of a great capital.

Moscow may be considered as a town built upon the Asiatic model, but gradually becoming more and more European, and exhibiting in its present state a motley mixture of discordant architecture. It is distributed into the following divisions. 1. The Kremlin. This stands in the central and highest part of the city; is of a triangular form, and about two miles in circumference; and is surrounded by high walls of stone and brick; which were constructed in the year 1491, under the reign of Ivan Vasilievitch I. It contains the ancient palace of the czars, several churches, two convents, the patriarchal palace, the arsenal now in ruins, and one private house, which belonged to Boris Godunof before he was raised to the throne. 2. Khitaigorod, or the Chinese town, is enclosed on one side by that wall of the Kremlin which runs from the Moskva to the Neglina; and on the other side by a brick wall of inferior height. It is much larger than the Kremlin, and contains the university, the printing-house and many other public buildings, and all the tradesmen's shops. The edifices are mostly stuccoed or white washed, and it has the only street in Moscow in which the houses stand close to one another without any intervals between them. 3. The Bielgorod, or White Town, which runs quite round the two preceding divisions, is supposed to derive its name from a white wall with which it was formerly enclosed, and of which some remains are still to be seen. 4. Semlainogorod, which environs all the three other quarters, takes its denomination from a circular rampart of earth with which it is encompassed. These two last mentioned divisions exhibit a grotesque group of churches, convents, palaces, brick and wooden houses, and mean hovels, in no degree superior to peasants' cottages. 5. The Sloboda, or suburbs, form a vast exterior circle round all the parts already described, and are invested with a low rampart and ditch. These suburbs contain, beside buildings of all kinds and denominations, corn fields, much open pasture, and some small lakes, which give rise to the Neglina. The river Moskva, from which the city takes its name, flows through it in a winding channel; but excepting in spring is only navigable for rafts. It receives the Yauza in the Semlainogorod, and the Neglina at the western extremity of the Kremlin; the beds of both these last-mentioned rivulets are in summer little better than dry channels.

The places of divine worship at Moscow are exceedingly numerous; including chapels, they amount to above 1000; there are 484 public churches, of which 199 are of brick; and the others of wood; the former are commonly stuccoed or white-washed, the latter painted of a red colour. The most ancient churches of Moscow are generally square buildings, with a cupola and four small domes, some whereof are of copper or iron girt; others of tin, either plain or painted green. Their cupolas and domes are for the most part ornamented with crosses entwined with thin chains or wires. The church of the Holy Trinity, sometimes called the church of Jerusalem, which stands in the Khitaigorod, close to the gate leading into the Kremlin, has a kind of high steeple and nine or ten domes: it was built in the reign of Ivan Vasilievitch II. The inside of the churches is mostly composed of three parts; that called by the Greeks "nave," by the Russians "trapeza;" the body; and the sanctuary or shrine. Over the door of each church is the portrait of the saint to whom it is dedicated, to which the common people pay their homage as they pass along, by taking off their hats, crossing themselves, and occasionally touching the ground with their heads. The bells, which form an inconsiderable part of public worship in this country, as the length or shortness of their peals ascends the greater or lesser sanctity of the day, are hung in belfries detached from the church: they do not swing like our bells; but are fixed immovably to the beams, and are rung by a rope tied to the clapper and pulled sidewise. Some of these bells are of a stupendous size; one in the tower of St Ivan's church weighs 3557 Russian pounds, or 127,836 English pounds. It has always been esteemed a meritorious act of religion to present a church with bells; and the piety of the donor has been measured by their magnitude. According to this mode of estimation, Boris Godunof, who gave a bell of 288,000 pounds to the cathedral of Moscow, was the most pious sovereign of Russia, until he was surpassed by the empress Anne, at whose expense a bell was cast weighing 432,000 pounds, and which exceeded in bigness every bell in the known world. The height of this enormous bell is 19 feet, its circumference at the bottom 21 yards 11 inches; its greatest thickness 23 inches. The beam to which this vast machine was fastened being accidentally burnt, the bell fell down, and a fragment was broken off towards the bottom, which left an aperture large enough to admit two persons abreast without stooping.

The palace, inhabited by the ancient czars, stands at the extremity of the Kremlin. Part of this palace is old, and remains in the same state in which it was built under Ivan Vasilievitch I. The remainder has been successively added at different intervals, without any plan, and in various styles of architecture, which has produced a motley pile of building, remarkable for nothing but the incongruity of the several structures. The top is thickly set with numerous little gilded spires and globes; and a large portion of the front is decorated with the arms of of all the provinces which compose the Russian empire.

The apartments are in general exceedingly small, excepting one single room called the council chamber, in which the ancient czars used to give audience to foreign ambassadors, and which has been repeatedly described by several English travellers who visited Moscow before the imperial residence was transferred to Peterburgh. The room is large and vaulted, and has in the centre an enormous pillar of stone which supports the ceiling. In this palace Peter the Great came into the world, in the year 1672. In that part called the treasury are deposited the crown, jewels, and royal robes, used at the coronation of the sovereign, besides several curiosities relative to the history of the country. Of the great number of churches contained in this city, two in particular, namely, that of St Michael and that of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, are remarkable; the one for being the place where the sovereigns of Russia were formerly interred, and the other where they are crowned. These edifices, which are situated in the Kremlin, are both in the same style of architecture; and their exterior form, though modelled according to the ancient style of the country, is not absolutely inelegant. In the cathedral of St Michael, which contains the tombs of the Russian sovereigns, the bodies are not, as with us, deposited in vaults, or beneath the pavement, but are entombed in raised sepulchres, mostly of brick, in the shape of a coffin, and about two feet in height. When Mr Coxe visited the cathedral, the most ancient were covered with palls of red cloth, others of red velvet, and that of Peter II. with gold tissue, bordered with silver fringe and ermine. Each tomb has at its lower extremity a small silver plate, upon which is engraved the name of the deceased sovereign, and the era of his death.

The cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which has long been appropriated to the coronation of the Russian sovereigns, is the most splendid and magnificent in Moscow. The screen is in many parts covered with plates of solid silver and gold richly worked. From the centre of the roof hangs an enormous chandelier of maffy silver, weighing 2940 pounds: it was made in England, and was a present from Morosof, prime minister and favourite of Alexey Michaelowitch. The sacred utensils and episcopal vestments are extraordinarily rich, but the taste of the workmanship is in general rude, and by no means equal to the materials. Many of the paintings which cover the inside walls are of a colossal size: some are very ancient, and were executed so early as in the latter end of the 15th century. It contains, amongst the rest a head of the Virgin, supposed to have been delineated by St Luke, and greatly celebrated in this country for its sanctity and the power of working miracles. Its face is almost black; its head is ornamented with a glory of precious stones, and its hands and body are gilded, which gives it a most grotesque appearance. It is placed in the screen, and enclosed within a large silver covering, which is only taken off on great festivals, or for the curiosity of strangers. In this cathedral are deposited the remains of the Russian patriarchs.

The place in the Khitaigorod, where the public archives are deposited, is a strong brick building, containing several vaulted apartments with iron floors. These archives, consisting of a numerous collection of state papers, were crowded into boxes and thrown aside like common lumber, until the empress Catherine ordered them to be revised and arranged. In conformity to this mandate, Mr Muller has disposed them in chronological order with such perfect regularity, that any single document may be inspected with little trouble. They are enclosed in separate cabinets with glass doors: those relative to Russia are all classified according to the several provinces which they concern; and over each cabinet is inscribed the name of the province to which it is appropriated. In the same manner the manuscripts relative to foreign kingdoms are placed in separate divisions under the respective titles of Poland, Sweden, England, France, Germany, &c.

The university of Moscow, all situated in the Khitaigorod, was founded, at the instance of Count Shuvalov, by the empress Elizabeth, for 600 students; who are clothed, boarded, and instructed, at the expense of the crown. Besides this institution, there are two gymnasia or seminaries for the education of youth, endowed also by Elizabeth; in which are taught, by twenty-three professors, divinity, classics, philosophy, the Greek, Latin, Russian, German, French, Italian, and Tartar languages; history, geography, mathematics, architecture, fortification, artillery, algebra, drawing and painting, music, fencing, dancing, reading and writing.

Moscow is the centre of the inland commerce of Russia, and particularly connects the trade between Europe and Siberia. The only navigation to this city is formed by the Moskva, which falling into the Occa near Columna, communicates by means of that river with the Volga. But as the Moskva is only navigable in spring upon the melting of the snows, the principal merchandise is conveyed to and from Moscow upon sledges in winter. The whole of the retail trade is carried on in the Khitaigorod; where according to a custom common in Russia, as well as in most kingdoms of the East, all the shops are collected together in one spot. The place is like a kind of fair, consisting of many rows of low brick buildings; the intervals between them resembling alleys. These shops or booths occupy a considerable space; they do not, as with us, make part of the houses inhabited by the tradesmen, but are quite detached from their dwellings, which for the most part are at some distance in another quarter of the town. The tradesman comes to his shop in the morning, remains there all day, and returns home to his family in the afternoon. Every trade has its separate department; and they who sell the same goods have booths adjoining to each other. Furs and skins form the most considerable article of commerce in Moscow; and the shops which vend these commodities occupy several streets.

Amongst the curiosities of Moscow, the market for the sale of houses is not the least remarkable. It is held in a large open space in one of the suburbs; and exhibits a great variety of ready made houses, thickly strewed upon the ground. The purchaser who wants a dwelling, repairs to this spot, mentions the number of rooms he requires, examines the different timbers, which are regularly numbered, and bargains for that which suits him. The house is sometimes paid for on the spot, and taken away by the purchaser; or sometimes the vender contracts to transport and erect it upon the place where it is designed to stand. It may appear incredible to assert, that a dwelling may be thus bought, bought, removed, raised and inhabited, within the space of a week; but we shall conceive it practicable by considering that these ready-made houses are in general merely collections of trunks of trees tenoned and mortised at each extremity into one another, so that nothing more is required than the labour of transporting and adjusting them. But this summary mode of building is not always peculiar to the meaner hovels; as wooden structures of very large dimensions and handsome appearance are occasionally formed in Russia with an expedition almost inconceivable to the inhabitants of other countries. A remarkable instance of this dispatch was displayed the last time the empress came to Moscow. Her majesty proposed to reside in the mansion of Prince Galitzin, which is esteemed the completest edifice in this city; but as it was not sufficiently spacious for her reception, a temporary addition of wood, larger than the original house, was begun and finished within the space of six weeks. This meteor-like fabric was so handsome and commodious, that the materials which were taken down at her majesty's departure, were to be re-constructed as a kind of imperial villa upon an eminence near the city.

Mr Coxe mentions an admirable police in this city for preventing riots, or for stopping the concourse of people in case of fires, which are very frequent and violent in those parts, where the houses are mostly of wood, and the streets are laid with timber. At the entrance of each street there is a chevaux-de-frise gate, one end whereof turns upon a pivot, and the other rolls upon a wheel; near it is a sentry box in which a man is occasionally stationed. In times of riot or fire the sentinel shuts the gate, and all passage is immediately stopped.

Among the public institutions of Moscow, the most remarkable is the Foundling Hospital, endowed in 1764 by the empress Catherine, and supported by voluntary contributions and legacies, and other charitable gifts. In order to encourage donations, her majesty granted to all benefactors some valuable privileges, and a certain degree of rank in proportion to the extent of their liberality. Among the principal contributors must be mentioned a private merchant named Dimidoff, a person of great wealth, who has expended in favour of this charity above 100,000. The hospital, which is situated in a very airy part of the town upon a gentle ascent near the river Moskva, is an immense pile of building of a quadrangular shape, part of which was only finished when Mr Coxe (whose account we are transcribing) was at Moscow. It contained, at that time, three thousand foundlings; and, when the whole is completed, will receive eight thousand. The children are brought to the porter's lodge, and admitted without any recommendation. The rooms are lofty and large; the dormitories, which are separate from the work rooms, are very airy, and the beds are not crowded: each foundling, even each infant, has a separate bed. The children remain two years in the nursery, when they are admitted into the lowest class; the boys and girls continue together until they are seven years of age, at which time they are separated. They all learn to read, write, and calf accounts. The boys are taught to knit; they occasionally card hemp, flax, and wool, and work in the different manufactures. The girls learn to knit, net, and all kinds of needlework; they spin and weave lace; they are employed in cookery, baking, and housework of all sorts. At the age of fourteen the foundlings enter into the first class; when they have the liberty of choosing any particular branch of trade; and for this purpose there are different species of manufactures established in the hospital, of which the principal are embroidery, silk stockings, ribbons, lace, gloves, buttons, and cabinet work. A separate room is appropriated to each trade. Some boys and girls are instructed in the French and German languages, and a few boys in the Latin tongue; others learn music, drawing, and dancing. Moscow was taken and plundered by the French in 1812.