Talk:Moscow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Moscow article.
Article policies
Archives: 1
This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
Moscow is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Other languages WikiProject Echo has identified Moscow as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Afrikaans, German or Vietnamese language Wikipedias.
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
Version 0.5
 This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.

Because of their length, the previous discussions on this page have been archived. If further archiving is needed, see Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.

Previous discussions:

Contents

[edit] Sister cities

Does Moscow have sister cities? London or... New York... or.. ?

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 18:30, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

About a list of sister cities. Russian Wiki says that Madrid, London, LA, Tehran, Dusseldorf, Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Nikolaev (Ukraine) are sister cities of Moscow too. -- Sith Marauder 03:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Copyrighted Photos

Many photos in this article are copyrighted. Please try to use free images for Wikipedia articles, instead of copyrighted images. An article on a major city like Moscow should not need to use any copyrighted images. --Mamin27 02:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Some of the copyrighted photos: 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px

How would you imagine a non-copyrighted image of a building being constructed?--Nixer 21:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  • You don't need it for Moscow. It's not fair-use to put a copyrighted picture of a building that is unnecessary for the Moscow article. Maybe it's fair-use in the specific building article, but not in the Moscow article. An article like Moscow should not depend on copyrighted photos. --Mamin27 07:10, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    You wrongly understand fair use.--Planemo 20:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proper Russian spellings

I understand the temptation to insert foreign (i.e., English) spellings into an article about Russian, but I have learned from my studies in Wikipedia that this is not acceptable. For example, over on the Franz Josef Strauss article, the following editors—

Gryffindor
Haukur Þorgeirsson
C.Löser
Edinborgarstefan
Schubbay
Darkone
Sicherlich
Angr
Reinhard
Stern
Denniss
Carbidfischer

made it abundantly clear that using an incorrect spelling, simply because it is the "normal" English translation, is just wrong. We need to stick to correct spellings of proper names. These editors have been around a lot longer than me, and most of them are European, so we need to listen to them. They know better than English speakers. 65.80.244.202 19:17, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I assumed good faith yesterday and simply warned not to do this again. But you are continuing, which means that you are vandalizing the page to prove a point. TSO1D 19:21, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Security dealing with crime

There should be stuff about how Moscow's security forces deal with the high crime rates if at all. I just can't find any info on Moscow secuity.

Hi. I spent four days in Moscow (March 17, 2007 to March 20, 2007) and found the city to be quite safe, despite all the articles I had read on the internet that warned about high crime rates as well as racial violence dealing with skin-head and neo-nazi gangs. While in Moscow I did not run into any gangs of skin-heads/neo-nazis at all. I was particularly worried inittially since I am from Mexico and though I would be an easy target for those racist groups. Like I said, however, I did not see any of those gangs in Moscow, so that was comforting. The only thing I have to add with regards to safety is that I am very pleased to see that Moscow is not quite at the high crime rates of western cities such as Chicago, Houston, Mexico City, etc. I was a little dissapointed with the russian's cold character that seemed rude to western standards, however, one has just to understand their culture I guess. One last thing, you MUST learn russian before you go to Russia. It is not like other countries in which you find people that speak some english. Even the few russians that speak english expect you to know russian. So long.66.68.254.13 01:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)David66.68.254.13 01:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you had such a great time in Moscow. I've been living here for two years and also haven't experienced anything worse (knock on wood) than a little rudeness on the metro and some poor restaurant service (anyone who's been here may know what I'm talking about). But for anyone new traveling to Moscow, please note that skin-heads and other such groups are rare but do exist, and one should always be cautious in a big city, especially in a foreign one.

[edit] Deleting the image of Federation Tower

I suspect the image is fully valid. It is a fair-use image from a press-kit and it cannot be replaced because it is the architect's view of the project and any other drowings imitating the building will be inaccurate. Anyway we should provide some images of how the architects plan the IBC will look like. To those who deleted the image: please explain your position.--Dojarca 09:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The gallery

I think we shall not delete the gallery unless the most notable images are placed in the article proper.--Dojarca 10:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Tell that to Featured Article Objectors! It is not normal for an encyclopedic article to have a gallery of pictures. Please do not put the gallary back. --Hirakawacho 20:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Most articles about cities have galleries including such as New York, Beijing, Tokyo, Shanghai. Please do not impose double standards here.--Dojarca 21:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Dojarca Click here Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Moscow. Until you are willing to explain to the objectors you position I am afraid I have no choice but to listen to the objectors. So please tell them, not me. If it is featured it will be on the main page. --Hirakawacho 23:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
None of the four articles you noted are featured. There may be a few city articles with galleries, but this is not a place for showcasing pictures of arbitrary places in Moscow. If you want a gallery of Moscow photos, we have the Wikimedia Commons page for that. -- tariqabjotu 17:55, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted Links

I added links to the waytorussia.net guide to Moscow (http://www.waytorussia.net/Moscow/Guide.html) in General and Russia Today TV (http://www.russiatoday.ru/test/) in Media and was told they were deleted because they were "inappropriate". Any reason why? I understand Russia Today might be considered biased because it's state-owned. At the same time it has some interesting stuff and it doesn't hurt to see a different perspective. At any rate, NTV (which has a link) is essentially state-owned as well. As for waytorussia.net, that site has more information than my Russian Lonely Planet guide does. So what's the deal? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Globe traveller (talk • contribs) 08:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] History Section; 2nd paragraph; last line

"The Russian capital, which had wandered from Kiev to Vladimir, came to rest in this city by the end of his reign, and Moscow became the capital of an empire that would eventually encompass all of present-day Russia and parts of other lands."

This line needs work but I don't know enough Russian history to make the changes myself. Russian capitals don't "wander." Did the capital move from Kiev to Vladimir? Is Vladimir a person or a city?

I believe the line should read this way: "The Russian capital was moved under Vladimir's reign from Kiev to Moscow. The city became the capital of an empire that would eventually encompass all of present-day Russia and parts of other lands."Ryanpm4545 22:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Vladimir is a city in this context.--Dojarca 00:39, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll clean up the line a little Ryanpm4545 16:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crime Section

I've undone user:76.189.210.252 previous edit. They wanted to remove the crime section as they said it "totally irrelevant you cant post such specific events)" ... What does anyone else think? A city page should cover all aspects - both good and bad... It seemed to be well referenced to me, and the person who added it had a user name and had made contributions before, unlike the reverter.. But I'm open to suggestions! --Tomhannen 09:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

And should we add specific crime events that happened in New York City, or Los Angeles? Adding a crime section is fine, but making it limited to one specific event does not meet wikipedia's standards.

-That guy

The best thing to do would be to move the contents of this section to Crime in Moscow and link to it from the "see also" section of this article. When/if crime in Moscow grows, it can be summarized, and that summary can be placed into the Moscow article as a separate section. The way the section is now it really shouldn't be included.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Agreed - this sounds like a good way to go - I'll have a go when I get the chance. --Tomhannen 21:34, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Change of reference

The 11th reference ("tallest free-standing land structure in the world and today remains the world's second-tallest") points to a newspaper article that gives only collateral information. I suggest to change that link for http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0886190.html, that gives information about: towers, heights, date of construction, etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 163.117.139.225 (talk) 09:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC). --163.117.139.225 09:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] spelling

I ran the article through a spell checker and found that some of it was in Commonwealth and some in US English. It appeared that US was the main spelling so I started changing over. However I found that proper names such as Bolshoi Theatre, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (Moscow) and "... Soviet State Committee of Defence and the General Staff of the Red Army..." wer all using Commonwealth. Rather than have two types of spelling I changed them all to be Commenwealth. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] maneges

I'm not sure how this fits in the article. Near the start of the sports section it says "...besides eight football and eleven light athletics maneges...". A "manege" is according to my dictionary "A school for teaching horsemanship, and for training horses". So the sentence seems to be saying that in Moscow there are "eleven light athletics horse training/horsmanship schools", is that correnct? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 400 BC ??

I have removed the following unreferenced fragment:

However, the most important fact was, that all Finno-Ugrian and Tatar-Turkic languages used the same word, despite its meaning, of Moskova. From this it can be calculated that Moskova existed at least from c.400 BC.

This is not an established fact but most probably a marginal theory or even original research Alex Bakharev 05:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciations

I'm concerned by these pronunciations listed, especially for American English. Perhaps the pronunciation to which I've been exposed is related to my region (Fort Worth/Dallas metroplex, northwestern Texas), but use of the diphthong [aʊ] is unimaginable. Upon polling some friends (for untampered data, of course), the prevalent pronunciations as heard by the people in this region are [ˈmɑs.koʊw] or [mɑs.kaʊw] (approximately rhyming with 'cow'), where the second has no audible distinction in accentuation. The key fact is that both terminate in either a voiceless labiovelar consonant or a reduced secondary vowel. I suspect that this data is not severely affected by my location in the U.S. since most television programs use a standard broadcast dialect. If there is a regional variation, my instinct tells me that the first I listed is the version used in snootier (or faux British) usage, and the second more familiar to the locals. 12.147.134.239 05:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC) (Ub3rm4th)

[edit] Population

Probably there are 10,4 million official registered inhabitants and 13,7 million total population includng illegal migrants.--Dojarca 05:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too Big Head for Russia?

It is interesting to compare some population figures of Moscow. In 1237 it was far less than 5.000 inhabitants. In 1750 about 150.000. In 1850 the population had doubled to 300.000. Much larger absolute growth was difficult before the advent of the railways made possible greatly increased supplies of food and raw material outside the natural surrounding Volga Oka region. In 1913 the population was 1.635.000 inhabitants. Now, in 2007 about 14.000.000 inhabitants ( both legal and illegal population). In the case of emergency, if the food delivery collapses this number of population is the first to suffer from food shortage which leads to hungry riots and uncontrolled flood of refuges of hungry people to surrounding areas. The most suitable population for this size of population in European Russia is about 5.000.000 inhabitants. Even more worster is the location of St.Petersburg, the surrounding area can by natural means only supply a city of less than 2.000.000 inhabitants.

JN

Funny but how many people can support London's area?--Dojarca 03:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree, London area is also too big concentration of population in the British Isles. I take here one example of Western source in which reads:

It is easier to understand the significance of the Oka-Volga region if we realize that it is similar in size than former Jugoslavia, and was a separate country in the early days of Russian history. Long after the forests to the north, the steppe in the south, and the lands of Siberia had come under Russian sovereigny it remained the essential Russia. Roumania is a little smaller in size and population. The British Isles has a similar area (although the population is 2.5 times as large). The Oka-Volga region, however, has more population than the three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) together, more than in former Jugoslavia, more than Canada. It occupies little more than 1 per cent. of the former Soviet Union, yet it supports nearly 10 per cent. of the population and produces between 20-30 per cent. of its total industrial output. It contains some of the most highly industrialized areas with very high density of urban population. Today some 30 towns have each more than 50.000 inhabitants. In most districts, the percentage of town-dwellers is 50 or more. The percentage is especially high in the centre, in the Moscow, Vladimir, and Nizhnij Novgorod regions, and to the north of Ivanovo industrial area. This is not due to any abundance of natural resources, for this respect the Oka-Volga region was one of the poorest in the former Soviet Union. Its rise to to eminence has been almost entirely the result of its central positition in relation to the zones of climate, soils, and natural vegetation of the Russian Plain and to the inland waterways. Although there still remains more forest than in most countries in Western Europe, the Oka-Volga region - with 20 to 30 per cent. of arable land - presents more cultivated landscape than any other part of the forest zone in Russian Federation. On the other hand, there is not the same detailed variety of the landscape that is found in France or the South of England. From a high bluff on the bank of river one may gaze across seemingly limitless plains that stretch to the horizon. The view looking east from the hills south-west of Moscow, or the bluffs overlooking the junction of the Oka with the Volga is particularly melancholy and monotonous on a winter day when the sky is grey and the land is shrouded in snow.

Journeys across the Oka-Volga plains are similar in lenght than to those across England. The straight-line distance from Moscow to Nizhnij Novgodod is about the same as from London to Penzance. From Riazan in the south to Kostroma in the north the distance is approximately equal to that from London to Newcastle. The Kliazma and the Moscow rivers are similar in many respects to the Thames. The 130 kilometre journey along the new canal from Moscow to Volga is about the same as along the Thames between London and Oxford, but this canal can take ships up to 3.35 metre in draught. Passengers making the two-days journey farther north to Rybinsk used travel in shallow-draught 60 cm vessels, similar to the pleasure steamers on the Thames. But the distance along this one small stretch of Volga is about the same as the entire lenght of Thames. The river voyage from Tver down the Volga to Nizhnij Novgorod is more than 800 kilometres.

Regards JN

[edit] Moscow Metro and Automobiles

Maybe these details which is not generally known in Russia are worth of mentioning in Moscow History section:

1912: The bulk of automobiles imported to Russia cames from France, Germany, and Italy. Russia presents a very great and difficult market for automobiles. Long distances, inadequate means of communication, insuffient tramway lines, etc. make the motor car a necessity in Russia more than anywhere else. There is scarcely another city than contains so large a percentage of ownwers of carriages and horses than Moscow and St.Petersburg, each housing more than half a million horses, which goes to show the great number of men needing their own conveyances; yet the automobile is making very little headway there. Paris, with a population of 3.000.000, has 18.000 automobiles; Moscow, with 1.635.000 inhabitants has only 720 registered automobiles. All streets are full of horse manure which must daily be carried away. The corresponding number of automobiles in St.Petersburg is 1.540 and in Caucasus 700, mostly in Tiflis, Baku, Tuapse and Poti.

1913: An interdepartmential commission is to be appointed ny the Ministey of Ways and Communications which is to study, with the help of representantives of the Moscow Regency, the question of an underground or other electric metropolitan railway in Moscow, after the type of Berlin or Paris. Numerous applications for the concession, chiefly foreign, i.e. non- Russian, have already been received for completion of the underground railway by 1920.

The Department of Railways has discussed a project for construction of an electric suburban tramway 72.4 versts long, from Moscow to Troitsko-Sergievsk. The cost of the undertaking is estimated at 8.700.000 roubles and it is proposed to form a company to carry out the work.

1914: By 1 January 1914 permission was granted by the Government for the construction of new railway lines:

- Private Moscow - Odintsov Electric Railway, Section Moscow - Odintsov (Alexandrovskaja) 21 versts.

- Private Moscow - Podolsk Electric Railway, Sections Moscow - Podolsk 55 versts, and Moscow - Obiralovka 18 versts.

JN

With that in mind, what are the Moscow Traffic Police called? Same as Militia? Arkady Renko 21:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Arkady Renko

"With that in mind, what are the Moscow Traffic Police called? Same as Militia?"

It calls in Russian "Государственная инспекция безопасности дорожного движения" ("Gosudarstvennaya inspektsiya bezopasnosti dorojnogo dvijeniya") (abbreviation - "ГИБДД" ("GIBDD") ) - in English - "State inspectorate of safety of road traffic" ("SISRT"). And it so refers to not only in Moscow, it so refers to across all Russia. -- Sith Marauder 12:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Spacebo. Arkady Renko 08:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Education -- Independent University of Moscow

The list of educational institutes seems to be missing the Independent University of Moscow, which is an important school of mathematics. 142.162.84.120 03:37, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

There are problems with this page in the Safari browser. At the bottom of the page under "External Links" there is text showing "(Russian") and "(English)" obscuring the text underneath it. This doesn't show in Firefox. This is the first time I have seen problems in Safari. Webmaster, please make Wikipedia browser agnostic. Adawson13 16:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit]  !!EXTREMELY LOW UTILITY COSTS!!!

Whoever wrote this, never paid utilities in moscow. I'll try and get some of my parents receipts, but one thing is certain--"extremely low utility costs" is a huge misrepresentation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.230.2.44 (talk) 02:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the whole statement. Moscow is expensive both for locals and expats. There are no discounts for locals if you are renting an apartment. Utility costs can be lower if compared to Europe, but there's absolutely no value in this statement for the overall article.--Stardancer (talk) 07:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unusable

I have not taken a look at the article for more than a year and, actually, I know not whether to rejoice or grieve at its current sorry state. The "history" section opens with a bunch of unqualified original research about the fabulous "Mosca" tribe. The entire "architecture" section is about Stalin; it opens with the following information: "The Patriarch of Moscow, whose residence is the Danilov Monastery, serves as the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Moscow also hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics." Very appropriate introduction to the city's architecture, indeed. In this "reformed" state, the page is unusable. --Ghirla-трёп- 09:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Skyscrapers

Will the new skyscrapers being built in Moscow be visible when looking at the kremlin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.197.7 (talk) 09:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 10% Muslim?

The article cites an unreliable source[1] in regards to religion. Among other things, the said source believes that the population of Russia amounts to 147 million, and that Moscow lies in the centre of Eurasia. One can easily deduce that the number of Muslims is considerably lower by looking at the ethnic data, which is reliable. Russians (84.83%), Ukrainians (2.44%), Poles (1.90%) and Armenians (1.2%), all of which are almost exclusively Christian or Atheist, cover over 90% of the population. And these are just four ethnic groups. By the way, the figures might belong to the Russian Federation as a whole, not to Moscow. Though in this case the Buddhists are strangely ignored. --Humanophage 08:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The number of Poles has been exarragated by somebody. Factually there is only 0.04% of Poles in Moscow. I've corrected it according the census data. Some other numbers may also be incorrect.--Dojarca 08:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
I've also removed the emphasized statedment about 1,5 muslims and 100,00 chechens living in the city. This data is available in the list and additionally mentioning it is a political thing.--Stardancer (talk) 07:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


There is a also a large Jewish community in Moscow. A fact not mentioned in the article.--142.33.185.2 (talk) 21:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moskva - gradual de-anglicisation of Moscow

I like the process of returning the original names: Peking -> Beijing, Bombay -> Mumbai, Kishinev -> Chişinău, Marseilles -> Marseille, etc. The name of the Russian capital is not hard to pronounce for an English speaker - it's Moskva (Москва) [mʌskˈva], the last syllable is stressed. It matches the name of the Moskva river, which is so called in English. I am Russian and I am surprised it hasn't happened yet. By no means, I am suggesting to change the English name now but to make the idea popular and to teach the English to say Moskva. It is now common to see Moskva in the airports, on maps and reference materials along with the name Moscow.

--Atitarev (talk) 00:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atitarev (talk • contribs) 23:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)



About "Location of Moscow in Europe"

why is Russia is same color with Europe in the map and not Turkey? I think and for most of the people Turkey is more in Europe than Russia?

Bilal

    • Because Russia on Eurasia. Central Region in Europe 83.167.98.19 (talk) 08:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
A brilliant comment, 83.167.98.19. It is never too late to study some geography;)Traditionally the peninsula of Asia Minor (where most part of Turkey is situated) is considered to be a part of Asia. But you can see that the European part of the country (I mean Turkey) is the same colour with Europe. The western part of Russia to the Urals is considered to be a part of Europe. However it's not right that the borders of Russia coincides with the borders of Europe as it is depicted on the map (territories to the north of the Caucasus), but this is a controversial point. --V-VA (talk) 23:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Note that the European part of Kazakhstan also shown in grey. This is incorrect.--Certh (talk) 04:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Repeated information

The following appears in both the history and government sections of the article:

Moscow, like with any national capital, is also the host of all the foreign embassies and diplomats representing a multitude of nations in Russia. Moscow is designated as one of only two Federal cities of Russia (the other one being Saint Petersburg). Among the 85 federal subjects of Russia, Moscow represents the most populated one and the smallest one in terms of area. Lastly, Moscow is located within the central economic region, one of twelve regions within Russia with similar economic goals. The entire city of Moscow is headed by one mayor (Yuriy Luzhkov). It is divided into ten administrative okrugs and 123 districts. Nine of the ten administrative districts, except the City of Zelenograd (number 1 on the map), are located within City of Moscow main boundaries. All administrative okrugs and districts have their own coats of arms, flags, and elected head officials. Additionally, most districts have their own cable television, computer network, and official newspaper. In addition to the districts, there are Territorial Units with Special Status, or territories. These usually include areas with small or no permanent populations, such as the case with the All-Russia Exhibition Centre, the Botanical Garden, large parks, and industrial zones. In recent years, some territories have been merged with different districts. There are no ethnic-specific regions in Moscow, as in the Chinatowns that exist in some North American and East Asian cities. And although districts are not designated by income, as with most cities, those areas that are closer to the city centre, metro stations or green zones are considered more prestigious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.166.72.100 (talk) 17:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)