The people

The inhabitants of Moscow are overwhelmingly of Russian nationality, the largest minority groups being Jews, Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Tatars. It is possible, however, to meet people on the streets of Moscow who belong to any of numerous nationalities, including Georgians and Armenians from the Caucasus Mountains and Uzbeks and Kazaks from Central Asia.

A considerable percentage of the residents were not born in Moscow but migrated there during the rapid growth of the city. Some of the older generation have lived through the Stalinist purges and the deprivations of World War II. There is no typical Muscovite, but to some visitors the residents seem guarded in their relations with others. With the coming of summer, however, this seems less true as people shed their winter clothes and mingle more freely. Among the more common scenes are those in the courtyards of apartment buildings where the children play, while their elders gossip on benches and play chess, and young people congregate to listen to music.

The great increase in the amount of housing since the late 1950s has brought a fundamental change in the Muscovites' way of life as many have moved farther from the central city. For most of them, living in the suburbs has involved lengthier travel to and from work. The subway system has been extended to many suburban housing districts, but most working Muscovites must spend at least two hours a day commuting. The new housing pattern has also inevitably led to the breakup of the close communities that existed in the old central areas, such as the so-called intelligentsia district around Kropotkinskaya and the Arbat. The degree of change has been marked: in 1926 more than one-third of the population lived within the Garden Ring, but by 1967 less than 9 percent of the people lived there. The population density of central Moscow, however, is still much higher than in the suburbs.

The economy

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the free-market reforms of the early 1990s, Moscow's economy has undergone a dramatic transformation. The manufacturing and engineering sectors that had dominated the Soviet capital's economy shrank dramatically, partly because their products could not compete on the world market and partly because rapid privatization left many industrial plants in the hands of owners who chose to invest their earnings abroad rather than in modernizing their plants to compete with foreign products. At the same time, the city's financial and service sectors have grown rapidly to meet the demands of investors and consumers. While this transformation has brought hardship to many of the city's workers, it has also ended the retail shortages and lack of services that once characterized the city.

Moscow's labour force is one of the most highly skilled and educated in Russia, and the city's financial, engineering, and manufacturing sectors are among the country's most advanced. Women make up more than half of the workforce. They form the vast majority of workers in the textile and food-processing industries, and they predominate in the teaching and medical professions.