Industry

Despite the decline of industry in the post-Soviet period, Moscow remains the largest industrial centre of Russia. It dominates an industrial region that extends east and northeast to the Volga between Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky). Moscow's industries generally rely more on the city's skilled labour force than on raw materials.

Moscow's most important industries are engineering and metalworking, which together employ more than half of the industrial workforce.There is significant production of automobiles and trucks. The largest plant in the city is the Likhachyov Automobile Works, followed by the Lenin Komsomol Automobile Plant. Closely linked with these two plants are a number of factories producing component parts, both elsewhere in Moscow and in other towns of the region. Ball bearings are manufactured both for the vehicle industry and for other purposes. Another major branch of engineering is the manufacture of machine tools, particularly grinding lathes, precision cutting tools, and machinery for the textile industry.

Precision engineering is highly developed and is noted for measuring and other instruments (especially at the Kalibr and Frezer factories), as well as for watches. In addition, Moscow is an important centre of electrical, electronic, and radio engineering; the wide range of items made includes transformers, computers, radio and video equipment, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and electric motors. Aerospace design and manufacture is one of Moscow's most important engineering sectors.

Some of the specialized, high-grade steels required by this formidable array of engineering industries are made in the city; specialized steels also come from the satellite town of Elektrostal, 36 miles east of Moscow.

Moscow is the nation's leading textile centre, and the numerous branches of its textile industry are the city's second leading employer. Many types of natural-fibre and synthetic cloth are manufactured.

Moscow's large chemical industry was originally geared to produce dyestuffs for the textile industry. The industry's product line has been expanded, however, to include synthetic industrial rubber and rubber tires, paints, plastics, pharmaceutical goods, and perfumes. Many of its chemical products are derived from Moscow's oil refinery, which processes petroleum piped from the Volga–Urals oil field.

Food processing avoided the sharp decline in output that characterized other industrial sectors and became one of the city's most developed industries in the 1990s. Its most important products include processed meat and dairy items, confectionery, and alcoholic beverages. Among the city's most successful firms is the Kristall Distillery, which produces the renowned Stolichnaya vodka.

Apart from food processing, Moscow's consumer goods sector suffered in the early 1990s when the market was opened to inexpensive, higher-quality imports. Still, the city produces a wide range of consumer goods for the city and its wider hinterland. Furniture making is part of a varied timber-processing industry, which also makes pulp and paper. Some of the timber is used in the vast construction industry, the workers of which include not only the large numbers actually employed in building but also those engaged in making building materials, such as reinforced concrete sections, glass, and bricks. Moscow's printing industry is the nation's largest supplier of books, journals, and newspapers. Many of Moscow's factories are small, long-established plants that make highly specialized items.

Moscow draws on a wide area for its power supply. Electrical generating stations in the city are fired by natural gas, which is piped via a grid system from fields in Siberia and elsewhere. Large gas storage facilities have been constructed near Moscow, and a linking pipeline rings the city. Electrical power also comes from nuclear plants, the nearest of which is about 37 miles to the south, and from the hydroelectric stations on the Volga. Other sources are the large thermal stations at Konakovo to the northwest and Kashira to the south. A by-product of the power industry is hot water, which is piped from the district central stations to apartment buildings for heating and domestic use.