"Inhabited since Neolithic times but not founded until 1147, Moscow was for much of its early history in thrall to other nations - to the Khans, to the Tartars and the Poles." "In this informative anthology, the turbulent growth of the city is recorded through the voices of visitors and residents. Peter the Great's bloody reprisals after the revolt of the streltsy in 1698; Napoleon's ignominious retreat from the burning city in 1812; the flowering of literary greatness in the nineteenth century and of the Moscow Art Theatre in the twentieth; the dazzling profusion of jewels in the Treasury of the Kremlin: these and other milestones in seven centuries of history are all vividly brought to life."--BOOK JACKET.