Material Elements of the Political Landscape of Moscow as a Capital

Abstract

The urban environment of Moscow is considered through the concept of the political landscape as a complex of environment-shaping, representative objects. The image of the capital is not only the political history of the state, captured in buildings and monuments, but also a mirror of the representations of the national elite about its social support, development prospects, the outside world, and diverse social ideas about space. Official buildings as the focus of the political and administrative functions of the capital and city monuments are shown in the study as the dominant categories of place, a matrix of new representations that determine the evolution of the urban political and symbolic landscape. The objective of the study is to trace the stages of evolution of the most important material elements of the Moscow political landscape: the location, the construction time, the origin, and other features of the buildings of state institutions and monuments. The features of the modern spatial distribution of government buildings and monuments are studied. The historical hyperconcentration of government buildings in the capital center has been confirmed. Two large areas of high concentration of government buildings are identified: around Lubyanka, Kitai-Gorod, Staraya and Novaya squares and within the Moscow City business complex, as well as the relationship between the significance of a government agency and proximity to the Presidential Administration and the Kremlin as the main centers of decision-making. Despite the transfer of several federal agencies outside the center, there has not yet been a noticeable spatial decentralization of the administrative functions of the capital. In turn, the geography of the monuments repeats the general patterns of the capital plan. Their location reveals the radial-ring and sectoral structures of the city, as well as the specialization of districts. The absolute dominants of the landscape are the monuments dedicated to the heroes and events of the Great Patriotic War (more than 40% of the total number of monuments), which is one of the basics of modern Russian identity. The importance and significance of many capital monuments as an element of the political landscape is based on a strong long-term discourse. Despite some changes (the installation of monuments to rehabilitated public and political figures, victims of new wars and terrorist acts, as well as orthodox monuments), the monumental landscape of the capital is quite stable.