Moscow is the capital and largest city of Russia, located on the Moskva River in central Russia. In 950 AD, two Slavic tribes settled in the area, and Moscow was first mentioned in 1147. Moscow was fortified with a timber fence and moat in 1156, but the Mongol general Batu Khan burned Moscow to the ground and slaughtered its inhabitants during the 13th-century Mongol invasion of Rus. In 1283, Alexander Nevsky's son Daniel became ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and Moscow became a prosperous city which eclipsed its parent principality of Vladimir by the 1320s. After the 1380 Battle of Kulikovo, Moscow took the leadership of the Russian struggle against the "Tatar yoke", and, in 1480, Moscow became the capital of an empire which would come to encompass all of Russia and Siberia. By 1500, Moscow had a population of 100,000 people, and the original Kremlin was built in the 14th century and was augmented to its present height in 1600. Moscow remained the political and economic center of Russia under the Tsardom of Russia, and, while the capital was moved to St. Petersburg under the Russian Empire, the capital was removed to Moscow following the October Revolution in 1917. Moscow served as the political center of the Russian SFSR and Soviet Union until the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, after which Moscow served as capital of the Russian Federation. In 1993, Moscow became a federal city, and it came to be the northernmost and coldest megacity in the world. It had the highest number of billionaires in any city in Moscow and the fourth-highest number of billionaires in the world, and its Moscow Metro was the busiest metro system in Europe. By 2018, Moscow had a population of 12,506,468 people.
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