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What does Moscow mean? This name is much older then the city itself.
The actual name of the city in Russian is "Moscva". When the city was founded in 1147 it was called 'Moscov" which sound closer to the present-day English pronunciation.
The city was named after the Moscva river, on which the city is situated. Finno-Ugric tribes used to live on the territory of the present-day Moscow.. The name of the Moscow river most probably originates from an ancient Finnic language. According to different theories the name of the city might mean 'marshy place', 'dark waters', 'gnat' but linguists cannot come to any agreement and those theories haven't been proven yet.
Moscow has never changed its name. Lots of cities in Russia had different names in different times (St Petersburg - Leningrad , Stalingrad - Volgograd etc). Moscow is a very unclear name but may be it's even better. Noone ever wanted to call it in a different way.
It's interesting to know the origin of some well-known Russian words and during your Moscow tours you'll hear lots of interesting stories. |
