The period of our history from 1147 to 1703, before the founding of St. Petersburg, and created Moscow in all its original features, captured on it a peculiar type that distinguishes it from all ancient and new Russian cities. This embodied his historical genius or spirit of Moscow, which, like an invisible force, more than everything else, gives it the character, if not the focus of state power, then the center of our life with its national thought, with its folk feelings and aspirations, with the peculiarities of Russian life.