The first known plan of Moscow appeared in 1596-97 during the reign of Boris Godunov. Since then, Moscow has steadily increased in size, and not so long ago, in 2012, the city swallowed up a huge chunk of south-west Moscow Region—almost the same size as the capital itself.
Muscovites themselves like to remark that “Moscow is not elastic,” alluding to the fact that the more the city grows, the harder it is to live there: working, getting around, and going to the dacha on a Friday night are all becoming increasingly fraught.
The Moscow City Council has adopted a core program of development for the city, known as the Moscow-2025 General Plan — the fourth in Moscow’s history (the others appeared in 1935, 1971, and 2005). Moscow Chief Architect Alexander Kuzmin said back in 2007 that it was time for the city to move from a “general plan of options” to a “general plan of needs.”
We discussed both options and needs with Moscow’s inhabitants of the future: its children. The Russian language has a saying: “Truth is spoken by infant lips”. We decided to tap this source of wisdom by going to a Moscow school London Gates Supplementary Education Center to talk to 6-year-old kids about their vision of the future. Misha, Danya, and Dasha have studied in the same group for several years.
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