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Moscow

Moscow is the capital and largest city of Russia and the country's principal political, economic, financial, educational, and transportation center. It is located on the Moskva River in the European part of Russia. Historically, its position was central in the Russian homeland. It was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the pre-Imperial Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great moved his court to St. Petersburg, which would be the capital for two centuries, until the Soviet Union moved it back to Moscow. Moscow is the site of the famous Kremlin.

Moscow in Days of Infamy[]

Moscow was the capital of the Soviet Union. In late 1941, the Wehrmacht was driving on city when the Japanese invaded Hawaii in early December. The heavy winter snow and subsequent Russian counter attack defeated the Germans, and drove them back from the Soviet capital. However, Japan’s conquest of Hawaii and their seemingly unstoppable rampage throughout the Pacific pushed this news to the background of nearly all major US media outlets.

Moscow in "Father of the Groom"[]

Igor was a graduate student at the University of Moscow in 1991, when the Soviet Union imploded. He took off for greener pastures and ended up in Tarzana, California as an assistant to Professor Tesla Kidder, a mad scientist.[1]

In 2014, Igor watched television news footage of an enormous lizard tearing up the Northridge Nall. He considered briefly that it might have been safer to stay in Moscow, but quickly dismissed this thought.[2]

Moscow in The Hot War[]

Moscow was the capital of the Soviet Union until March 1951, when the United States successfully deployed several atomic bombs against the center of the city. While the attack disrupted the Soviet supply line to Europe, the U.S. had hoped to kill Joseph Stalin, but failed.[3]

As Moscow was the transportation hub for the European part of the country, transportation was a major headache for some time after the attack. The Kremlin was one of the buildings destroyed.[4] Stalin and his surviving generals and commissars relocated to Kuibishev.[5] Work began immediately on restoring transportation lines through the remains of the city; the Trans-Siberian Railroad reopened in August, 1952, about after the war in Europe ended.[6]

Moscow in In the Presence of Mine Enemies[]

Moscow fell to the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. The first German Panzer IV to enter the Kremlin was displayed in Soldier's Hall in Berlin.[7]

Moscow in Joe Steele[]

The Soviet capital of Moscow nearly fell to the Germans during Operation: Barbarossa thanks in part to US President Joe Steele's six week delay in shipping aid to the Red Army.

Moscow in "The Last Article"[]

German Field Marshal Walther Model had participated in the battle of Moscow. He remembered that it had been particularly bloody and violent. Even by 1947, when he marched into India, memories of fighting in the city still lingered like they had happened only yesterday.

Moscow in "Les Mortes d'Arthur"[]

The People's Republic of Moscow was the communist nation formed from the western portion of the former Soviet Union when Siberia successfully revolted. The two countries remained hostile and fought several minor wars in the Ural Mountains borderlands subsequent to the revolt. By the time of the Sixty-sixth Winter Games in the 23rd century, the Treaty of Sverdlovsk maintained a fragile peace between the two nations, and the athletes of both countries were more or less amiable if not friendly during the Games on Mimas. The athletes' space suits were painted in the national colors of red and gold.

Dmitri Shepilov, a Moscow competitor in the five-kilometer ski jump, was one of the three athletes murdered by a sniper rifle during the Winter Games.

Moscow in "The Phantom Tolbukhin"[]

Moscow fell to the German invasion during World War II. Nonetheless, Soviet partisans continued fighting German occupiers throughout the decade.

Moscow in Southern Victory[]

Moscow was the old capital of the Russian Empire and a major industrial city.

In 1944, in the final weeks of the Second Great War, the city became the de facto capital after the government relocated there when the German Empire destroyed Petrograd with a superbomb.[8] It was here Tsar Mikhail II announced that he would take God-sanctioned vengeance against the Germans, a promise he was unable to carry out.

Moscow in The War That Came Early[]

Throughout the first two years of the Second World War, Moscow was largely spared from the direct ravages of war, despite the fact that the Soviet Union was fighting on two fronts against Germany and Poland in the west and Japan in the east.[9] Thus the Soviet government continued to operate without much interruption.

However, in 1940, Germany had succeeded in convincing Britain and France to join forces against the USSR. By January 1941, the coalition had pushed deep into Soviet territory. Smolensk was threatened, and it was presumed that once Smolensk fell, Moscow would soon follow.[10] In late 1941, as the fighting intensified around Smolensk, the Luftwaffe was at last in range of the capital and began bombing the city.

Moscow in War World[]

Moscow had an important Bureau of Relocation office during the CoDominium.

Moscow in Worldwar[]

Moscow was the capital of the Soviet Union. During World War II, the city came under aerial attack from the Germans and was the ultimate goal of Operation Barbarossa, but was spared capture thanks to winter storms and the Red Army.

When the Race landed in mid-1942, the city was heavily bombed, far more thoroughly than the Germans had, all but destroying the Kremlin. In 1943, the city was the target of a Race offensive, with the aim of knocking the Russians out of the war. The advance was stalled and later abandoned after the Soviet's destroyed the Race's army with an explosive-metal bomb outside Kaluga. For the remainder of the fighting, Moscow continuously suffered air strikes from the Race, but was never again threatened by their ground troops. When Peace was signed in 1944, Moscow was the only capital of the Big Three nuclear powers not to have been destroyed by atomic weapons.

In 1965, Moscow was host to the signing of an armistice between the Germans and the Race, ending the Race-German War.

See also[]

References[]

  1. See, e.g., We Install and Other Stories, p. 1, TPB; loc. 16, ebook.
  2. Ibid., p. 11; loc. 185.
  3. Bombs Away, pgs. 178-179.
  4. Ibid., pg. 243.
  5. Ibid., pg. 214.
  6. Armistice, pg. 233, ebook.
  7. In the Presence of Mine Enemies, chapter 1.
  8. In at the Death, pg. 219-220.
  9. See, Hitler's War and West and East, generally.
  10. The Big Switch, pgs. 403-407.
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