RUSSIA TODAY
Freshly-appointed Moscow Region Governor Sergey Shoigu says he wants the Russian capital to be moved from Moscow to “someplace further” like Siberia.
Shoigu himself is a native of the Tyva Republic – a remote and sparsely-populated region bordering Mongolia. After holding the post of Emergencies Minister for over 18 years, he was this week appointed governor of the Moscow Region – one of the largest, most-populous and richest divisions of the Russian Federation. Moscow City is not included in the Moscow Region, as it is a separate federation subject with its own governor and legislature.
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Ideas of moving the capital from Moscow are nothing new to Russia, given that the capital was moved to St. Petersburg in the 18th century and only returned to Moscow in 1918 after the Bolshevik Revolution. However, Russian authorities are seeking to move at least part of capital’s functions from Moscow in order to relieve the pressure on the over-populated city.
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Russian opposition activist and the leader of the unregistered party Other Russia, Eduard Limonov, was the first to support Shoigu’s thoughts of a capital relocation. Limonov said that this could attach Siberia to Russia and “repel the unseen Chinese expansion.”
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