4. Luzhkov’s Moscow: Antagonism—Agonism—Platonism

This chapter considers Moscow's political evolution under Mayor Yury Luzhkov (1992–2010). It shows how the capital’s political turned into a business project and how Moscow evolved from a pro-Kremlin liberal bastion to the citadel of centrism opposed to the Kremlin in 1992–1999 and, then, in 2000–2010, from an anti-Kremlin centrist zone to the segment of political space loyal to the Putin regime. The chapter also reveals the most important factors in this evolution, first of all, the changing political preferences of the urban population’s wealthy and highly educated groups, and the main reasons and causes behind the resignation of Yuri Luzhkov in the fall of 2010. And, finally, it considers the hierarchy of Muscovites’ identities and basic features of their attitudes toward provincial Russia and Russians.