Why it looks like this

Moscow reads like a tree stump: rings around a core. The core is the Kremlin, a fortress on its hill since the twelfth century. Each ring road beyond it follows an old defensive line — the Boulevard Ring traces the walls of the White City, the Garden Ring the earth wall beyond them — and straight avenues run outward through the old gates.

Soviet planners made the pattern stronger rather than replacing it, widening the avenues into huge boulevards. The map shows nine centuries of growth in circles, readable at a glance.