This guide attempts to give the reader a flavour of the architectural activity of this distinctive capital over a period that includes two sharp turns in Moscow` s history. The selection of projects-a personal choice-begins more than 75 years ago in the early idealistic days of the Soviet Union, and concludes with the turbulent decade which followed the collapse of Communism, and the formative years of the market economy which has replaced it. The book describes and explains a succession of approaches and styles-from constructivism (the sole movement in 20th-century Soviet building design that has contributed significantly to the history of world architecture), through monumental Stalinist classicism and the faceless mass construction of the Brezhnev period to the current preoccupation with experimentation and exploration of Western influences, most notably post-modernism.