The newly appointed governor of the Moscow region, Sergei Shoigu, has proposed to move Russian capital from Moscow to one of Siberian cities.

      "Many people approve of the idea and I am probably one of them", Shoigu said in an interview with the Russian News Service. "I believe the capital should be located somewhere further away, in Siberia", he added.

       It should be pointed out that Shoigu himself is a native resident of the Tyva Republic – a remote and sparsely-populated region bordering Mongolia. He served as Emergencies Minister for over 18 years, before being appointed governor of the Moscow Region - one of the largest and richest regions of Russia. 

      The new governor also refused to answer the question about his attitude to the plans of the enlargement of the Moscow City into the suburbs, with the transfer of many federal bodies’ offices into new districts.

      Sergei Shoigu wasn't the first person with such ideas. The capital was once moved to St. Petersburg in the 18th century and only returned to Moscow in 1918 after the Bolshevik Revolution. In 2008 the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation was moved to St. Petersburg. It was planned to move several more state institutions from Moscow, but later that initiative was frozen. 

      The similar proposal was made by radical firebrand and leader of the Other Russia party, Eduard Limonov, in his 2010 manifesto. In particular, he said it was necessary to build a new capital in southern Siberia due to weaken Moscow's economic dominance. 

Sources: Lenta.ru Pravda.ru Image: novosty.org