<P> The entire city of the late 17th century, including the slobodas which grew up outside of the city ramparts, are contained within what is today Moscow's Central Administrative Okrug . </P> <P> Numerous disasters befell the city . The plague killed upwards of 80% of the people in 1654--55 . Fires burned out much of the wooden city in 1626 and 1648 . </P> <P> Moscow ceased to be Russia's capital (except for a brief period from 1728 to 1732 under the influence of the Supreme Privy Council) when Peter the Great moved his government to the newly built Saint Petersburg on the Baltic coast in 1712 . </P> <P> After losing the status as capital of the empire, the population of Moscow at first decreased, from 200,000 in the 17th century to 130,000 in 1750 . But after 1750, the population grew more than tenfold over the remaining duration of the Russian Empire, reaching 1.8 million by 1915 . </P>

Has moscow always been the capital of russia