Moscow Oblast in the context of Lake Smerdyachye

The Battle of Moscow was a military campaign that consisted of two periods of strategically significant fighting on a 600 km (370 mi) sector of the Eastern Front during World War II, between October 1941 and January 1942. The Soviet defensive effort thwarted Germany's attack on Moscow, the capital and largest city of the Soviet Union. Moscow was one of the primary military and political objectives for Axis forces in their invasion of the Soviet Union.

The German Strategic Offensive, named Operation Typhoon, called for two pincer offensives, one to the north of Moscow against the Kalinin Front by the 3rd and 4th Panzer Armies, simultaneously severing the Moscow–Leningrad railway, and another to the south of Moscow Oblast against the Western Front south of Tula, by the 2nd Panzer Army, while the 4th Army advanced directly towards Moscow from the west.

The Oka (UK: /ˈɒkə/, US: /ˈoʊkə/; Russian: Ока IPA: [ɐˈka]) is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as the town of Kaluga. Its length is 1,500 km (930 mi) and its catchment area 245,000 km (95,000 sq mi). The Russian capital Moscow sits on one of the Oka's tributaries—the Moskva, from which the capital's name is thought to be derived.

Meshchera Lowlands (Meshchyora Lowlands) (Russian: Мещёрская низменность), also referred to as simply Meshchera/Meshchyora, is a spacious lowland in the middle of the European Russia. It is named after the Finnic Meshchera people, which used to live there (later mixing with neighbouring Baltic and Slavic tribes). It occupies parts of Moscow Oblast, Vladimir Oblast and Ryazan Oblast, as well as eastern districts of Moscow proper; respectively, it is called the Moscow, Vladimir and Ryazan Meshcheras.

The Moskva (Russian: Москва, romanized: Moskva), often called the River Moskva or the Moskva River (Russian: река Москва, Москва-река, romanized: Moskva-reka) is a river that flows through western Russia. It rises about 140 km (90 mi) west of Moscow and flows roughly east through the Smolensk and Moscow Oblasts, passing through central Moscow. About 110 km (70 mi) southeast of Moscow, at the city of Kolomna, it flows into the Oka, itself a tributary of the Volga, which ultimately flows into the Caspian Sea.

The Moscow metropolitan area (Russian: Московская агломерация, romanized: Moskovskaya aglomeratsiya) or Moscow capital region (Russian: Московский столичный регион, romanized: Moskovskiy stolichnyy region) is the most populous metropolitan area in Russia and Europe, with a population of around 21.5 million. It consists of the city of Moscow and surrounding areas in Moscow Oblast.

The related term Moscow region (Московский регион) is used unofficially to describe Moscow and Moscow Oblast together. However, formally, they are two separate federal subjects.

Zelenograd (Russian: Зеленоград, IPA: [zʲɪlʲɪnɐˈgrat], lit. 'green city') is a city and administrative okrug of Moscow, Russia. The city of Zelenograd and the territory under its jurisdiction form the Zelenogradsky Administrative Okrug (ZelAO), an exclave located within Moscow Oblast, 37 kilometers (23 mi) north-west of central Moscow, along the M10 highway. Zelenograd is the smallest administrative okrug of Moscow by area, the second-lowest by population, and the largest Moscow exclave by area and by population within Moscow Oblast. Zelenograd, if it were a separate settlement, would be the fifth-largest city in Moscow Oblast and one of the 100 largest cities of Russia. Before the expansion of the territory of Moscow in 2012, Zelenograd occupied second place among the administrative okrugs of Moscow, second only to the Eastern Administrative Okrug, in terms of the share of greenery in its total area (approximately 30%).

Zelenograd was founded in 1958 as a new town in the Soviet Union, and developed as a center of electronics, microelectronics and the computer industry known as the "Soviet/Russian Silicon Valley". It remains an important center of electronics in Russia. The city color is green and its emblematic animal is the squirrel.

The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (Russian: Священный синод Русской православной церкви, romanized: Svyashchennyy sinod Russkoy pravoslavnoy tserkvi) serves by Church statute as the supreme administrative governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church in the periods between Bishops' Councils.

Stalin's Dacha, also known as the Kuntsevo Dacha, (Russian: Ку́нцевская да́ча, romanized: Kuntsevskaya dacha) was Joseph Stalin's personal residence between Moscow and Davydkovo (then in Moscow Oblast, now part of Moscow's Fili district), where he lived for the last two decades of his life and died on 5 March 1953. The dacha is located in a forest not far from the modern-day Victory Park.

Also called the "nearer dacha" (Russian: Ближняя дача, romanized: Blizhnyaya Dacha, as distinct from the "far dachas"), it was built in 1933–34 to Miron Merzhanov's designs. A second floor was added to the original building in 1943. Stalin lived in the Kuntsevo dacha (which incorporated a bomb-shelter) during World War II. There, he played host to such high-profile guests as Winston Churchill (in August 1942)and Mao Zedong (in December 1949).

Gorki Leninskiye (Russian: Горки Ленинские, lit. 'Lenin's Gorki') is an urban locality (a work settlement) in Leninsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) south of Moscow city limits and the Moscow Ring Road. Its population is: 3,586 (2010 census); 1,729 (2002 census); 1,711 (1989 Soviet census).

The estate of Gorki belonged to various Muscovite noblemen from the 18th century. Zinaida Morozova, the widow of Savva Morozov, purchased it in 1909, the year before she married General Anatoly Reinbot (later Anatoly Rezvoy), the chief of Moscow police. She engaged the most fashionable Russian architect, Fyodor Schechtel, to remodel the mansion in the then-current Neoclassical style, complete with a six-column Ionic portico.

The Central Archives of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (Russian: Федеральное государственное казённое учреждение «Центральный архив Министерства обороны Российской Федерации (войсковая часть 00500)» (ЦАМО РФ); TsAMO RF) are located in Podolsk, just south of the city of Moscow.

As a departmental archive of Russia, it stores documents of different staffs and offices, associations and formations, units, institutions and military academies of the Soviet Defence Ministry from 1941 until the end of the 1980s. It comes under the command of the Rear Services of the Armed Forces of Russia. It has data on the history, culture and military education of the Ministry of Defence (Russia). Founded in 1936, the archive moved to Podolsk in Moscow Oblast around 1946. In 1992 a branch of TsAMO was established in Pugachyov in Saratov Oblast.

The Saint Petersburg to Moscow railway (1855–1923 – Nikolaevskaya railway) runs for 649.7 kilometers (403.7 mi) through four oblasts: Leningrad, Novgorod, Tver and Moscow. It is a major traffic artery in the north-west region of Russia, operated by the October Railway subdivision of Russian Railways.

MKB Raduga (Russian: МКБ Радуга, meaning Raduga Design Bureau (Russian: машиностроительное конструкторское бюро «Радуга»), where raduga literally means "rainbow") is a Russian aerospace company, concerned with the production of various missile-systems and related technologies. It is headquartered in Dubna, Moscow Oblast. Formerly a division of the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau, it was spun off as a separate OKB (design bureau, Russian: опытно-конструкторское бюро) in March 1957.

Moscovium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Mc and atomic number 115. It was first synthesized in 2003 by a joint team of Russian and American scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia. In December 2015, it was recognized as one of four new elements by the Joint Working Party of international scientific bodies IUPAC and IUPAP. On 28 November 2016, it was officially named after the Moscow Oblast, in which the JINR is situated.

Moscovium is an extremely radioactive element: its most stable known isotope, moscovium-290, has a half-life of only 0.65 seconds. In the periodic table, it is a p-block transactinide element. It is a member of the 7th period and is placed in group 15 as the heaviest pnictogen. Moscovium is calculated to have some properties similar to its lighter homologues, nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth, and to be a post-transition metal, although it should also show several major differences from them. In particular, moscovium should also have significant similarities to thallium, as both have one rather loosely bound electron outside a quasi-closed shell. Chemical experimentation on single atoms has confirmed theoretical expectations that moscovium is less reactive than its lighter homologue bismuth. Over a hundred atoms of moscovium have been observed to date, all of which have been shown to have mass numbers from 286 to 290.

The Protva (Russian: Протва) is a river in the Moscow and Kaluga oblasts in Russia. It is a left tributary of the Oka. It is 282 kilometres (175 mi) long, and has a drainage basin of 4,620 square kilometres (1,780 sq mi). The area of its basin is 4,620 square kilometres (1,780 sq mi). The Protva freezes up in early December and stays icebound until early April. Its main tributary is the Luzha. The towns of Vereya, Borovsk, Protvino and Obninsk are located on the shores of the Protva.

Tula Oblast (Russian: Ту́льская о́бласть, romanized: Tulʹskaya oblastʹ) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia. It is geographically located in European Russia and is administratively part of the Central Federal District, covering an area of 25,700 square kilometers (9,900 sq mi). It has a population of 1,553,925 (2010 census). Tula is the largest city and the administrative center of the oblast.

Tula Oblast borders Moscow Oblast in the north, Ryazan in the east, Lipetsk in the southeast, Oryol in the southwest, and Kaluga in the west. Tula Oblast is one of the most developed and urbanized territories in Russia, and the majority of the territory forms the Tula-Novomoskovsk Agglomeration, an urban area with a population of over 1 million.

Kolomna (Russian: Коломна, IPA: [kɐˈlomnə] ) is a historic city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, situated at the confluence of the Moskva and Oka Rivers, 114 kilometers (71 mi) (by rail) southeast of Moscow. Population: 144,589 (2010 census); 150,129 (2002 census); 161,881 (1989 Soviet census).