Moscow to Mark 850th Birthday

Fresh gold leaf gleams from onion domes, the “wedding-cake” Stalinscrapers are now yellow instead of gray, and the notorious potholes of the main thoroughfares have disappeared under new asphalt.

As Moscow spruces up for the Sept. 5 to 7 celebration of its 850th anniversary, this most sinister of European capitals has benefited from a face-lift. But in keeping with the contrived nature of the birthday bash, the key events and civic improvements are mostly illusion.

External reconstruction of Christ the Savior Cathedral will be deemed completed on Wednesday, but the cathedral will remain off-limits to the public until the interior is finished early next year.

Europe’s largest shopping mall, being built at the Kremlin’s doorstep on Manezh Square, will open unfinished and largely unoccupied, if it opens at all in time for the birthday bash. Even the highest rollers have balked at paying more than $3,000 per square yard a year for floor space.

Most disappointing for those who might occasion a trip to Moscow for the three-day festivities is that seating for most celebrations--Red Square shows, Kremlin concerts, a laser projection of Moscow’s visual history onto the skies--is by invitation only.

City fathers who have organized the party as a thinly veiled kickoff of Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov’s undeclared quest for the presidency in 2000 console the hoi polloi with the fact that key events will be televised. Opera star Luciano Pavarotti heads a short list of international luminaries.

The 10 million residents of Moscow and tourists without invitations will have to content themselves with the fireworks display. For more information, contact the Moscow City Tourist Office in New Jersey; telephone (888) 966-7269, fax (973) 884-1711.