[Vision2020] Moscow, Pennsylvania

[Ralph Nielsen]

As far as I remember from my years at the University of Idaho Library, Moscow, Idaho, was named by a Mr. Neff, from Moscow, Pennsylvania., who was our first postmaster.

There are no less than thirteen Moscows in the United States, of which our town is the largest. We are also the second largest Moscow in the world, after the capital of Russia, of course. 

If you want to pick linguistic nits, we are the largest one with the spelling "Moscow;" the original Russian being Moskva -- it looks like MOCKBA in Cyrillic letters. It is also Moscou in French and Moscu in Spanish.

I happened to be in Mexico City on Dec. 26, 1968, the coldest day of the year back home. It must have been the most noteworthy event that day because Excelsior, the largest newspaper in Mexico, had the headline, MINUS 40 GRADOS EN MOSCU, IDAHO! (For non-bilingual folk, -40º is the same on both Celsius and Fahrenheit thermometers.) 

Ralph