Russian Sizes Up Nine Moscows Around U.S. Idaho’s Is The Largest, Visiting Journalist Says, And The Only Whose Mayor Isn’t A Deer Hunter

The only restaurant in Moscow, Pa., serves Chinese food.

There are two bars in town, one bank and Fay’s Drug Store. The Steam Town USA memorial freight train runs from nearby Scranton to peaceful Moscow and back, bringing the curious few to Scranton’s historic railway museum.

During business hours, phone calls to the Moscow borough building are routed to answering machines.

In other words, the Pennsylvania hamlet, incorporated in 1909, is a typical American small town and a curiosity for Muscovites, whose town was founded in 1147.

Also piquing curiosity are Moscows in Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Vermont, Tennessee, Kansas, Arkansas and Texas.

“Things are going very fast now in Russia - time is compressed,” said Igor Svinarenko, a journalist from Moscow, Russia, who has come to America to write home about Moscows, USA.

For the next few months, Svinarenko will live in Moscow, Pa., taking notes for the unveiling of Stolitsa (Capital), a new Russian periodical that will carry his tales of America.

“This is the last one,” a weary Svinarenko said recently outside the Moscow Hotel in Moscow, Idaho. “I have seen the rest, now I am done.”

Weighed down by other Moscovite paraphernalia from the New World, the Ukrainian from the Russian capital was busy taking pictures. The black circles under his eyes were perfect complements to his satchel, camera, jeans, shirt and overcoat - all black.

“A man in Russia can go from nothing to millions in two to three years,” he said. “Life is much faster in Moscow, Russia, these days. Fastest thing in Moscow (Pa.) was pizza delivery.”

Svinarenko, 39, will kick off his Moscow expos with a piece about the American Moscows. He was in Idaho for a day on his way back to Pennsylvania.

“All Moscow mayors’ most popular habit is deer hunting,” Svinarenko said just before local Mayor Paul Agidius said he wasn’t a deer hunter.

“The Moscow, Tennessee, mayor had just been hunting, and he was 68,” Svinarenko said. “Can you believe it, that old?”

Moscow, Idaho, population 18,900, was the largest Moscow of them all, he said.

That is, except for Russia. Moscow, Pa., has to count residents from nearby Elmhurst to call itself 2,000 strong.

At some point in history, it was the other way around.

According to Lalia Phipps Boone’s Latah County dictionary, Moscow, Idaho, likely was named in 1875 by S. M. Neff, a local mail manager who once lived near Moscow, Pa.

Interestingly enough, Neff also lived in Moscow, Iowa.

Boone says the Russian translation for Moscow, “city of brotherly love,” met the local naming committee’s requirements.

Her version of things fits well with Moscow, Pa., Mayor Dan Edwards’ recollection of history.

His town wasn’t formally incorporated until 1909, although the area - about five miles from Scranton and two hours from New York City - has always been known as Moscow.

“We think it was named by Russian immigrants, but no one seems to know. This place was settled by Welsh and English,” Edwards said. “You guys were named after us, though.”

So it is. Then again, Idaho historian Cort Conley, in his book “Idaho for the curious,” says Moscow was likely named by Almon Ashbury Lieuallen, who believed “the problems of isolation confronting the community were comparable to those of Russia at the ‘time of troubles’ under Ivan the Terrible.”

That bad?

Lieuallen also holds the distinction of being the only person in Moscow’s history to have his first, middle and last names used for street names.

All of this was unknown to Bill and Lucille Morris, who live “spitting distance” from Moscow, Pa.

“Where did you say?” said Lucille, 75, a self-described “handicapped old lady in a wheelchair.”

“What are you selling?” she asked.

Niceties aside, Lucille said Moscow, Pa., was a quiet town.

“There’s never any more than 10 people at a time in the bar on a big night,” she said.

“They have a good high school, good football team, excellent school district here, but the city of Scranton, nobody’s on the streets at 8 o’clock except the hookers.”

Many people in Moscow, Pa., work at the Tobyhanna Army Depot, which almost went kaput during the recent wave of military downsizing.

“But they closed one in California instead,” said 45-year-old Bill Morris, an unemployed welder.

Mayor Edwards, 40, runs a ceramic shop for a wholesaler. His wife, Pam, works at a bank. They met in high school.

He has been mayor for 10 years and was on the town council six years before that.

“There are mostly wood buildings here,” he said.

“You pretty much know where you’re going - businesses are on Main Street, the churches are on Church Street and the high school is on Academy Street.”

“Igor thought it was very funny, we only have one restaurant and it’s Chinese,” said Edwards.

Yes, Igor did think it was funny.

“Can you believe it?” Svinarenko said.

“Where will I eat? Lots of pizza.”

Last year, his publisher sent him to Los Angeles for the Oscars, where he hobnobbed with Tom Hanks, John Travolta and Jodie Foster.

“We were the first independent newspaper since the revolution of 1917,” he boasted. Kommepcahm (Commerce), was founded in 1990 and primarily prints financial news.

“I was a reporter six years ago, four years ago I was editor-in-chief, and now vice president of publishing house,” Svinarenko said.

“Things are fast, very fast.”

Not so in Moscow, Pa.

“A lot of people are retiring here,” Edwards said. “It’s a nice place to raise a family. The type of town where everybody knows everybody.”

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Gregory H. Burton Moscow-Pullman Daily News