On that note; strange is it not that all paintings from the turn of the 18th to 19th century *always* depict cities in ruins? Covered in plant life and soil, rubble everywhere, and of course people wearing drapery and torn clothing wandering around aimlessly - refugees stumbling upon the lands of those who came before.

If these photos are truly depictions of ancient times, 2000 years ago, why such poor maintenance back then? Weren't these buildings recently built? Why so much foliage? Why is it all destroyed?

One could only conclude that these paintings are depictions of the present time when these paintings were created, in the early 1800s (and late 1700s). Those people wandering around are only 200 hundred years old.

-Overgrown foliage (uncut vines, shrubs, etc)
-All structures damaged (cracks, missing bricks, pillars knocked over, generally unmaintained)
-No pavement/roads visible, covered under layer of soil
-Improvised technologies, crude wagons, wooden rafts. Far from the same grade of craftsmanship it would take to erect 1000 ton pillars and archways
-Poor standard of living amongst people, drapes and rags as clothing, no general sense of order. Lost wandering people

More evidence demonstrating Moscow was already covered with electrical fixtures in the later 19th century when electrical lighting was only being invented for the "first time", electrical light was not common in homes until 1925.
Not amount of candle light will produce a glare like in these photos.