Meshchansky District (Moscow)

 district, invisible, third-level administrative division

Administrative district (raion) of Central Administrative Okrug, and one of the 125 raions of Moscow, Russia. Population: 58,002 (2010 Census).
Meshchane in the Russian Empire denoted a social estate of poor town residents who did not qualify as merchants or civil servants; in modern Russian, it is a pejorative name for a narrow-minded philistine. Meschansky District acquired its name earlier, in the second half of 17th century, through the Ukrainians and Belarusians abducted from their hometowns in the course of Russo-Polish War (1654–1667). These people settled north from present-day Garden Ring, reaching 692 households by 1682 (Sytin, p. 296). In their languages, meshchane meant simply "town people", "the locals", without negative connotation; the name of Meshchanskaya sloboda persists to date.