The article deals with the process of civic self-organization which takes place in Moscow at the beginning of the 20-th century. It examines the formation and activity of tens of societies with different aims, including scientific and technical, literary and educating, health service and philanthropic, etc. It gives the scientific classification of Moscow societies, characterizes the main directions of their activities, relations with the authorities, their influence on social-cultural atmosphere of the city and self consciousness of the citizens, formation of the public (obschestvennost`). The article is based on a wide variety of sources (archive documents, periodics, memoirs of state and public persons, intellectuals).