The article takes aim at studying Moscow and Petersburg as centres of attraction of social nets from the expanse of European Russia and, besides, as global centres of innovative economic growth. On analyzing the development of the two Russian “capitals” as transport junctions, communicational, financial, scientific-innovative and cultural centres, the authors come to the conclusion that by their infra-structural parameters and statistical characteristics Moscow finds itself at the level of many “global gateways”, whereas St. Petersburg so far presents not more than a regional “quasi-gateway”. In the authors’ estimation, Moscow’s evolution in the direction of a “normal gateway” is restrained by the low level of trust to be found in society, and by the strong politico-administrative control over the country’s economy. As a result, the city presents a focus of concentration of nets first of all for the expanse politically controlled by it (and, residually, for the expanses it used to control earlier – in particular, for the CIS countries), and not for the world as a whole.