Unit I. Moscow

When I entered the university and knew that for the next five years I’d be learning Spanish, I was very glad. But unfortunately, during that time I forgot almost everything related to English, which I studied at school. Now I need to remember the language and make it even better, to be able to work with it. In the book which I’ve chosen to study, there are some translation tasks, so I’ll write them here and I would be really grateful if you could correct my mistakes.
The words I have underlined can be omitted. My 'rule' about "but" is use it after a comma (,) but not at the beginning of a sentence.
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Unit I

Moscow is the capital of the Russian Federation, the political, economic, cultural and scientific centre of the country. It’s located in the centre of the European part of Russia. The area of the city consists of 2511 square kilometres. The main part is situated within the automobile ring road. The city lies on(spans) both banks of the Moskva river in its middle reaches. Moscow is one of the greenest of world capitals. The name of the city was first mentioned in the annals in 1147. Since the year of 1260 it had been the centre of the principality and since 1460 – the centre of Moscovian Rus. Moscow was the capital of Russia since from the middle of the XIV century till(to) 1712 and has been the capital once again since 1918 till nowadays. In the historic centre are located the Kremlin, Red Square and St Basils’s cathedral.

Only small 'tweaks' Sandra.

"since 1918" implies that it hasn't changed, to the present day (or the date of the document).

Thanks for adding to my limited knowledge of Moscow!