Jim C. answered • 04/03/19
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Students of Russian often fail to notice the similarities between English and Russian, and this is a case in point.
The first of your sentences says "Moscow is founded in 1147." That makes it a statement in the historical present.
The second of your sentences is the one that we would expect--a statement about the past :"Moscow was founded in 1147."
Thus, one can have present passive statements, and past passive statements. In the first, the verbs is naturally in the present tense, and in the second the verb is naturallly in the past tense.
Yelena F.
I would add that the word "Основана" is a shortened participle of Passive Voice form (the full form of Passive Voice participle will be "Основанный"). The usual way to create a Passive Voice is to put "be" before this above-mentioned form, and this makes the style of expression more official. There is Alexander Tvardovsky's poem dedicated to the Russian soldiers killed at WWII, which starts "Я убит подо Ржевом..." ("I was killed near Rzhev...", where the author skipped the verb "be" to avoid an official style and make the poem more emotional.11/15/19