Everything about Ekaterinburg totally explained
Yekaterinburg (also
romanized Ekaterinburg, formerly
Sverdlovsk) is a major
city in the central part of
Russia, the administrative center of
Sverdlovsk Oblast. Situated on the eastern side of the
Ural mountain range, it's the main
industrial and
cultural center of the
Urals Federal District. Its population of 1,293,537 (
2002 Census), which is down from 1,364,621 recorded in the
1989 Census, makes it Russia's fifth largest city. Between 1924 and 1991, the city
was known as Sverdlovsk, after the
Bolshevik leader
Yakov Sverdlov.
History
The
city was founded in 1723 by
Vasily Tatischev and named after
Saint Catherine, the namesake of
Tsar Peter the Great's wife
Empress Catherine I (Yekaterina). The official date of the city foundation, however, is
November 18,
1723. The city was named Sverdlovsk after the
Bolshevik party leader and
Soviet official
Yakov Sverdlov from 1924 to 1991.
Soon after the
Russian Revolution, on
July 17,
1918, Tsar
Nicholas II, his wife,
Alexandra, and their children Grand Duchesses
Olga,
Tatiana,
Maria,
Anastasia, and Tsarevich
Alexei were executed by
Bolsheviks at the
Ipatiev House in this city. In 1977 the Ipatiev House was destroyed by order of
Boris Yeltsin who later became the first
President of the Russian Federation.
In the 1920s, Yekaterinburg became a large industrial center of Russia. It was the time when the famous
Uralmash was built, becoming the biggest heavy machinery factory in Europe.
During
World War II, many government technical institutions and whole factories were relocated to Yekaterinburg away from the war-affected areas (mostly Moscow), with many of them staying in Ekaterinburg after the victory.
In the 1960s, in the days of
Khruschev's government, a number of lookalike five-story
apartment blocks sprung up all over the city. Most of them still remain today in Kirovsky, Chkalovsky, and other
residential areas of Yekaterinburg.
On
May 1,
1960 an
American U-2 spy plane, piloted by
Francis Gary Powers while under the employ of the
CIA, was shot down over Sverdlovsk Oblast. The pilot was captured, put on trial, and found guilty of
espionage. He was sentenced to seven years of
hard labour, though he served only about a year before being exchanged for
Rudolph Abel, a high-ranking
KGB spy, who had been apprehended in the
United States in 1957. The two spies were exchanged at the
Glienicke Bridge in
Potsdam, Germany, on
February 10 1962. Since the end of World War II, the Glienicke Bridge was the most popular captive-trading place when
the west and
the east felt it necessary to negotiate.
There was an
anthrax outbreak in Yekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk) in April and May 1979, which was attributed by Soviet officials to the locals eating contaminated
meat. However, American agencies believe that the locals inhaled
spores accidentally released from an
aerosol of
pathogen at a military
microbiology facility. Dr.
Kanatjan Alibekov's account of the
Sverdlovsk anthrax leak in his book
Biohazard agrees with the American agencies' view. In 1994, a team of independent American researchers lead by
Matthew Meselson concluded based on a number of sources of evidence that it was conclusive that the illnesses were a result of an anthrax release from the Sverdlovsk-19 military facility.
Geography and climate
Yekaterinburg is situated in Asia, 1,667 km (1,036 miles) east of
Moscow, on the eastern side of the
Ural mountains on the
Iset river. It is surrounded by forests, mainly
taiga, and small lakes. The winter lasts for about 5 months - from November until the middle of April and the temperature may fall to minus 40 degrees (but rarely less than minus 25 degrees). The summer on the Urals is short and lasts an average of 65-70 days with an average temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit). Summer snow isn't an unusual occurrence, giving birth to the local saying "short, little-snowy summer in the Urals" (Russian: недолгое малоснежное Уральское лето) Due to the city's location and different winds the weather is very unstable from day to day and from year to year.
Economy and education
The main branches of the regional industry are:
machinery,
metal processing,
ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy
Urals Branch of
Russian Academy of Sciences (
UB RAS
) and numerous scientific research institutes and establishments are situated in Yekaterinburg. With its 16 state-owned universities and educational academies, as well as a number of private higher education institutions (2005), Yekaterinburg is considered the leading educational and scientific center of the Urals.
Urals A.M. Gorky State University,
Ural State Technical University,
Urals State Pedagogical University,
Urals State University of Forestry,
Urals State University of Mines,
Urals State University of the Railways,
Russian State Vocational Pedagogics University,
Urals State University of Economics,
Military Institute of Artillery,
Urals State Conservatory,
Urals State Agricultural Academy,
Urals State Academy of Law,
Urals State Academy of Medicine,
Urals State Academy of Performing Arts,
Urals Academy of Public Service, and
Urals Academy of Architecture are among them.
Transport and accommodation
Yekaterinburg, still called by its Soviet name Sverdlovsk in rail timetables, is an important railway junction on the
Trans-Siberian Railway, with lines radiating to all parts of the Urals and the rest of Russia. As the economy grew stronger after the slump of the 1990s, several European airlines started or resumed flying to the city's
Koltsovo International Airport (SVX). These include
Lufthansa,
British Midland,
Malév,
Austrian Airlines and
Czech Airlines.
Yekaterinburg is also served by the smaller
Yekaterinburg Aramil Airport.
Yekaterinburg's public transit network includes the
Yekaterinburg Metro which was opened in 1991, and many
streetcar (
tram),
bus, and
trolleybus routes.
Culture
The city has several dozens of libraries including the V. G. Belinsky Scientific Library, the largest public library in
Sverdlovsk Oblast.
Yekaterinburg is famous for its theaters among which there are some very popular theater companies:
Yekaterinburg Academic Ballet and Opera Company,
Sverdlovsk Academic Theater of Musical Comedy (legendary company known in Russia and in ex-soviet republics as
Свердловская музкомедия -
Sverdlovskaya muzkomedia),
Yekaterinburg Academic Dramatic Theater,
Yekaterinburg Theater for Young Spectators,
Volkhonka (popular chamber theater),
Kolyada Theater (chamber theater founded by Russian playwright, producer and actor
Nikolai Kolyada). Yekaterinburg is the center of
New Drama - movement of contemporary Russian playwrights:
Nikolai Kolyada,
Vasily Sigarev,
Konstantin Kostenko,
Presnyakov brothers,
Oleg Bogayev. Yekaterinburg is also often called
capital of contemporary dance for a number of famous contemporary dance companies residing in the city:
Kipling,
Provincial Dances,
Tantstrest with a special department of contemporary dance at the Yekaterinburg University of Humanities.
A number of popular Russian rock bands, such as
Urfin Dzhyus,,
Chicherina,
Nautilus Pompilius,
Nastya,
Trek,
Agata Kristi and
Smyslovye Gallyutsinatsii, were originally formed in Yekaterinburg (
Ural Rock is often considered as a particular variety of the rock music, Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg are considered to be the main centers of rock music in Russia). Besides some famous opera singers -
Boris Shtokolov,
Yury Gulyayev,
Vera Bayeva - graduated from the
Urals State Conservatory. The
Ural Philharmonic Orchestra (current conductor -
Dmitry Liss) founded by
Mark Paverman and located in Yekaterinburg is also very popular in Russia and in Europe as well as the
Ural Academic Popular Chorus - famous folklore singing and dance ensemble.
In Yekaterinburg there are more than 30 museums, among which: several museums of ural minerals and jewellery, some art galleries, one of the largest collections of
Kasli mouldings (traditional kind of cast-iron sculpture in the Urals), the famous
Shigirskaya Kladovaya (
Шигирская кладовая) - Shigir Collection including the oldest wood sculpture in the world - the
Shigir Idol found near
Nevyansk and estimated to be made about 9,000 years ago).
Yekaterinburg has also a
circus building.
In Yekaterinburg, there's one of the tallest incomplete architectural structures in the world, the
Yekaterinburg TV Tower.
International relations
The largest city in the Urals and one of the top five in Russia, Yekaterinburg has a number of consulates of major countries. For people wishing to make a
visa application and needing to attend interview, this can easily take a half-week off the travelling time to get to the interview (in the event that there are internal flights to Yekaterinburg, they may only be once per week).
Consulates
Twin cities
Yekaterinburg is a
sister city of
- Pilsen, Czech Republic
- San Jose, California, U.S.A., since 1992
- Guangzhou, the People's Republic of China, since July 10 2002
- Genoa, Italy
- Ferentino, Italy
Notable citizens
The following people were either born in Yekaterinburg or made names for themselves while residing there. Note that many of the ice hockey players listed play in North America's National Hockey League.
Aleksei Balabanov, film director
Pavel Bazhov, author
Sergei Chepikov, biathlon competitor, Olympic champion
Chiang Ching-kuo, president of the Republic of China from 1978 to 1988. From 1932 to 1937, Chiang Ching-kuo worked in Ekaterinburg at Ural Heavy Machinery Plant (Uralmash). In Ekaterinburg he met his wife Faina Ipatyevna Vakhreva.
Pavel Datsyuk, ice hockey player
Aleksandr Demyanenko, actor
Irina Denezhkina, author
Bella Dizhur, children's poet, mother of Ernst Neizvestny
Alexander Dolsky, poet
Aleksei Fedorchenko, film director, winner of the 62 Mostra for First on the Moon
Stanislav Govorukhin, film director
Aleksei Haritidi, cartoonist, Palme d'Or Court Métrage winner at the Cannes International Film Festival for Gagarin
Nikolai Khabibulin, ice hockey goaltender
Ilya Kormiltsev, poet, translator
Olga Kotlyarova, runner
Vladimir Krasnopolsky, film director
Vladislav Krapivin, children's author
Nikolai Krasovsky, prominent mathematician
Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov, partisan and hero of World War II
Yaropolk Lapshin, film director
Yury Levitan, radio speaker during World War II
Dmitry Liss, conductor of the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra
Lyudmila Lyadova, composer
Vladimir Malakhov, ice hockey player
Dmitry Mamin-Siberyak, author
Georgi Misharin, ice hockey player
Vladimir Motyl, film director and scenarist
Ernst Neizvestny, sculptor
Nikolai Nikonov, author
Yury Osipov, mathematician and president of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Gleb Panfilov, film director
Mark Paverman, conductor, founder of the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra
Ivan Polzunov, inventor
Alexander Stepanovich Popov, physicist who was the first to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic waves (radio)
Alexander Popov, swimmer, full member of the International Olympic Committee
Oleg and Vladimir Presnyakov, playwrights
Ivan Pyriev, film director
Evgeniy Rodygin, composer
Fyodor Reshetnikov, author
Eduard Rossel, politician, governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast
Boris Ryzhy, poet
Nikolai Semikhatov, mechanic, constructor of ballistic missiles control systems
Vera Sessina, gymnast
Ivan Shadr, sculptor
Ivan Konontsev, software engineer, responsible for Merlin application
Boris Shtokolov, opera singer
Vasily Sigarev, playwright
Anatoly Solonitsyn, actor, winner of the Berlin International Film Festival prize for best actor
Lev Sorokin, author, poet
Boris Stenin, speed skater
Pyotr Tayozhny, sculptor
Vladimir Uskov, film director
Sergei Vonsovsky, prominent physicist
Alexei Yashin, ice hockey player
Boris Yeltsin, first Russian president
Rimma Zhukova, speed skater
Irina Lashko, silver winner (diving) at the 1996 Summer Olympics
Honorary citizens
This is a short list of the most notable honorary citizens of Yekaterinburg (title conferred every year on the Day of the City):
Arkady Chernetsky, mayor of Yekaterinburg
Gennady Mesyats, vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the founders of the contemporary Demidov Prize
Vladimir Tretyakov, president of the Ural State University
Eduard Rossel, governor of the Sverdlovsk Oblast
Sergei Chepikov, biathlon competitor, Olympic champion
Vera Bayeva, famous opera singer
Vladislav Krapivin, children's author
Nikolai Krasovsky, prominent mathematician
Nikolai Karpol, coach of the national women volleyball team and the legendary Yekaterinburg women volleyball club Uralochka (Уралочка)
Sergei Vonsovsky, prominent physicist
Vladimir Kurochkin, musical comedy and opera producer
Other
A ballistic missile submarine of the Project 667BDRM 'Delfin' class (NATO reporting name: Delta IV) has been named "Ekaterinburg" (K-84/'807') in honor of the city.
The asteroid 27736 Ekaterinburg was named in the city's honour on 1 June 2007.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ekaterinburg'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://yekaterinburg.totallyexplained.com">Yekaterinburg Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
