[edit] 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). It was renamed 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 the 1920s Yekaterinburg became a large industrial center of Russia. The heavy machinery factory Uralmash, the biggest in Europe, was built.

During World War II, many government technical institutions and whole factories were evacuated to Yekaterinburg from the war-affected areas (mostly Moscow) and many remained in Yekaterinburg after the war was over.

In the 1960s, during the Khruschev government, many similar five-storey apartment blocks were built around Yekaterinburg. 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 via 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.

Image:Statue Tatishchev de Gennin Yekaterinburg.jpg

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.<ref>Matthew S. Meselson, et al., "The Sverdlovsk Anthrax Outbreak of 1979", Science 266:5188 (18 November 1994): 1202-1208.</ref>

[edit] Geography and climate

Yekaterinburg is situated 1,667 km (1,036 miles) east of Moscow, on the east 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 35-40 degrees Celsius (minus 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit). 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). Due to the city's location and different winds the weather is very unstable from day to day and from year to year.

[edit] Economy

Image:Yekaterinburg UGTU UPI Frontside.JPG
The city produces heavy machinery, steel, chemicals, tires, and petroleum. Gem cutting is a well-developed light industry.

[edit] Education

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.

[edit] Transport and accommodation

Yekaterinburg, still called by its Soviet name Sverdlovsk in rail timetables, is an important railway junction on Trans-Siberian Railway, with lines radiating to all parts of the Urals and the rest of Russia. As the economic slump subsided, several European airlines started or resumed flying to the city's Koltsovo International Airport (SVX). These include Lufthansa, British Airways, Austrian Airlines, Turkish Airlines and Czech Airlines.

Yekaterinburg's public transit network includes the Yekaterinburg Metro which was opened in 1991, and many streetcar (tram), bus, and trolleybus routes.

[edit] Culture

Image:House Zotov Tarasov.jpg

The city has several dozens of libraries including the V. G. Belinsky Scientific Library, the largest public library in the Urals.

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 playwrighs: 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, Chaif, Chicherina, Nautilus Pompilius, Nastya, Trek, Agata Kristi and Smyslovye Gallucinacii, 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 folklor singigng and dance ensemble.

In Yekaterinburg there are more than 30 museums, among which: several museums of ural minerlas and jewelleries, 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).

[edit] 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).

[edit] Consulates

United States Consulate—15 Gogolya Street; the first consulate with a visa section in the Urals, established in 1994.
United Kingdom Consulate—established 1997 as a full consulate with a visa section, on 15a Gogolya Street.
German Consulate—a full consulate with a visa section, on 44 Kuybysheva St.
Czech Republic Consulate— general consulate with a visa section, on 15 Gogolya Street;
Kirghizia Consulate— general consulate on 105 Bolshakova Street;
Bulgaria Consulate— general consulate on 74 Lunacharskogo Street;
the People's Republic of China Consulate— general consulate.

[edit] Twin cities

Yekaterinburg is a sister city of

Image:Flag of the Czech Republic (bordered).svg - Pilsen, Czech Republic
Image:Flag of the United States.svg - San Jose, California, U.S.A., since 1992
Image:Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg - Guangzhou, the People's Republic of China, since July 10 2002

[edit] 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.

Grigory Aleksandrov, film director
Grigory Bakhchivandzhy, test pilot
Aleksei Balabanov, film director
Pavel Bazhov, author
Sergei Chepikov, biathlon competitor, olympic champion
Oksana Cherkasova, cartoonist
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
Valentin Filatov, soviet circus artist
Albert Filozov, actor
Stanislav Govorukhin, film director
Aleksei Haritidi, cartoonist, Palm d'Or Court Métrage winner at the Cannes International Film Festival for Gagarin
Maria Hersht, neurologist
Nikolai Khabibulin, ice hockey goaltender
Vladimir Khotenenko, film director
Evgeniy Kolobov, conductor
Nikolai Kolyada, playwright
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 Vladimirovich Popov, swimmer, full member of the International Olympic Committee
Oleg and Vladimir Presnyakov, playwrights
Ivan Pyriev, film director
Evgeniy Rodygin, composer
Fedor 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
Boris Shtokolov, opera singer
Stanislav Shvarts, prominent zoologist
Vasily Sigarev, playwright
Anatoly Solonitsyn, actor, winner of the Berlin International Film Festival prize for best actor
Boris Stenin, speed scater
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
Tatiana Uskashova, delegate to the J8 Summit in 2006, met with Putin and other world leaders

[edit] 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):

Arkadiy Tchernetskiy, mayor of Yekaterinburg
Gennady Mesyats, vice-president of the Ural Academy of Sciences, one of the founders of the contemporary Demidov Prize
Vladimir Tretyakov, rector 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

[edit] See also

Names of Asian cities in different languages

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links and sources

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg travel guide from Wikitravel
Yekaterinburg for travellers
www.ekburg.ruAll information about Ekaterinburg.
1723.ru - Website dedicated to Yekaterinburg. Numerous photogalleries.
Yekaterinburg Information Portal
Photogallery
Flickr photos tagged Yekaterinburg

Image:Coat of Arms of Sverdlovsk oblast (2005).png	Cities and towns in Sverdlovsk Oblast	Image:Flag of Russia.svg
Image:Coat of Arms of Sverdlovsk oblast (2005).png	Administrative center: Yekaterinburg Alapayevsk \| Aramil \| Artyomovsky \| Asbest \| Beryozovsky \| Bogdanovich \| Degtyarsk \| Irbit \| Ivdel \| Lesnoy \| Kachkanar \| Kamensk-Uralsky \| Kamyshlov \| Karpinsk \| Kirovgrad \| Krasnoturyinsk \| Krasnoufimsk \| Krasnouralsk \| Kushva \| Mikhaylovsk \| Nevyansk \| Nizhniye Sergi \| Novaya Lyalya \| Nizhny Tagil \| Nizhnyaya Salda \| Nizhnyaya Tura \| Novouralsk \| Pervouralsk \| Polevskoy \| Revda \| Rezh \| Serov \| Severouralsk \| Sredneuralsk \| Sukhoy Log \| Sysert \| Talitsa \| Tavda \| Turinsk \| Verkhnyaya Pyshma \| Verkhnyaya Salda \| Verkhnyaya Tura \| Verkhny Tagil \| Verkhoturye \| Volchansk \| Zarechny