Yekaterinburg

Infobox Russian city
EnglishName=Yekaterinburg
RussianName=Екатеринбург
Skyline = Ekaterinburg at night.jpg
Skyline

LatDeg=56
LatMin=50
LatSec
LonDeg=60
LonMin=35
LonSec
Locator

LocatorMap

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CityDay=3rd Saturday of August
FederalSubject=Sverdlovsk Oblast
MunStatus=Urban okrug
InJurisdictionOf=Sverdlovsk Oblast
AdmCtrOf=Sverdlovsk Oblast
LeaderType=Head
LeaderName=Arkady Chernetsky
Legislature=City Duma
Charter=Charter of Yekaterinburg
Area
AreaRank
Population=1293537
PopulationRank=5th
FoundationDate=November 18, 1723
Event1=Town status
Event1Date=1796
Event2=Renamed "Sverdlovsk"
Event2Date=1924
Event3=Renamed "Yekaterinburg"
Event3Date=1991
PostalCode=620000
DialingCode=343
Website=http://www.ekburg.ru/

Yekaterinburg ( _ru. Екатеринбу́рг, 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 is 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 ( _ru. Свердло́вск), 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. [Matthew S. Meselson, et al., "The Sverdlovsk Anthrax Outbreak of 1979", "Science" 266:5188 (18 November 1994): 1202-1208.]

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 45 degrees Celsius ( minus 49 Fahrenheit), rarely lower minus 20 - minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 4 to minus 13 Fahrenheit). The summer on the Urals is short and lasts an average of 65-70 days with an average temperature of 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit). Summer snow is not an unusual occurrence, giving birth to the local reference to a "short, little-snowy summer in the Urals" (Russian: короткое и малоснежное Уральское лето).Fact|date=August 2008 Due to the city's location "behind" the mountain range 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

Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences ( [http://www.uran.ru 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. Ural A.M. Gorky State University, Ural State Technical University, Ural State Pedagogical University,Ural State University of Forestry, Ural State University of Mines, Ural State University of the Railways, Russian State Vocational Pedagogics University, Ural State University of Economics, Military Institute of Artillery, Ural State Conservatory, Ural State Agricultural Academy, Ural State Academy of Law, Ural State Academy of Medicine, Ural State Academy of Performing Arts, Ural Academy of Public Service, and Ural 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, Czech Airlines and Finnair(begins in September 2008)

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, Chayf, 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 is 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

*United States Consulate—15 Gogol 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 Gogol Street.
*The Federal Republic of Germany Consulate—a full consulate with a visa section, on 44 Kuybysheva St.
*Czech Republic Consulate— general consulate with a visa section, on 15 Gogol Street.
*Kyrgyzstan Consulate— general consulate on 105 Bolshakova Street.
*Bulgaria Consulate— general consulate on 74 Lunacharskogo Street.
*The People's Republic of China Consulate— general consulate.
*The Republic of Hungary Consulate— a full consulate with a visa section, on 15a Gogol Street.
*The Republic of Austria Consulate— honorary consular representation on 16 Turgeneva Street / 13 Pervomayskya Street.
*The Republic of Armenia Consulate— honorary consular representation.
*The Italian Republic Consulate— honorary consular representation on 28 Kirova Street.
*The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam Consulate— general consulate on 22 Karl Libknehta Street.
*The French Republic Consulate— a full consulate with a visa section on 22 Karl Libknehta Street.
*Spain Visa Application Center, 36 Gogol Street.

Twin cities

Yekaterinburg is a sister city of
*flagicon|Czech Republic - Pilsen, Czech Republic
*flagicon|USA - San Jose, California, U.S.A., since 1992
*flagicon|People's Republic of China - Guangzhou, the People's Republic of China, since July 10 2002
*flagicon|Italy - Genoa, Italy
*flagicon|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.

ee also

* Sverdlovsk anthrax leak
* Yekaterinburg-City

Notes

External links and sources

*Wikitravel
* [http://www.ekburg.ru/ Official website of Yekaterinburg]
* [http://www.1723.ru/ Photos and history of Yekaterinburg] ru icon
* [http://flickr.com/photos/tags/yekaterinburg Flickr photos tagged Yekaterinburg]
* [http://www.panoramio.com/map/?user=1477551#lt=56.838363&ln=60.617409&z=4&k=0&a=1&tab=4 Geo-targeted photos on panoramio]
* [http://maps.yandex.ru/ekb map of Yekaterinburg]
* [http://chart66.narod.ru/07200185.html GPS map of Yekaterinburg]