Yekaterinburg 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 with a population of 1,350,100, making it Russia’s fourth largest city. Between 1924 and 1991, the city was known as Sverdlovsk (???????????), after the Bolshevik party leader Yakov Sverdlov.
During the 1991 coup d’état attempt, Sverdlovsk, the home city of President Boris Yeltsin, was selected by him as a reserve capital for the Russian Federation in the event that Moscow became too dangerous for the Russian government. A reserve cabinet headed by Oleg Lobov was sent to the city, where Yeltsin enjoyed strong popular support at that time. Shortly after the failure of the coup and subsequent dissolution of the USSR, the city regained its historical name (Yekaterinburg).
The Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 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, Yekaterinburg is considered the leading educational and scientific center of the Urals.
The city has several dozen libraries, including the V. G. Belinsky Scientific Library, which is the largest public library in Sverdlovsk Oblast. Yekaterinburg is famous for its theaters, among which are some very popular theatre companies: the Yekaterinburg Academic Ballet and Opera Company, the Sverdlovsk Academic Theater of Musical Comedy, the Yekaterinburg Academic Dramatic Theater, the Yekaterinburg Theater for Young Spectators, the Volkhonka, and the Kolyada Theater.
Yekaterinburg is situated on the border of Europe and 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 partially-wooded plains, mainly cultivated for agricultural purposes, and small lakes. The city features a humid continental climate
[responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The International Crisis Group (ICG; also simply known as the Crisis Group) is a transnational non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in 1995 that carries out field research on violent conflict and advances...
