Yekateringburg, 9 septembre 08

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. Its population of 1,293,537 (2.000.000 in metropolitan area) (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 (Свердло́вск), after the Bolshevik leader Yakov Sverdlov.

-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. The Hermitage Museum collections were also partly evacuated from Leningrad to Sverdlovsk in July 1941 and remained there until October 1945.

Yekaterinburgis the first city of Siberia (asian Russia), being situated on the est side of the Oural mountains.

It is where Nicholas II and his family were assassinated, where Boris Yeltsine comes from, and played a major role in during World war II.... That is already largely good enougth reasons to stop and visit the place!!

As for Kazan, I just stayed during the day time, I arrived in the morning and took the train for Irkutsk (close by the Baikal lake) in the afternoon.

But first are a few picts of the landscape I could see from the window in the train Kazan-Yekaterinburg.

The train... It is at those moment that you feel the best on a world trip... In movement!! I feel so Free, Excited and Passionated when I watch by the window and dream about the next destination... There some kind of magic in those moments...
The type of house you see all along the way... Wooden made with the same shape.
Then I arrived in Yekaterinburg... Nice old communist statue, promoting the ideology of the good brave workers and farmers. In front of the train station.
Yekaterinburg's Church on the Blood, built on the spot where the Ipatyev House once stood. It is in the cave of that house that Nicholas II, last tsar of the Russian Empire was executed with his family in 1918.
Nicholas II and his wife
The comemorating plates inside the church. The Tsar family was made saint by the Orthodox church, that suffered comunist repression... The Tsar was not good, but Comunism was even worst... :)

The monument to the deads of the Russian-Afghan war (1979-1989).

The war museum.
Statue of the city founders – Vasily Tatishchev and Georg Wilhelm de Gennin, mandated by Petre the Great.
The old train station.

In Yekaterinburg, there is already 2 hours difference with Moscow... The thing I did not know was that all the trains in Russia are running on Moscow time... So when I came back to the train station, after I hurried a bit to visit the city I found out I was 2 hours in advance....

No pb, I went for a good late lunch, a borsh, in a typical russian canteen restaurant.. Very good and cheap!

Then, I bought a few beers and a lot of food, to help breaking the ice and meet russian people, and got onto the Trans siberian train...The journey to Irkutsk takes 2 days, 3 nights...

Let's go!