Yekaterinburg

Founded on 7 (18) November 1723 by Vasily Tatishchev and Georg Wilhelm de Gennin as a water-powered metallurgical fortress-plant on the Iset River, Yekaterinburg was named after Empress Catherine I, wife of Peter the Great. Sitting on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals along the continental divide between Europe and Asia, the settlement gained town status under Catherine II in 1781 along the Siberian Route and was known from 14 October 1924 to 23 September 1991 as Sverdlovsk.

At the heart of the city, the 1723 larch-and-granite dam known as Plotinka impounds the City Pond along Lenin Avenue. Around the water rise the green-and-white 1866 facade of Sevastyanov's House, the five-domed Church on the Blood on Voznesenskaya Hill, the 188.3-metre Vysotsky skyscraper and Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center, and a remarkable ensemble of 1920s and 1930s Constructivist architecture.

Koltsovo International Airport (SVX) lies 16 kilometres southeast of the city centre, linked to town by express buses and commuter trains, while long-distance services on the Trans-Siberian Railway stop at Yekaterinburg-Passazhirsky Railway Station (1,667 kilometres east of Moscow). Within the city, a single 12.7-kilometre Metro line with 9 stations and a 23-route tram network opened on 7 November 1929 connect the central squares and outer districts.

Visitors typically base themselves around Plotinka and the City Pond along Lenin Avenue for immediate access to museums and riverfront walks, on Voznesenskaya Hill near the Church on the Blood and Kharitonov Garden, or near 1905 Square and pedestrian Vaynera Street.

Stroll across the 1723 Plotinka dam and Historic Square, visit the Church on the Blood and Rastorguyev-Kharitonov Palace, and admire the 1866 corner rotunda of Sevastyanov's House on Lenin Avenue. Ride up to the 52nd-floor observation deck of the Vysotsky skyscraper and tour the nine halls of the Boris Yeltsin Museum, trace 1930s avant-garde blocks from Gorodok Chekistov to the White Tower in Uralmash, and head out to Ganina Yama or the 57.5-metre Leaning Tower of Nevyansk.

Traditional Ural cuisine in Yekaterinburg centres on hand-folded Ural pelmeni dumplings stuffed with a three-meat blend of beef, mutton, and pork or woodland mushrooms, round open-faced shangi yeast pastries brushed with sour cream or mashed potato, and hot bowls of beet borscht served with thick smetana.

Known as the capital of the Urals, Yekaterinburg combines three centuries of ironworking, gold mining, and malachite stone-carving heritage with a lively stage scene led by the 1912 Opera and Ballet Theatre on Lenin Avenue, the 1980 lattice-domed Yekaterinburg Circus on the Iset bank, and the nineteenth-century Literary Quarter.