Vysotsky Skyscraper, Yeltsin Center & Iset Tower in Yekaterinburg

While nineteenth-century cupola churches and 1930s Constructivist blocks define old Yekaterinburg, the skyline around the City Pond is anchored by glass high-rises that make this the tallest urban centre in Russia outside Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Two sites stand out for visitors: the Vysotsky Skyscraper on the eastern side of the pond and the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center alongside the Iset Tower on the western embankment.

Vysotsky Skyscraper and the 52nd-Floor Observation Deck

Located at 10 Krasnoarmeyskaya Street just behind the 1912 Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Vysotsky Business Centre was designed by architects Andrey Molokov and Vladimir Grachev and opened on 25 November 2011. Rising 54 floors to a height of 188.3 metres, the blue-glass tower was named after Soviet bard, poet, and actor Vladimir Vysotsky, who stayed in Sverdlovsk during concert tours in 1962. Outside the entrance stands a 2006 bronze sculpture of Vysotsky playing the guitar beside French actress Marina Vlady.

Visitors come for two experiences inside the building:

• 52nd-Floor Open-Air Observation Deck (186 metres): Opened on 4 May 2012, the circular perimeter terrace wraps around the top of the tower behind safety glass, offering unobstructed 360-degree views across the City Pond, Plotinka, Lake Shartash to the east, and the forested ridge of the Middle Urals to the west.
• Vladimir Vysotsky Museum (2nd and 3rd Floors): Opened in 2013, the museum displays personal letters, stage costumes, a wax reconstruction of Room 412 at the nearby Bolshoy Ural Hotel where the poet stayed, and his original Mercedes-Benz 350 SE.

Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center (3 Boris Yeltsin Street)

Across the City Pond on the western embankment stands the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center, designed by architect Boris Bernaskoni by adapting an unfinished congress building and opened on 25 November 2015. Dedicated to Russia's first President Boris Yeltsin (1931 to 2007), who studied civil engineering and began his political career in Sverdlovsk, the complex received the Kenneth Hudson Award as European Museum of the Year in 2017.

The centrepiece is the Boris Yeltsin Museum, arranged as a chronological sequence of nine halls designed by Pavel Lungin and Ralph Appelbaum Associates: after an introductory "Labyrinth of Russian History" covering 1914 to 1987, visitors walk through the "Seven Days" rooms (each recreating a pivotal day of the 1990s, including an original Moscow trolleybus and a 1991 television studio) before finishing in the circular Hall of Freedom overlooking the pond. The atrium also houses a contemporary art gallery, café, and the independent Piotrowski bookshop.

Iset Tower and Yekaterinburg-City

Immediately north of the Yeltsin Center rises the 52-storey Iset Tower (built between 2010 and 2015 to a design by German engineer-architect Werner Sobek), which reaches 209 metres in architectural height (212.8 metres to its upper structural tip) and contains 225 residential apartments.