Study history of Yekaterinburg with Presidential Library

The Presidential Library is pleased to present the tenth online exhibition in the series Discovering Russia with the Presidential Library. This new exhibition is dedicated to Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of the Sverdlovsk Region, which will celebrate anniversary of its establishment on January 17. The region recently celebrated its 90th anniversary in a grand manner.

Visitors to the virtual exhibition on the Presidential Library's website can explore some of the most interesting and significant documents from the library's collection related to the city's history and its residents. These include memoirs, photographs, travel accounts, maps, monographs, and archival records.

Yekaterinburg is one of the largest industrial, commercial, financial, and tourist centers in Russia. Historians have agreed to consider November 7 (18th) as the founding date of the city, when the ironworks were laid on the eastern bank of the Iset River. However, the history of Yekaterinburg dates back much further.

In 1704, an ironworks was established on the banks of the Uktuska River, which served as the administrative center of the Urals mountains (nowadays, Skiers Street is located there), and Yekaterinburg celebrated its 320th anniversary last year. However, the Uktusa plant soon ceased to meet the growing needs of the state, and in 1720, Peter the Great dispatched one of his most active associates, Vasily Tatishchev, to this area to improve the situation. In the spring of 1723, Tatishchev began constructing a new large government-owned factory on the bank of the Iset River. For the benefit of Yekaterinburg, he relocated the Siberian highway by 300 kilometers. During those years, Sweden led the field of metallurgy, and Tatishchev started employing Swedish prisoners as experts. Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak described how the city developed and what led to its emergence in his historical essay, published in the collection The City of Yekaterinburg (1889).

In addition to its metallurgical plants, Yekaterinburg was also famous for its rich reserves of various stone rocks. These included rare types of marble, granite, jasper, rhodonite, emerald, amethyst, rock crystal, and malachite. The term "Russian gem" became synonymous with "Ural gem", and the concept was well-known throughout the world.

In 1765, the Imperial Lapidary Factory was established in Yekaterinburg, where vases, bowls, candelabras, and other art objects were crafted by order of the highest court. It is said that Yekaterinburg's craftsmanship was renowned even among Parisian jewelers, and for the 1900 World's Fair in Paris, local jewelers created a map of France entirely made from precious stones.

In the 1930s, there was a real boom in folkloric expeditions to the Urals, which led to the popularity of the works of the Ural writer, Pavel Bazhov. His characters were based on real miners, charcoal burners, stonecutters, foundry workers, and even watchmen. The collection of his fairy tales, "The Malachite Casket," became the primary source for many local myths and legends, and the mistress of the Copper Mountain embodied the spirit of the Ural mountains.

Yekaterinburg has always been an industrial, commercial, and cultural center, which justifies its title as the "indigenous capital of the Urals." This was noted by Dmitry Mamin-Sibiriyak.

In 1878, the first train from the Urals left Perm for Yekaterinburg. The electronic collection of the Presidential Library contains memoirs by Erast, a mathematician and professor at Kazan University. In his memoir, Yanishevsky, published in 1887, he shares his impressions of a journey along the mining railway. He describes the Ural railway as being built with "excessive luxury", considering its commercial purpose. He also mentions the main terminal stations, Perm and Yekaterinburg, as being "true palaces in this region".

In 1870, the Ural Society of Natural Science Lovers (UOLE) was founded in Yekaterinburg, which included many famous scientists and writers. One of them was Mamin, a Siberian, who joined the society and participated in archaeological excavations.

The society engaged in various activities such as scientific research, education, and publishing. In 1887, it organized the Siberian-Ural Scientific and Industrial Exhibition in Yekaterinburg, which was a grand event that marked the beginning of the Museum of Nature and History of the Urals, now known as the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore.

This exhibition lasted for three months and attracted 3,290 participants. It showcased hundreds of industrial products and tens of thousands of artifacts related to the natural, cultural, and historical heritage of the Urals.

On the portal of the Presidential Library, visitors can access information about The Case on the Permission to Organize the Siberian-Ural Scientific and Industrial Exhibition in Yekaterinburg, which provides more details about this significant event.

To this day, Yekaterinburg still has the first concert hall in the Urals. It's a beautiful red brick building located at 22 Pervomaiskaya Street and is known as the Makletsky Hall. This hall was built in 1900 and was financed by Ilya Zakharovich Makletsky, who was the director of the Yekaterinburg branch of the Siberian Commercial Bank and a philanthropist. He was also a public figure. Today, the Sverdlovsk Tchaikovsky Music College occupies these premises.

From the very beginning, this building was known for its excellent acoustics. The school's website states that famous musicians such as Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitry Shostakovich, David Oistrakh, and Heinrich Neuhaus have performed here at different times.

Moscow, Murom, Kursk, Totma, Vologda, Veliky Ustyug, Kostroma, and Sergiev Posad can also be explored virtually through the Presidential Library's portal. These cities can be visited as part of a virtual tour of Disovering Russia with Presidential Library exhibition, which was held in the library's building at 3 Senate Square.

A separate online exhibition from the Discovering Russia series is dedicated to Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia.

All virtual tours presented on the Presidential Library website in the Online Projects section, included in the Discovering Russia with Presidential Library series, are based on materials from the library's digital collection and partner institutions.

The goal of the Discovering Russia project is to showcase the unique character of individual Russian regions and cities, as well as to introduce their history and landmarks.

The project allows you to create your own virtual travel itinerary and explore the history of the chosen city at your own pace.

Travel around Russia with the Presidential Library!