About Ekaterinburg

Ekaterinburg is the fourth most populous city in Russia and the administrative centre of the Sverdlovsk region and the Ural Federal District.

The city covers an area of 114289 hectares or 1142.89 square kilometres. Ekaterinburg is the country's most compact million-plus city.

• The distance to Moscow makes 1,667 kilometres.
• The distance to Vladivostok is 7,635 kilometres.
• The time difference with Moscow is plus 2 hours.

Founded as a fortress city in 1723, Ekaterinburg lies in the central part of the Eurasian continent. The city is situated on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains, in the floodplain of the Iset River (a tributary of the Tobol). 

Ekaterinburg is the largest city on the land border between Europe and Asia. According to statistics, every hour 78 trains cross the border of the world parts through Ekaterinburg. The unique geographical location can be found seventeen kilometres away from Ekaterinburg centre and is one of the most visited places.

Climate

Climate: moderately continental with characteristically sharp fluctuations in the weather and well-defined seasons of the year. The average January temperature is minus 12.6ºC and the average July temperature is plus 19ºC.

The Ural Mountains, despite their low altitude, cut off the air masses coming in from the west, from the European part of Russia. That leaves the Middle Ural open to the intrusion of cold arctic air and the strongly expelled continental air of the West Siberian Plain. Warm air masses from the Caspian Sea region and the deserts of Central Asia enter the Ural region unhindered to the south. This is why Ekaterinburg is characterised by sharp fluctuations in temperature and the formation of weather anomalies: from severe frosts to thaws in winter and from heatwaves above plus 35º C to frosts in summer.

Facts about the city

The ancient Greeks were already familiar with the land of the Ural where Ekaterinburg is located. Aeschylus, Plato and Herodotus all spoke of the fantastic wealth of the Ural land, its mysterious powers and the magical mythological creatures that inhabited it.

Ekaterinburg is home to the world's oldest wooden sculpture, the Great Shigir Idol.
 It is older than the Egyptian pyramids being 9,500 years old.

Ekaterinburg is home to a unique Kasli cast iron pavilion created by Ural masters. The masterpiece won the Grand Prix and Gold Medal at the1900 Paris World’s Fair.

The products of Ekaterinburg's steelworks have been used to create some of the world's most famous architectural buildings and structures. The first industrial machines in England were made from Ural iron. In 1820, the roof of the British Parliament building in London was made of roofing iron manufactured in Ekaterinburg. Ural steel was used to build the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Urals copper was used to build the Statue of Liberty in New York.

The first bicycle, an analogue of today's models, was invented in Ekaterinburg. The peasant Yefim Artamonov built a model, not much different from today's models, and in 1801 he rode it to the coronation of Emperor Alexander I in St Petersburg. A similar two-wheeled "running machine" with pedals did not appear in Europe until 1839.

The world's first BI-1 jet was tested in Ekaterinburg. On 15 May 1942, the BI-1, piloted by test pilot Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, took off for the first time using a rocket engine. The flight lasted 3 minutes and 9 seconds at an altitude of 840 metres.

Yekaterinburg, like the rest of the Ural, has a lot to do with the opening of the space era of humanity. It was in Ekaterinburg that the transmitter was invented, enabling signals to be received from the satellite to Earth.