VERY MANY PEOPLE PROPERLY “GO OUT OF FRAME”, “VIOLATE HUSBANDING STANDARDS” AND “RESPOND TO THE ORDINARY” ... THESE PEOPLE ARE REJECTORS, WHICH IT IS EXTREMELY BORING TO LIKE THEM. I DON’T BORING, AND BY NATURE I DO NOT REALLY REBELL IN GENERAL, BUT PROSPECTS TO CROSS THE MOST PRESENT BORDER IS NOT UNDERSTANDING THE VIRTUAL BORDER GUARANTEES, AND THERE IS SO MUCH FORWARD. Moreover, and far to come. ONLY EVERYTHING IN YEKATERINBURG, ITS LOVE AND FAVORITE FROM CHILDHOOD, LOCATED ACCURATE THERE WHERE EUROPE AND ASIA converge ...
FROM SOMETHING TO NOW
Once upon a time, the European part of the Russian Empire was called Muscovy, and everything that lay on the other side of the Ural Range was called Siberia. The inhabitants of Muscovy did not know well and therefore were afraid of those who came from a distant mountainous region. The first mention of the Urals was discovered by researchers in the "History" of Herodotus (5th century BC), which spoke of the "country of the Ishedons" stretching in an unknown darkness beyond Scythia. According to scientists, it is about the Iset River and the Ural Mountains, from where legends about untold riches and material evidence of their existence in the form of gold and other treasures reached the Scythians.
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The population of the Urals was originally formed from the ancient Turkic tribes (the ancestors of modern Bashkirs and Tatars), who formerly lived in the territory of modern Kazakhstan and migrated under the pressure of the Huns to the southern forest-steppe zone of the Ural Mountains, and from the Finno-Ugric tribes (ancestors of the Khanty and Mansi) who settled the northern, mountainous -the taiga part of the ridge. Perhaps that is why, even in appearance, the Urals were quite different from the Rus, who inhabited the central part of the Russian Empire. Giving a description of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, the famous storyteller Pavel Bazhov spoke of a woman of high stature, unprecedented beauty and unprecedented beauty with blue-black hair, white skin and green eyes. Agree, the appearance is not quite traditional for the Slavs. Like all ancient peoples, the Urals prayed to numerous gods and spirits in order to gain their blessing and gain good luck in hunting and fishing. In Yekaterinburg and its environs, there are still many places where sacrificial rites were performed - rock complexes Kamenny Palatki, Chertovo Gorodishche, Seven Brothers, known among specialists, perhaps no less than the famous stone tables of Stonehenge in England and Gelendzhik dolmens.
And yet, the Urals would not have become the "supporting edge of the state" if at the beginning of the XVIII century had not been explored in its mountains countless deposits of iron and copper ore and other minerals, and if not for the far-sighted policy of Peter I, who commanded to lay on Ural rivers the first ironworks. The Tula gunsmith, a friend of Tsar Peter I, Nikita Demidovich Antufeev, known to us today as Nikita Demidov, set to work. In 1702 - 1704 on the river Uktus at the confluence of the Iset River, the Uktus state ironworks was built. However, due to a lack of water in the pond, the plant had to be stopped several times. In 1720, Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev, a well-known historian, geographer, came to the Uktus plant with the decree of Peter I, with whom he was ordered to "inspect ore sites and build new plants." Tatishchev immediately appreciated the inconvenience of the location of the Uktus plant and chose a new site for construction seven miles upstream of the Iset. However, due to the conflict with the breeders Demidov (Nikita, his eldest son Akinfiy and the youngest - Ivan), who already owned all the iron ore plants in Alapaevsk, Nevyansk and other cities and did not need competitors, Tatishchev was not only removed from office, but and almost got into court. It was rescued by the General Ullim de Genin, a Dutchman by birth, appointed by the head of the Ural mining plants. He found that “it was impossible to attach manufactories and factories to the old factories by any means ... that near the old factories forests were separated and there was very little water and the dams were thin”. To build a new plant on the Iset River, General de Genin confirmed the place previously chosen by Vasily Tatishchev.
In February 1723, the project of a new plant on the Iset River was approved by the Senate, and de Genin's request was soon granted to name the newly-built city-factory in the name of Empress Catherine, wife of Peter I (St. Catherine, the patroness of mining, was also mentioned in the name of the city). On November 18, 1723, the new plant was officially launched in a new style. This date is considered the day the city was founded. And Vasily Tatishchev and General de Genin are revered by the townspeople as the "founding fathers" of Yekaterinburg. A monument to them was erected on the dam of the city pond, where you can still see the premises of the first shops of the ironworks, from which the city began.
By the way, Yekaterinburg was originally built as the administrative center of the Ural mountain region and the mining industry, therefore, soon after the start-up of the plant, the Administration of Mining Plants and the Mining Office, which manages all the Ural and Siberian plants, were transferred here. In 1725, a mint was built, on which the Senate decree allowed making special copper coins - boards (heavy, rectangular plates). Later, in the late XVIII - early XIX centuries, 80% of all Russian coins were produced here for one and a half centuries. Many tourists and guests of the city note the similarity of the central, old part of Yekaterinburg with St. Petersburg. No wonder. The city was built in the European style, following the example of the mountain cities of Saxony and was carefully designed on the basis of the square. Therefore, today, being one of ten Russian cities with a population of over one million people, Yekaterinburg is considered the most compact and comfortable for living.
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In Soviet times, the city experienced many tragic pages. In 1917, Soviet power was established in Yekaterinburg. Since May 1918, the last emperor of Russia Nicholas II and his family were abdicated in the house of engineer Ipatiev on the Ascension Hill. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, by the decision of the Ural Soviet, supported by Lenin and Sverdlov, the imperial family was shot and dead bodies were buried in the vicinity of the city. And in 1924 the city was renamed Sverdlovsk, in honor of the Bolshevik Jacob Sverdlov, who died in 1919. In the 1930s, a wave of Stalinist repressions swept through the city. According to the number of repressed, the Sverdlovsk region ranked third in the Soviet Union after Moscow and the Caucasus region. In the 1940s, victory over fascism was literally forged in the Ural factories. It was in Sverdlovsk that more than 50 factories and enterprises from the western regions of the USSR were evacuated. Famous T-34 tanks were produced here, and fighters of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps fought in the hottest battles of the Great Patriotic War. The city's art funds have deposited priceless works of art from the Leningrad Hermitage.
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After the war, the city was reborn to a new life. It built universities, theaters, schools, hospitals and new residential areas. Not without doubtful, from the point of view of our contemporaries, cases. So in 1977, by a secret (!) Decision of the CPSU Central Committee, it was demolished to Ipatiev, who was shot by the family of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II. At that time, in Sverdlovsk, the first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU was the first President of Russia Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, who graduated from the Ural Polytechnic Institute. Many current Yekaterinburg residents associate this step with his name, which was an attempt to impede the course of history.
In 1991, the city was returned to its historical name - Yekaterinburg. In 2000, on the site of the Ipatiev house, the Temple on Blood was laid, which was consecrated in 2003, on the anniversary of the death of the Romanov family. And in the place where the remains of members of the royal family, known as Ganina Yama, were found, an active monastery was built in the name of the Holy Royal Martyrs. All the temples of the monastery are wooden and were built without a single nail. Near an abandoned mine, in which local residents found human bones and skulls, an Orthodox cross is installed. Every year in the days of the death of the royal family, believers make a procession from the Temple on Blood to Ganina Pit .... People remember and do not want to forget even the darkest pages of their history
FROM HISTORY TO GEOGRAPHY
As for borders and their intersection. Today, few people think that we owe many historically important discoveries to people whose direct responsibilities were not to make them at all. The head of the Ural factories Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev was not only an outstanding statesman, but also a diplomat and a geographic scientist. He was the first to discover that the Ural mountain range is a natural dividing border between Europe and Asia. Having studied the natural conditions of the European and Asian parts of the Eurasian continent, he concluded that the flora and fauna to the Ural Mountains and the Trans-Urals are noticeably different from each other. The climate is different, different species of trees grow in the forests, animals, birds and even fish in rivers completely different. Then Tatishchev proposed to draw a conditional border along the line of the watershed of European and Siberian rivers. Many later, scientists proved that it is in the Ural region that the East European and Asian tectonic platforms converge.
The first sign on the border of Europe and Asia, with geographically accurate designations of latitude and longitude calculated by Vasily Tatishchev, was installed in the area of the city of Pervouralsk in 1837 in honor of the visit of the Urals by the heir to the Russian throne, Prince Alexander, later Emperor Alexander II. Today, over the entire Ural ridge, more than two dozen signs are known designating this very mysterious and easy to cross border. The most recent symbol of the border of the parts of the world was installed in 2004 within the city of Yekaterinburg on the 17th kilometer of the new Moscow highway. Two stones are laid in its foundation: one - from the westernmost point of Europe - Cape Roca, the other - from the easternmost tip of Asia - Cape Dezhnev.
The rules for crossing this border are simple and straightforward. Thank you, however, that they were kindly explained to us by representatives of the managing company "ESA" and MU "Capital of the Urals". First you need to hold on to the hand of a European pebble, and then cross the border, make the most secret desire (they say it will come true) and do the same with his Asian "brother" on the back of the obelisk. Then at your discretion. You can drink vodka and enjoy caviar for the joys of life (which, in fact, we were asked to do). You can "dance songs", or forge a personal coin with an image of an obelisk on one side and a portrait of Vasily Tatishchev on the other, or go to a shop offering souvenirs made of Ural stone. Do not forget to get your personal certificate "border violator" with the seal of Tatishchev himself. It will be something that we ourselves will remember, and show the children. Indeed, in the near future a whole tourist, ethnographic and cultural complex “Border of the parts of the world” will be erected at this very place, where even the churches of the three main religions represented in the Urals - a mosque, an Orthodox church and a synagogue will peacefully coexist on Concorde Square. Such is it, the border between Europe and Asia. Unique. Worth to go ...
INCLINED BUT NOT FALLING
Tower in Nevyansk. Not the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and therefore does not fall, but simply rolls away from the strictly vertical axis. It was built in the XVIII century by Akinfiy Demidov in the city of Nevyansk, which is located 80 km north of Yekaterinburg, and to this day its secret has not been guessed. The tower was built in 1722-32. like Russian tented bell towers and consists of one quadrangle at the base and three octagonal tiers. Either it was specially built so that it struck everyone with its unusualness, or groundwater washed the base of the first tier (four), and, building on all the subsequent ones, the architects simply tried to straighten out this giant structure 57.5 meters high, which has a deviation 1.8 meters to the southwest. The wall thickness at the bottom of the tower reaches 1.8 meters.
It also has a unique “auditory room” with special acoustics, when people speaking loudly standing in the middle of it do not hear each other, and those who whisper something, being in one of the diagonally opposite angles, create a full sense of conversation in full voice. They say that Demidov, thus, listened to the conversations of his guests and learned a lot of interesting things about himself.
At different times, the tower housed a factory office, a laboratory, and other public services, even a prison. Legend has it that Demidov secretly minted a silver coin in the cellars of the Nevyansk tower, and that before the inspector arrived from St. Petersburg, the cellars were flooded along with working people. There is still no scientific confirmation of this legend. Basements and underground passages were not found, where the silver was brought from - is unknown. Although it was proved that gold and silver were smelted in the laboratory.
Unique English chimes are installed on the tower, which today beat once every 15 minutes, and every hour the melody of M. I. Glinka “Hail” from the opera “Ivan Susanin” is distributed. The main bronze alarm bell weighing 62 pounds 27 pounds was also cast at the Nevyansk Demidov factories.
The tower overlooks the Transfiguration Cathedral, which was built in 1824-61. at the expense of the breeders of Yakovlev and residents of Nevyansk, then it was closed in 1932 and transferred to factory workshops, and only in 2003 it was again open to parishioners. The cathedral has a unique faience iconostasis, which has no analogues in the world. Even in Nevyansk there is a striking Museum of Nevyansk icon, which is strikingly different from other recognized schools of icon painting, and a completely stunning life-size monument to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (that is, 158 cm, which was the growth of the leader of the world proletariat during his life), cast by the masters of the art iron casting factory from the village of Kasli in the Chelyabinsk region and installed on the central square of the city. It is unlikely that somewhere else there will be a similar monument.
Yes, and the city of Nevyansk itself with a population of 27 thousand people and a tower that has been heeling for three centuries, but does not fall, is only here. In the Urals.
TO THE TABLE CITY OF YEKATERINBURG
However, it's time. No, not "to the countryside, into the wilderness, to Saratov", but back to the capital of the Grids of the Urals - Yekaterinburg. The city lives, the city grows, the city gets richer. Today, Yekaterinburg is preparing to host the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) summit, which will be held here in 2009. More than four dozen new modern hotels are being built for the summit, and not only in the city, some of which will be commissioned later this year. Such famous hotel chains as rezidor SAS, which owns one park Inn (4 *) hotel and builds a second under the same brand, and Hyatt, which erects a hotel for business travelers Hyatt regency, have visited the city of Yekaterinburg, which was closed to foreigners until 1991. . On the shore of the city pond, a new modern shopping, business and hotel center "Demidov" is being built, next to the shopping and entertainment center "Antey", from the observation deck of which we admired the panorama of the city, its second phase, intended for commercial use, is being built.
Elite housing complexes are under construction throughout the city.A huge number of restaurants, cafes and coffee houses appear, ready to offer the most varied menu for the most selective customers. Night clubs, bowling centers, a water park, a zoo, a circus, all kinds of theaters and museums, shopping centers and galleries provide opportunities for recreation and entertainment for every taste. In order for your wallet to be able to cope with all your desires, the Tourist Information Center of the municipal institution "Capital of the Urals" offers all guests of the city to use the "Guest Card", which provides 5-10% discount in the most popular hotels, restaurants, clubs, cinemas museums and shopping galleries in Yekaterinburg.
The list of participants of the "Guest Card" campaign is constantly updated, so you have a unique opportunity to come to Yekaterinburg and get to know him and its surroundings without much impact on the family budget.
INSTEAD OF AN AFTERWORD
Recently, filling out some regular questionnaire in which it was necessary to indicate the place of birth and place of permanent residence, I became thoughtful. I was born in the city of Sverdlovsk in the USSR, and I live in the city of Yekaterinburg in Russia. Try to explain it to foreigners. I don’t remember which version of my biography I chose then, but the feeling of some selectivity remained. Everything for us, for the Urals, is different than for others. All to the mansion. Middle Urals. This is the legendary campaign of Ermak, and the development of Siberia, and the construction of Demidov factories, and the first Russian gold, and the activities of the Old Believer communities, and the tragic pages associated with the Romanovs, and the first President of Russia. This is the border between parts of the world and deposits of countless treasures hidden in the bowels of the Ural Mountains. This is Pavel Bazhov, and the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, and Danila the master and the Great snake. This is Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak with the "Capercaillie Nest" and "Privalov millions." This is a "velvet" Ural malachite and artistic jasper. And many many others…
Yekaterinburg. This is the legendary Sverdlovsk rock club and the names of people who have long been well known outside Yekaterinburg - Vyacheslav Butusov, Ilya Kormiltsev, Vladimir Shakhrin. These are children's writer Vladislav Krapivin, playwright Nikolai Kolyada, film director Vladimir Khotinenko and sculptor Ernst Neizvestny. This is the opera diva Irina Arkhipova and pop singer Alexander Malinin. Yekaterinburg is always people working today in the name of the city and creating glory to it with their labor. Welcome to Ekaterinburg. To Sverdlovsk. And again to Yekaterinburg. Here you will discover the legends of the Gray Urals and the prospects of the city of the future, which will forever take its special place at the junction of Europe and Asia.
/ Elena Olkhovskaya /
In preparing the article, materials from the Le Petit-Fuite travel guide were used. Yekaterinburg
