YEKATERINBURG

Yekaterinburg, the administrative center of the Sverdlovsk Region and the Ural Federal District, is a dynamically developing megalopolis at the border of Europe and Asia. It is Russia’s fourth-largest city, with a population of 1,315,000, and ranks third, after Moscow and St. Petersburg, in many aspects of social, economic and cultural development.

Yekaterinburg is 1,667 kilometers east of Moscow and 7,635 kilometers west of Vladivostok. The time lag against Moscow is +2 hours.

The city was founded in November 1723 as the managerial heart of government and private iron-and-steel and non-ferrous metal works to either sides of the Ural Mountain Range. Lucrative geography in the center of the Urals and a railroad construction boom in the last quarter of the 19th century made Yekaterinburg one of the principal Russian railroad junctions.

The late 1920s made it one of the nodal points of accelerated Soviet industrialization. Mammoth industrial plants appeared there. The first stage of the Uralmash (Ural Machine-Building Plant), one of the world’s largest engineering works, was commissioned in 1933. The Elmash (Electric Engineering Plant) was commissioned in 1935, and the Turbine Engine Works in 1940. The city was also turning into a major center of research and education, with the Ural State University established in 1920 and the Ural Branch of the Academy of Sciences in 1932.

Today, Yekaterinburg is the principal industrial, research, cultural, commercial and financial center of the Russian east.

Its industry comprises more than 100 companies with a total turnover exceeding 130 billion rubles ($5.32 billion). Wholesale and retail trade, banking and consumer services make sweeping progress. Yekaterinburg steadily ranks Russia’s third for retail turnover.

Yekaterinburg is an essential transport junction with seven railroads intercrossing. The principal passenger-carrying line of the Trans-Siberian Rail, a key route linking European Russia with the country’s east, crosses the city since 1930. The Koltsovo international airport is of tremendous importance for the future of the city.

Yekaterinburg is implementing an ambitious construction program for speed highways and cloverleaves. Metro construction is going on through pooled municipal, regional and federal efforts.

The international significance of the city is growing apace. Indicatively, 17 countries have established consular offices there. The United States and the UK were the first to do so. There are approximately 200 arms and offices of overseas companies in Yekaterinburg.


The Bishkek summit of heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, in August 2007, made an official decision to appoint Yekaterinburg the venue of a meeting of heads of state of the SCO countries.

The city is building more than a hundred major projects to prepare for the meeting. They will lend it a new look and give a mighty impetus to the economy. The airport is being extended and reconstructed, and highways modernized. Several hotels are under construction.