About Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg is the capital of the Urals, the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast, and the fourth-largest city in Russia by population. It stands on the Iset River, on the eastern slope of the Central Urals, a few dozen kilometers from the conventional border between Europe and Asia. This metropolis of one and a half million people lives by its own time: it is two hours ahead of Moscow (UTC+5).

This is the first truly “different” city that greets a traveler on the way from the European part of the country. Here a Russian-Byzantine memorial church to the Romanovs sits next to the futuristic Yeltsin Center, the granite Plotinka dam of 1723 stands beside the 188-meter “Vysotsky” skyscraper, and the constructivist Chekist Town is woven into the fabric of nineteenth-century merchants’ mansions.

The Capital of the Urals: status, geography, climate

The city traces its history to November 18, 1723, when the largest metallurgical plant of its day started operating on the Iset River. Yekaterinburg was named in honor of Empress Catherine I, the wife of Peter the Great, whose decree launched “mining construction” in the Urals. Ever since, Yekaterinburg has remained the region’s anchor point.

In Soviet times the city bore the name Sverdlovsk, but in 1991 it reclaimed its historical name. Today it is the key center of the Urals Federal District, a critical junction on the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the main hub between European Russia and Siberia.

Climate

Yekaterinburg lives to the rhythm of a moderate continental climate with pronounced seasonal swings:

• Winter: real, Uralian winter. Snow lies on the ground from November through April. The average January temperature is around −10 °C, and at night it can drop to −15 °C.
• Spring: short and cool. Frosts are still possible in March, with temperatures hovering around zero. By May the air warms up to +17 °C.
• Summer: mild and dry. In July and August thermometers sit at +22…+23 °C, though nights stay cool (+13…+14 °C).
• Autumn: begins with a warm September (+15 °C) and rapidly gives way to November’s cold.

The best time to visit is June and July. The end of June traditionally coincides with the Ural Music Night festival, which draws visitors from other regions specifically to attend.

What the city is known for

Yekaterinburg rests on three historical “anchors” that make it recognizable far beyond the Urals.

The first is its mining-and-metalworks history. The city was conceived as the administrative center of the Urals’ state-owned factories, and that industrial DNA still runs through it. It shows up everywhere: from cast-iron railings and the old dam in the center to the malachite and jasper collection in the Museum of Stone-Carving and Jewelry Art. An hour and a half from the city stands the famous leaning Nevyansk Tower of the Demidovs. Two important threads of Russian culture come together here: the mining-and-metalworks industry of the eighteenth century and Bazhov’s tales of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain.

The second is a tragic page from the early twentieth century. On the night of July 17, 1918, in the basement of the Ipatiev House, the history of the Romanov dynasty came to an end — the family of the last emperor, Nicholas II, was shot here. Today the Church on the Blood rises on that site, with five golden domes and fourteen bells — the largest Orthodox church in the city. Sixteen kilometers to the north, in a pine forest, stands the Ganina Yama monastery with seven wooden churches in the traditional Russian style. This is the place where the Romanovs’ remains were taken. Every July these sites become the centers of the “Tsar’s Days”: a procession many thousands strong draws pilgrims from across the country.

The third is late- and post-Soviet political history. Sverdlovsk served as the springboard for Russia’s first president: it was here that Boris Yeltsin studied at UPI, built his career, and rose to head the regional Communist Party committee. The Urals always remained “his own” for him. In 2015 the Yeltsin Center — a modern museum and educational complex — opened on the Iset embankment. Its exhibition “Seven Days That Changed Russia” has made the center one of the most visited museums in the country and the main architectural landmark of contemporary Yekaterinburg.

To these three historical layers a modern cultural code has been added. Yekaterinburg is a recognized center of contemporary music and street art. The city gave the country Chaif, Nautilus Pompilius, Agatha Christie, and Smyslovye Gallyutsinatsii, which is why it is unofficially called the capital of 1980s Russian rock. Today that drive is embodied in the Ural Music Night festival: at the end of June dozens of venues across the center turn the city into one enormous club where music plays from sunset to sunrise.

How the city is arranged and how it lives today

Yekaterinburg is a rare Russian example of a compact city of a million where you can actually cross the center on foot. The reference point is Plotinka, the very dam of the City Pond that was built in 1723 on piles of Uralian larch (the wood does not rot in water and has stood without trouble for three centuries). From it, one direction opens onto the Historical Square with its museum quarter; the other, onto the wide expanse of the pond, framed by the towers of the business district. Plotinka, the Church on the Blood, the Yeltsin Center, the Literary Quarter, and the pedestrian Vainer Street are all within a one- or two-kilometer radius, which makes it possible to see the city’s “calling card” in a single day.

Vainer Street is the local “Arbat.” This pedestrian shopping axis stretches from 1905 Square to the embankment. Along it a series of urban sculptures has lined up: “Friends,” “Lovers,” “The Peddler,” the cyclist Artamonov, and monuments to Gena Bukin and Michael Jackson. History lovers should look into the Literary Quarter — a quiet museum cluster of wooden and stone nineteenth-century mansions with the house-museums of Mamin-Sibiryak and Bazhov. And the Iset embankment is a walking artery that connects Plotinka with the skyscrapers of the business district. In summer catamarans are rented on the embankment; in winter a skating rink operates there.

Beyond the historic core, Yekaterinburg reveals itself from a different angle. Here you find the industrial Uralmash with its unique constructivist development of the 1930s, Elmash — the neighboring industrial cluster — the old Verkh-Isetsky factory (VIZ), and the modern residential districts of Akademichesky. You can take a break from the city’s rhythm in the Dendrological Park (“Dendrik”) or Mayakovsky Park on the right bank of the Iset.

The city is ringed by a whole belt of “satellite” hotel destinations: Verkhnyaya Pyshma with its 62 lodging properties, Pervouralsk, Sysert, and Nevyansk. Yekaterinburg itself now has around 813 hotels and guesthouses, from the budget Grand Hall with rates from 4,700 ₽ to the Hyatt Regency and “Residence” at the top end for 18,500–23,400 ₽ per night.

Heavy metallurgy, machine building, defense enterprises, and non-ferrous metal processing still operate in the region. But Yekaterinburg today is not only industry and defense. Over thirty years the city has become a major business and logistics hub for the entire Urals and Western Siberia. Federal banks and commodities companies keep offices here, along with technology parks and an IT cluster. The international industrial exhibition INNOPROM takes place every year. The high-rise “City” cluster around the Vysotsky tower is not decoration but a real concentration of offices and hotels that has grown up over the past fifteen years.

At the same time, the city has changed noticeably in cultural terms. The Sverdlovsk Film Studio is making films again, the Yeltsin Center has become the main open platform for contemporary art, music, and public debate, and the Ural Biennale of Contemporary Art has turned factory workshops into exhibition halls. The gastronomic scene has also stepped up in recent years. Places like the restaurant “Kukhnya” have appeared, where chef-ideologist Sergei Miroshnikov reinterprets Uralian cuisine — pelmeni with radish and mushrooms, posikunchiki with meat and broth, shangi, and river-fish ukha. Along Malysheva and Lenin streets and around Vainer, coffee shops and bars stand shoulder to shoulder. Souvenir shops with Uralian gemstones and malachite line up right there as well.

How to get there, get around, and who this place suits

How to get there

• By plane: The main air gateway is Koltsovo Airport (18 km from the center). It is one of the country’s largest airports. The most convenient way from the city to the airport is bus or minibus #01 — 40–60 minutes and about 100 ₽. There is also an aeroexpress to the railway station that takes just 37 minutes. The suburban train runs only twice a day: a morning departure at 8:26 and an evening one at 20:31, so tourists most often take the bus.
• By train: Yekaterinburg is an important point on the Trans-Siberian. Eight to twelve trains leave Moscow daily (26–34 hours en route). The most comfortable option is the branded train #002 “Rossiya,” Moscow — Vladivostok. It departs in the evening and arrives in Yekaterinburg the following morning. Direct trains from Saint Petersburg take 35–38 hours.

Getting around the city and the region

Within the city there is a metro (a single line of nine stations running from north to southwest through the center, from six in the morning until midnight), as well as trams, trolleybuses, and buses. The unified “E-card” is accepted on all transit.

Radial routes around the region are straightforward: the “Europe — Asia” obelisk on the Novo-Moskovsky highway is 30–40 minutes away; Ganina Yama is about half an hour by car or tour bus; Verkhnyaya Pyshma with its famous UGMK military-vehicle museum is 20–30 minutes (a tram can even take you there); and Nevyansk with its leaning tower is an hour and a half to two hours by suburban train or car.

The city’s atmosphere

Yekaterinburg is often compared to Moscow or to Petersburg, but it does not resemble either metropolis. This city has its own character — pragmatic, slightly sharp, without a capital’s airs, but with a firm conviction that the Urals are a separate civilization, not the “deep provinces.”

Here the merchants’ Empire style of the Sevastyanov House, with its neo-Gothic malachite-green facade, coexists with the barracks of mining-and-metalworks laborers, the constructivism of the first Five-Year Plans, Soviet modernism, and the glass towers of the 2010s. Over a weekend you can watch nearly the entire architectural history of Russia over the last three hundred years come together in a single skyline.

Who it suits

Yekaterinburg fits a range of travel scenarios. History lovers will find the Romanov sites, the mining-and-metalworks Urals, and monuments of the late Soviet era interesting; those who value urban environment will enjoy the contemporary architecture, music, coffee shops, and street art; and those who plan to use the city as a base for regional trips will find it convenient for reaching the Olenyi Ruchyi (“Deer Streams”) nature park, the Seven Brothers rocks, the “Uralian Mars,” Sysert, Bazhov’s places, Nevyansk, and Kamensk-Uralsky.

A full program in Yekaterinburg takes two to three days; add a couple more days and you will have enough time for the surroundings. If you are planning to stay for longer or are looking for a convenient neighborhood as a base, a separate selection of accommodation options awaits you on the hotels in Yekaterinburg page.