The Founders of Yekaterinburg (Основание и основатели Екатеринбурга )

    There are a lot of different cities and towns around the world, and in our country as well. These cities can be megapolises or really small towns… But every city has its own history, and citizens always try to save this history, they try to protect it somehow, to pass to the next generation. To my mind the life of every city can be compared with a life of a person. First, the city is born, small baby – city, nobody knows about it, but then this city develops, the quantity of the population grows, and it means that this city also grows.

    Today I’m going to tell you about the foundation of one marvellous city in the Urals, about the foundation of Yekaterinburg. 

    In spring 1723, after the order of the emperor Peter the Great, the building of the metallurgical factory was started at the Iset River. And after that, around banks of the river small houses appeared. The date of birth of the city is the 7^th (18^th) of November 1723, when the first engine test start was made. The factory-fortress was called Yekaterinburg in the honor of empress Ekaterina the First.

    In 1725 Mint was opened, and for about a century and a half had been giving copper coins to the Russian state. In 1726 the lapidary factory was built, and this factory became one of the main suppliers of the goods, made of the Ural gems, to the different cities, such as St.Petersburg, and many of the others European capitals.

    In 1781 Yekaterinburg got the status city. In these years the main road of the Russian Empire was made through the city, which got two names according to the situation “Moscow highway” (which is in the west part of the city) and “Great Siberian highway” (in the east of the city).

    In 1807 Yekaterinburg got the status the only one city of Mines in the whole Russian Empire.

    Since 1830-s Yekaterinburg became the center of the engineering industry. The production of the mining and metallurgical equipment, water turbines and steamers started at the different factories of the city. 

    The Founders of Yekaterinburg.  

    All the cities around the world are born according to different reasons, and with different aims, connected with these cities… Yekaterinburg was born as a really welcome for Russia baby, the mother (The Russian Empire) believed in the city, for Her this child was a great support and a defender, against the unfriendly aimed neighbors. At that very moment, there was a great war with Sweden, the country that pretended to get the European leadership. This war required a really great quantity of metal, that’s why Yekaterinburg, first of all, was built for the purpose of metal production.

    Captain Vasiliy Tatischev, an associate of the Peter the Great, a great statesman, and very famous scientist, chose this place for the city. The factory, that produced iron, was built in a short space of time, but technology and quality of the metal was the best in the whole country and even the best one in Europe. This small child already justified all the hopes.

    In 1722 George William Gening, Saxon, being in the Russian Empire at the military business, was sent to the Urals to set down the struggle, between Vasiliy Tatischev and Akinphiy Demidov. This dispute happened in 1721, when Tatischev started the building of the iron-producing factory at the Iset River. But the Berg-college prohibited the continuation of the building of the factory. That why he had to start the building only of the copper-smelting plant. The dispute with Demidov brought Tatischev back to St.Petersburg, because the authorities filed the suit against him. George William Gening (as people called him Willim Ivanovich de Genin) had an order to settle this problem. So, he managed to solve this problem, but in favor of Tatischev and supported his idea about building these factories in the Urals.  

    Emblems of Yekaterinburg.  

    Yekaterinburg – is one of the biggest and most beautiful Russian cities. It’s situated on the border between Europe and Asia, just in the very middle of the Ural Mountains.

    The earliest symbol of the city was the image of a wheel, which everybody could see at the first seal of the Yekaterinburg factory.

    The official emblem was confirmed in 1783 by Ekaterina the Second. It looked like this: in the upper part there was the emblem of Perm, and in the green part there were silver smelting furnace and mine. Then one more emblem appeared: in the upper red part there was a silver bear, at his back there was the Gospel and above it – a silver cross.

    In 1924 the city was renamed, and now it was not Yekaterinburg, it became Sverdlovsk. And on the 25^th of July 1973 a new emblem was again confirmed. But the image of the emblem was more complicated; now in the middle there was an Yekaterinburg factory, on the factory there was a pinion, and on the post there was a small blue stripe that meant the Iset River. Above the factory you could see gold atoms. To the right there was a sable, looking to the left (the stamp of the Demidov factory), and on the left side there was a lizard, looking to the right (the symbol from Bazhov’s tales).

    In September 1991 Sverdlovsk again got a new name, it became “Yekaterinburg” again. The new emblem of the city was confirmed in 1995. The upper part of the emblem has a fortress, under it you can see a blue line – it’s the Iset River, which connects the history and the present, Europe and Asia. Bear – the European symbol, sable – the Asian symbol. Both animals hold a shield, show their tongues and teeth. This bellicosity is understandable – they protect the city. The golden line at the very bottom part of the emblem means that this city is one of the biggest administrative, financial, industrial, scientific, cultural, transport and logistic centre in the Russian Federation.