YEKATERINBURG

also spelled Ekaterinburg, formerly (192491) Sverdlovsk, city and administrative centre of Sverdlovsk oblast (province), west-central Russia. It lies along the Iset River, which is a tributary of the Tobol River, and on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains. Yekaterinburg is situated 1,036 miles (1,667 km) east of Moscow. Near the village of Shartash, which was founded in 1672 by members of the Russian sect of Old Believers, an ironworks was established in 1721 and a fortress in 1722. In 1723 the new settlement was named Yekaterinburg in honour of Catherine I, the wife of Peter I the Great. The town grew as the administrative centre for all the ironworks of the Urals region, and its importance increased after 1783, when the Great Siberian Highway was built through it. After 1878 the Trans-Siberian Railroad linked the city with Siberia. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 (October), Yekaterinburg achieved notoriety as the scene of the execution of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family in July 1918. In 1924 it was renamed Sverdlovsk in honour of the Bolshevik leader Yakov M. Sverdlov, but the city reverted to its original name in 1991. Modern Yekaterinburg is one of the major industrial centres of Russia, especially for heavy engineering. Metallurgical and chemical machinery, turbines, diesels, and ball bearings head a long list of engineering products manufactured there. Some steel is also made in the city. The chemical and rubber-tire industries are well developed, and there is a range of light industries, including a traditional one of gem cutting. The city, laid out on a regular gridiron pattern, sprawls across the valley of the Isetthere dammed to form a series of small lakesand the low, surrounding hills. Yekaterinburg is an important railway junction, with lines radiating from it to all parts of the Urals and the rest of Russia. The city is the leading cultural centre of the Urals and has numerous institutions of higher education, including the Urals A.M. Gorky State University (founded 1920), a conservatory, and polytechnic, mining, forestry, agricultural, law, medical, and teacher-training institutes. The Urals branch of the Academy of Sciences and many scientific-research establishments are also located there. Pop. (1993 est.) 1,358,000.