The city on the Europe–Asia border — where the Romanovs were executed, the Urals begin, and a post-Soviet creative scene rewired a Soviet factory city
Yekaterinburg (pop. 1.5 million) is Russia's fourth-largest city and the gateway to Siberia, straddling the Ural Mountains at the continental divide between Europe and Asia. A monument on the city's outskirts marks the border where visitors can stand with one foot on each continent. The city is most famous as the site of the 1918 execution of Tsar Nicholas II and the Romanov family — the Church on the Blood now rises on that exact location. The Soviet-era constructivist architecture, the Ural State Conservatory (where Tchaikovsky Competition finalists often train), and a thriving contemporary…
Yekaterinburg was founded in 1723 by Vasily Tatishchev under Peter the Great and named for Empress Catherine I — conceived as the metallurgical capital of the newly industrialized Urals, which held Russia's largest deposits of iron ore, copper, and semi-precious stones including malachite. The Ural factories supplied weapons for Napoleon's defeat. In July 1918, Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II, Alexandra, their five children, and four servants in the basement of the Ipatiev House — an act that defined the city's global identity. Renamed Sverdlovsk under Soviet rule in 1924, the city was t…