Sverdlovsk Oblast - History

History

The Russian conquest of the Khanate of Kazan in the 1550s paved the way further east, which was now free from Tatar depredations (see Yermak Timofeyevich). The first surviving Russian settlements in the area date back to the late 16th — early 17th centuries (Verkhoturye, 1598; Turinsk, 1600; Irbit, 1633; Alapayevsk, 1639). In the 18th and 19th centuries the area became the industrial heartland of Russia, due to its rich resources of iron and coal (see above). In the 1930s many industrial enterprises were established and built with the help of forced labour. Local industry received another impetus during the World War II, when important producing facilities were relocated here from the European part of Russia to safeguard them from the advancing Germans (for example, IMZ-Ural). In the postwar period much of the region was off-limits to foreigners and it was over Sverdlovsk that the American pilot Gary Powers was shot down on May 1, 1960, while on a reconnaissance mission. Another historic event that took place in Yekaterinburg was the execution of Nicholas II of Russia and the Imperial family in July 1918.

In 1993, Governor Eduard Rossel responded to perceived economic inequality by attempting to create a "Urals Republic." Sverdlovsk led the "Urals Five" (Kurgan Oblast, Orenburg Oblast, Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk Oblast and Sverdlovsk) in a call for greater regional power. They argued that the oblasts deserved as much power as the ethnic homeland republics. The Urals Republic Constitution went into effect on October 27, 1993. Then Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the Urals Republic and the Sverdlovsk Parliament 10 days later (on November 9).

Yekaterinburg has had its share of notoriety. A particularly gruesome discovery occurred in July 2012. Four barrels containing 248 human fetuses left in a forest a few miles away from a highway linking the region's capital, Yekaterinburg, with another big city, Nizhny Tagil.