Ekaterinburg’s Beaten Track (No sign of quitting…)
Following from last week’s contribution, Neil McGowan has returned with his own overview of Ekaterinburg. It’s good to have different perspectives: different points of interest emerge and the “weighting” shifts perceptibly. Hey, I’m standing in the way. Over to Neil…
Bernard H.Wood.
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Ekaterinburg was known as “Sverdlovsk” during the Soviet era – named after Sverdlov, one of Lenin’s lesser henchmen. In fact, the railway station there still features as “Sverdlovsk” in rail timetables.
The city’s huge role in the production of military hardware (all top-secret during the Cold War) meant that it was closed to all foreigners (and to Russians who had no papers to explain their visit) from the end of WW2 until the close of the soviet era. But in the topsy-turvy world of Russia, this ban had a strangely beneficial effect for the area round about, preserving a lot of the natural beauty of the area from grim Soviet development.
The city’s huge wealth (it remains the third-richest city in Russia, after Moscow & St. Petersburg) originally came from the vast resources of precious metals and precious stones in which the Ural Mountains abound – especially gold. Ekaterinburg was the Russian Klondike, and a vast number of prospectors arrived in the 18th century. You can get a hint at what they were turning-up at the Geology Museum, where gold appears alongside diamonds and many semiprecious stones. You can buy samples in the museum’s shop, too. Real enthusiasts can take excursions off into the mountains to the karsts and caves of the Urals’ villages.
Ekaterinburg stands near to two legendary border-markers. Most people have heard (or if they haven’t, they soon find out) that the border between Europe and Asia lies just beyond the city limits: Ekaterinburg is the “first city in Asia”. The border-marker is actually in a rather grubby car park at the moment, with the city authorities promising to build something more impressive “quite soon”. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a more significant and rather less theoretical border lay just a few miles to the east of the city: the border with Siberia.
Siberia isn’t just “a rather chilly place”, although it can be, in winter at least (in summer it’s baking hot). The fearsome reputation of “Siberia” was once quite different, for it symbolised – freedom! It’s worth explaining why:
Until the 1880s Russia still had medieval serfdom. Whole families were passed down from owner to owner as wageless slaves, forced to toil for their masters in return for basic shelter (which they had to build themselves in any case) and the right to farm a small market garden to feed themselves. If their owners needed to raise money, the serfs could be bought and sold at the market (it was only in the 1860s that laws were introduced preventing families of serfs from being split-up for sale). However, the Russian government of 100 years earlier had seen the need to populate Siberia with more people. Its lands were wild and desolate, and many remain that way even today. Siberia was too big to govern conventionally, so Martial Law was introduced. Laws were passed which allowed runaway serfs to settle in Siberia without punishment. If they went uncaught for a year and a day, they were free. So they hid where they could – and in Siberia there is plenty of space to hide! Many didn’t bother going much beyond that all-important Siberian border – from that point, they were free men. Thus many villages of free men sprang-up just beyond Ekaterinburg, where they served no masters, paid minimal taxes to the Tsar, and farmed and worked for themselves.
Several of these villages have been preserved (as “living museums”) and you can get at least some idea of what life was like for them in the 19th century. The liberal laws applied to others too – notably to religious minorities, who found little tolerance from the official Russian Church in the big cities. So, groups as diverse as atheists, Mennonites, Jews, Old Believers and Buddhists fled to the “freedom” of Siberia, where paying your taxes was the only requirement.
[Photo by sashapo]
You might also enjoy:
- Trips and Tales (Part 42) An experience of travelling in Russia - from Ekaterinburg, entering Siberia ... eastwards to Novosibirsk. Reflecting on historical associations of the place and the bitter...
- Trips and Tales (Part 40) The Military Museum and "Black Tulip" War Memorial in Ekaterinburg....
- Trips and Tales (Part 38) A blog post on Ganina Yama, or "Ganya's Pit": initial resting place of the Romanov's, the last royal Family of Russia, executed by the Bosheviks....
- Trips and Tales (Part 37) On the beaten track in Ekaterinburg, with The Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land (murder-site of the Romanovs)...
- Trips and Tales (Part 36) History and features of the Russian city of Ekaterinburg....
