Yekaterinburg (or Ekaterinburg), located at the crossroads of two continents - Europe and Asia, is the capital of the Sverdlovsk region and the administrative center of the Ural district. It was founded under Peter the Great as the largest metallurgical plant in Russia of those times and named after Empress Yekaterina I, the wife of Peter the Great, and Great Martyr Saint Catherine, the patroness of mining. For three centuries the city-plant has been steadily developing as a center of mining industry of the Urals and Siberia. Nowadays Yekaterinburg is not only one of the biggest industrial centers in Russia but a very beautiful city with a lot of monuments of great historical and cultural value. Dozen of museums, several theaters, numerous movie houses, 14 high school institutions as well as developed infrastructure make Yekaterinburg the unique city where the past and the present mix together.
