Ekaterinburg is situated the middle Urals on east side of the Ural mountains on Iset river. It is surrounded by forests (taiga) and small lakes. The winter lasts here for 5 months - from November till the middle of April and the temperature may fall to minus 35-40 degress Celsius (minus 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit). The summer on the Urals is short and lasts an average of 65-70 days with an average temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit). Due to city location and different winds the weather is very unstable from day to day and from year to year.

In the eighteenth century Russia was seeking a way to the ocean, Peter the Great was building the first Russian fleet. The army commenced construction on a number of new factories and fortresses as there was an increased demand for iron and steel armaments of all kinds. Even then the Urals was famous for its minerals. Peter the Great sent people to the Urals to establish new factories and plants. In 1720 he sent Vasilij Tatischev, a captain of artillery to be a superviser of mine plants of the Urals. In 1721 Tatischev chose a place on the Iset river to built a new factory and a town. This place had wood, water, ore - everything necessary for a factory. Approval for building the new plant took a long time, but finally in spring of 1723 the city was founded. The new plant-fortress gave its first production in November of 1723.
After Ekaterina, the wife of Peter the Great, the city was given a name Ekaterinburg. The Ekaterinburg plant became the biggest on the Urals. In 1726 another plant was build near the first one, it was named Verkh-Isetskij. This plant still exists and works.

Soon the city became the center of the Urals and Siberia, the "Window to Asia". The Siberian mining administration was situated in this town. New buildings were built and the city grew rapidly.

In early nineteenth century the gold-rush came to the Urals. Only in Ekaterinburg meadow near Iset river the gold had been found in 85 places. In 1819 platinum was found on the Urals, in 1829 they found the first Russian diamond here, the Urals' emeralds were found in 1831. The city became world center for castle and jewerly art work.

By the end of the eighteenth century Ekaterinburg had become an industial town, key railway junction and the trade center of the Urals with its own banks, schools, a theater.

In 1917 there was the October Revolution. Russia turned into communism. The last Russian tzar, Nickolas the Second was prisoned in Ekaterinburg with all his family. In 1918, when the Pro-tzar White Guard was about to take the city from the Red Army, the tzar's entire family was executed. 

Obviously, at communist times no city could have a name of a tzar's wife. In 1924, after Lenin's death, the city was renamed into Sverdlovsk, after Sverdlov - a friend of Lenin, who promoted communist takeover on the Urals.

During the Second World War, Sverdlovsk became a center of Soviet Union military production. Tanks, cannons, shells had been produced day and night. The well-known Sverdlovsk tank corp fought nazis from Kursk to Berlin. All the equipment for this corp was made for money, voluntarily given by citizens, and the soldiers were also volunteers. The city became one of the evacuation centers for the west part of the country. After the end of the war, Sverdlovsk region becomes the second biggest industrial region after Moscow.

Soon after that Sverdlovsk became a closed city for foreigners, because of a number of plants producing high-tech military stuff. In 1960 an American spy plain was shot down above the city. The pilot ejected, was imprisoned, and later exchanged for a Russian spy.

In 1979 one of the military factories in the city had a leak of some biological weapon for which they were working on creation of an antidote. Some two hundred people died of antrax. The real reason for the epidemy had been top secret until recently.

In 1992, the original name Ekaterinburg was returned to the city.