Yekaterinburg

City Hall Spire

The further west we travelled, the more prosperous things appeared. Yekaterinburg looked a fast modernizing city with world famous companies residing in swanky new business centres. People demonstrated their individual wealth by driving around in big engined BMWs, Range Rovers, and Porsche Cayennes.

There were only two things I had planned on accomplishing during the short stay in this city. The first was to visit the Church on the Blood, the site where the Russian royal family, the Romanovs, were massacred in 1918. The second was to observe a more recent part of the history of the city – the graves of Mafiosi who were gunned down during the 1990s as the two mafia groups, the Uralmash and the Centralniy, wrestled for control of the city.

The Church on the Blood, despite being less than two decades old, was well worth it. With its numerous golden cupolas and intricate artwork and gilding, it was clear a lot of investment went into its construction. No photos were allowed inside.

Trams

Almost 100 years ago the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas, the Tsarina, his children, and 3 servants were executed in the basement of a palatial home belonging to a wealthy Yekaterinburg resident. Perhaps to prevent the home becoming a catalyst of unrest in the then USSR, a local politician, Boris Yeltsin, demolished the house in the 1990s. It was a special moment to have visited a place with such great historical significance.

Church on the Blood

The Soviet name for Yekaterinburg was Sverdlovsk, named after the man who reputedly ordered the execution of the Romanovs. 

City Hall

After a steak lunch, it was off to a cemetery in the west of the city to see the graves of members of the Centralniy mafia group. In the years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, two gangs fought each other for the influence and assets once possessed by the former Communist government.

Gangster Kingpin

Most of the graves were for young men in their 20s. Intriguingly, there was also a grave for a woman in her 30s – I have no idea who she is or what happened to her. I speculate she was somehow acquainted with the mafia gang and was in the wrong place when a shooting occurred.

Mystery woman