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Urals (also called Ural) is a common geographical name of the area of Russia around the Ural Mountains (between Volga region and Siberia). It is a vast territory which includes major cities like Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk and Perm, as well as parts of the polar areas. The main part of this region is the Ural Mountains dividing two parts of the world – Europe and Asia different in natural and economic conditions.
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Last week we decided to go to Ganina Yama – that particular place where the Bolsheviks tried to hide dead bodies of Tsar Nicholai II and his family, leaving them in an abandoned mine. These events gave ill fame to new soviet authority and are related with one of the most frightening pages of russian history.
Map of the Ganina Yama complex
The mine is located in a pine forest and is now called Ganina Yama (in translation Ganya’s Pit). «Ganya» - is the short name for Gavriel. In the era of the Urals “Gold Rush” (the middle of XIX century) a contractor Gavriel bought this plot of land hoping to find a gold in it. Soon it became clear that the mine doesn’t contain gold, but it contains iron ore. By the beginning of 20th century the mine got abandoned and became overgrown with a forest.
Early on the morning of July 17, 1918, Ganina Yama met remains of the Tsar, his family and their faithful servants. The bodies were thrown into the mine, after a while got dismembered, and then within two days destroyed by fire and sulfuric acid.
As we arrived at the place, we were amazed – how many people came here from different parts of Urals and Russia, despite the inclement weather. We left the car, took a breathe of the fresh crisp forest air and went to the very complex.
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The second place visited that weekend (see the previous post) was the village Nizhnaya Sinyachiha famous for the outdoor museum of wooden architecture located in Urals.
The village Nizhnaya Sinyachiha
The museum is a result of hard work of Russian engineer and collector Ivan Samoylov devoted his life to recreation of historical treasures. During his trips over Russia Samoylov often saw old historical buildings which went to waste in economically unviable villages. His idea was to create a culture preserve with all these architectural sights. For the preserve he chose a wonderful russian village fouded in 1680 year.
In this place Samoylov and his team of restorers revived Spaso-Preobrazhenskiy Cathedral – nine-domed, 64 meters high monument in “Tobolsk’ baroque” style. Inside of the cathedral there is a museum of folk art. Right here we started our acquaintance with the preserve.
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November 11th, 2009
Alena
This weekend was very rich in regard to impressions, because we visited at once two interesting places. The first one was the border between Europe and Asia – one of famous places in Urals and Russia.
Monument on the border between Europe and Asia
The idea to part Europe and Asia was first time suggested by sweden scientist Stralenberg in 1730. But there were a lot of disussions on where exactly to place the border. It was difficult to determine because there is no clear transition between these two parts of the world and geologically they are alike. Finally scientists agreed to consider Urals (Ural mountains) as natural border.
There are several monuments set on the border. We went to the nearest and the most popular, situated in 17 km from Ekaterinburg city. Usually there are weddings’ photo sessions near this monument on Friday and Saturday, but this Saturday there were almost no people and we successfully took photoes there.
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