CAPITAL IDENTITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF EKATERINBURG (END OF THE 19TH — EARLY 21ST CENTURY)

Abstract

The paper deals with the phenomenon of Russia’s regional capitals with Ekaterinburg as an example. The concept of the capital is analyzed as a unity of three parameters: self-identification of the city as a regional center, economic growth and rise of the ‘metropolitan’ social and communal infrastructure of prosperity. The author emphasizes that the very idea of Ekaterinburg as a center of the Ural region, which emerged since the second half of the 19th century, was the result of economic growth of the city that was based upon the development of railways, science and culture, and resulted from the specific ‘historical luck’ of Ekaterinburg which became an epicenter of the large-scale projects of the 20th century industrial modernization (Ural-Kuzbass combine, West Siberia’s oil and gas industry). However, until the second half of the 20th century both capital ambitions and prominent economic role were unable to create state-of-the-art, ‘metropolitan’ infrastructure in the city. The creation of such infrastructure took place in 1960–1980s, when the amounts of construction of living houses reached its peak, and the historical central part of the city was re-imagined as a valuable heritage. Thus, historical and cultural trajectory became a key factor in regaining of the position of an influential regional center even when the industrial economy of Ekaterinburg lost its former prominence in the early 21st century.