| Sverdlovsk Oblast | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Свердловская область (Russian) | |||
| — Oblast — | |||
|
|||
| Coordinates: | |||
| Political status | |||
| Country | Russia | ||
| Federal district | Urals[1] | ||
| Economic region | Urals[2] | ||
| Established | January 17, 1934 | ||
| Administrative center | Yekaterinburg | ||
| Government (as of March 2011) | |||
| - Governor | Alexander Misharin[3] | ||
| - Legislature | Legislative Assembly | ||
| Statistics | |||
| Area (as of the 2002 Census)[4] | |||
| - Total | 194,800 km2 (75,212.7 sq mi) | ||
| Area rank | 17th | ||
| Population (2010 Census)[5] | |||
| - Total | 4,298,030 | ||
| - Rank | 5th | ||
| - Density | 22.06 /km2 (57.1 /sq mi) | ||
| - Urban | 83.9% | ||
| - Rural | 16.1% | ||
| Population (2002 Census)[6] | |||
| - Total | 4,486,214 | ||
| - Rank | 5th | ||
| - Density | 23.03 /km2 (59.6 /sq mi) | ||
| - Urban | 87.9% | ||
| - Rural | 12.1% | ||
| Time zone(s) | YEKST (UTC+06:00)[7] | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | RU-SVE | ||
| License plates | 66, 96 | ||
| Official languages | Russian[8] | ||
| http://www.midural.ru/ | |||
Sverdlovsk Oblast (Russian: Свердло́вская о́бласть, Sverdlovskaya oblast) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia located in the Urals Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Yekaterinburg formerly known as Sverdlovsk. Population: 4,298,030 (2010 Census preliminary results).[5]
Contents |
Most of the oblast lies on the eastern slopes of the Middle and North Urals and the Western Siberian Plain. Only in the southwest does the oblast stretch onto the western slopes of the Ural Mountains.
The highest mountains all rise in the North Urals (Konzhakovsky Kamen at 1,569 m and Denezhkin Kamen at 1,492 m). The Middle Urals is mostly hilly country with no discernible peaks; the mean elevation is closer to 300–500 m above the sea level. Principal rivers include the Tavda, the Tura, the Chusovaya, and the Ufa, the latter two being tributaries of the Kama.
Sverdlovsk Oblast borders with, clockwise from the west, Perm Krai, the Komi Republic, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Tyumen Oblast, Kurgan, and Chelyabinsk Oblasts, and the Republic of Bashkortostan.
The oblast is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude.
The oblast is rich in natural resources, particularly in metals (iron, copper, gold, platinum), minerals (asbestos, gemstones, talcum), marble and coal. It is mostly here that the bulk of Russian industry was concentrated in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The area enjoys continental climate patterns, with long cold winters (average temperatures reaching −15 °C (5 °F) to −25 °C (−13 °F) on the Western Siberian Plain) and short warm summers. Only in the southeast of the oblast do temperatures reach +13 °C (55 °F) in July.
Ethnic groups: There were twenty-one recognized ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. Residents identified themselves as belonging to a total of 148 different ethnic groups, including[9]:
Russian conquest of the Khanate of Kazan in the 1550s paved the way further east which was now free from Tatar depredations (see Yermak Timofeyevich). The first surviving Russian settlements in the area date back to the late 16th — early 17th centuries (Verkhoturye, 1598; Turinsk, 1600; Irbit, 1633; Alapayevsk, 1639). In the 18th and 19th centuries the area became the industrial heartland of Russia due to its rich deposits of iron and coal (see above). In the 1930s many industrial enterprises were established and built with the help of forced labour.[12] Local industry received another impetus during the World War II when important producing facilities were relocated here from the European part of Russia to safeguard them from the advancing Germans (for example, IMZ-Ural). In the postwar period much of the region was off-limits to foreigners and it was over Sverdlovsk that the American pilot Gary Powers was shot down on May 1, 1960, while on a reconnaissance mission. Another historic event that took place in Yekaterinburg was the execution of Nicholas II of Russia and the Imperial family in July 1918.
In 1993, Governor Eduard Rossel responded to perceived economic inequality by attempting to create a "Urals Republic." Sverdlovsk led the "Urals Five" (Kurgan Oblast, Orenburg Oblast, Perm Krai, Chelyabinsk Oblast and Sverdlovsk) in a call for greater regional power. They argued that the oblasts deserved as much power as the ethnic homeland republics. The Urals Republic Constitution went into effect on October 27, 1993. Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the Urals Republic and Sverdlovsk Parliament 10 days later (on November 9).
Since 2009, the oblast's Governor is Alexander Misharin.[13]
The oblast's Charter, adopted on December 17, 1994, with subsequent amendments, establishes the oblast government. The Governor (губернатор; gubernator)is the chief executive, who appoints the Government, consisting of ministries and departments. The Chairman/President of the Government (председатель правительства; predsedatel pravitelstva), commonly referred to as the Prime Minister, is appointed with the consent of the lower house of the legislature, a process similar to the appointment of the federal Prime Minister; but the Governor cannot nominate the same candidate more than twice, yet he/she can dismiss the house after three failed attempts to appoint the Premier. The Legislative Assembly (законодательное собрание; zakonodatelnoye sobraniye) consists of the Oblast Duma (областная дума; oblastnaya duma), the lower house, and the House of Representatives (палата представителей; palata predstaviteley), the upper house. Members of the legislature serve four-year terms; however, half of the Duma is re-elected every two years. The Duma (28 members) is elected by party lists; the 21 members of the House of Representatives are elected in single-seat districts in a first-past-the-post system. The Sverdlovsk Legislative Assembly was the first bicameral legislature outside an autonomous republic, and the first regional legislature in Russia to elect members by both party lists and single-seat districts.
Compliance with the Charter is enforced by the Charter Court. The existence of such regional courts in Russia, formed and functioning outside the federal judiciary, although challenged, has been upheld and persisted successfully in most constituent members of the Federation where they were established.
Until President Putin's reforms of 2004, the Governor was elected by direct vote for four-year terms. Eduard Rossel has been the only elected governor (first elected governor for an oblast in Russia) since 1995 (appointed in 1991 and dismissed in 1993 by President Yeltsin), re-elected in 1999 and 2003.
| Name | Period |
|---|---|
| Vyacheslav Surganov | April 20, 1996-April 2000 |
| Yevgeny Porunov | April 26, 2000-April 2002 |
| Nikolay Voronin | April 24, 2002-April 23, 2003 |
| Alexander Zaborov (acting) | April 23, 2003-July 3, 2003 |
| Nikolay Voronin | July 3, 2003-March 23, 2010 |
| Elena Chechunova | March 23, 2010-Incumbent |
| Name | Period |
|---|---|
| Aleksandr Shaposhnikov | April 20, 1996-May 1998 |
| Pyotr Golenishchev | May 14, 1998-April 2000 |
| Viktor Yakimov | April 21, 2000-April 2004 |
| Yury Osintsev | April 6, 2004-September 2007 |
| Lyudmila Babushkina | October 2007-Incumbent |
The oblast's industry is diverse although could be more modern. 12% of Russia's iron and steel industry is still concentrated in Sverdlovsk oblast. Iron and copper are mined and processed here and the logging industry and wood-processing are important, too.
Yekaterinburg is a prominent road, rail and air hub in the Urals region. As the economic slump subsides, several European airlines started or resumed flights to the city. These include Lufthansa, British Airways, CSA, Turkish Airlines, Austrian Airlines and Finnair. Malév Hungarian Airlines used to be among those carriers but they had to drop their flights to SVX (IATA airport code for Sverdlovsk) after a few months.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||