On the border of Europe with Asia

The Urals are annoyed when their native Urals are called Siberia or say: “Sverdlovsk region, is it somewhere in Siberia?”
The grief of the Urals is understandable, but the rights and the other side. The word Ural on the maps of Russia appeared only in the XVIII century. What were the Ural Mountains called before? Turns out, just a rock. In Russia, they said: the western part is Muscovy, and everything behind the stone is Siberia.

The word Ural in Russian appeared thanks to Vasily Tatishchev, a colleague of Peter the Great, one of the founding fathers of Yekaterinburg. As the head of the new city-factory of Yekaterinburg, Tatishchev studied the history of the area. He gave the name to our mountains, or rather, borrowed it from the ancient Finno-Ugric tribes - the Urals, i.e. stone.

In addition, Tatishchev indicated on the map where the border of Europe with Asia should pass - 17 km from Yekaterinburg on the Siberian (now Novomoskovsk) highway. Since then, there was a saying: “crossed the Urals – farewell Europe, I ran away.”

While critics say the boundary isn’t precise, it’s exactly where Tatishchev pointed out that Ural guests and wedding motorcades travel to take pictures, standing with one foot in Europe and the other in Asia. The monument on the border near Yekaterinburg is not the only one. More recently, a new majestic pedestal was opened near Kachkanar on the highway from Perm to Nizhny Tagil.


Author: Lyuba Suslyakova
Author's personal page: www.personalguide.ru/guids/1/736/