The flag and the emblem of Ekaterinburg

The capital of the Urals is more than 1,500 kilometers from Moscow, but it was not spared the waves of renaming that took place throughout Russia during the political upheavals of the 20th century. Named after the first Russian empress, the city from 1924 for 67 years was called Sverdlovsk, in memory of a political figure of a completely different kind. The coat of arms of Yekaterinburg for three centuries of the city's existence also did not escape the related metamorphosis.

Fortress and factory

Peter the Great clearly realized the importance of mining and metallurgy for the successful course of his reforms, for the economic and military development of Russia. In the spring of 1723, on the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, on the banks of the Iset River , the construction of the largest iron-making plant at that time began. He became, as it is customary to say now, a city-forming enterprise. The day when the first water-powered, huge hammers were used to forge Krytsa - a block of iron, obtained from cast iron - was the date of the formation of Yekaterinburg - November 7, 1723.

George Wilhelm de Gennin, the closest associate of the tsar-reformer, who was in charge of the construction of the plant, proposed the city in honor of the wife of Emperor Peter. On technical equipment, progressive technology, the Yekaterinburg plant was the best in Europe for the first time. The new capital of the mining region was destined to play the role of one of the locomotives of the country's heavy industry in peacetime and a reliable logistics supplying weapons and ammunition to the front during the wars. Through it lay a railway that connected the European and eastern parts of the country - Ekaterinburg was the gateway to Siberia.

Attributes of the mining and metallurgical industry, symbols of the borderlands of Europe and Asia, and the coat of arms of Yekaterinburg. They are present in modern urban emblems, and in the first versions developed by the herald-masters of Peter's time.

The project of Count Santi

Count Francesco Santi, or Franz Matveyevich Santi (1683-1758) was the founder of Russian heraldry. The emblem of Yekaterinburg was one and many attempts to bring motives from the Russian arms of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, known under the name "Titular" (1672), to classical European traditions. Some historians admit the participation in the creation of the first coat of arms of the capital of the Urals by the Russian herald master Stepan A. Kolychev (1674-1735) or the prominent Russian historian Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev (1686-1750).

The image of the factory workshop with a blast furnace and ore mines entered the first coat of arms of Yekaterinburg. Its description contains the attributes of Imperial Russia - the royal crown with red ribbons and two ovals with the monograms of Peter and Catherine I. In addition to them, on a silver cloud emitting golden rays, lie a cross-laying staff, wrapped in snakes, and a golden fanfare. The cloud is in the green field, the mine and the plant are in the red.

The county town of Perm governorship

In the reign of Catherine II, administrative reforms were actively carried out. As a result of one of them, Yekaterinburg received the status of a district town as part of the Perm vicegerency. In July 1783, the emblem of Yekaterinburg, which was designed with due regard for its new status, was supremely approved. Its authorship is attributed to the famous politician and scholarly Count Mikhail Mikhailovich Shcherbatov (1733-1790), who was once a herald master.

All the arms, designed for the cities of Perm governorship, have the same structure and a single color scheme. This is a shield divided in two. The upper part of the shield is the same - the coat of arms of Perm - in the red field a silver bear with the Gospel on it with a golden salary and a silver cross at the top. In the lower part - on the green field - a silver ore mine and a melting furnace.

Coat of arms of Bernhard Köhne

Since 1860, Alexander II carried out its administrative reform, within the framework of which it was provided the creation of new arms for many cities of Russia. This work was led by the famous herald-master Bernhard V. Kone. For Yekaterinburg, he created a coat of arms, which remained unapproved.

In the center of the composition is a silver shield with the emblem of Perm, located in the upper left corner , which means that the city belongs to the Perm province. In the center - a black furnace for melting metal with a scarlet flame, at the bottom of the shield - two rows of black and gold caps. The shield is crowned with a silver crown with three prongs, followed by two cross-laid picks, twisted by Alexander's ribbon.

The coat of arms of Sverdlovsk

Among the heraldic symbols of pre-revolutionary times, the coat of arms of Yekaterinburg was withdrawn from circulation. Photos with urban symbols were published in the press and on the central streets in preparation for the celebration of the 245th anniversary of the capital of the Urals. The final version was adopted only in 1973.

It was a silver shield containing a red (scarlet) image of the perimeter of the fortress built at the Yekaterinburg plant. On it - a gold or black gear and a strip of azure color, denoting the Iset River. Above on the strip - five shortened strips and a stylized image of a peaceful atom. On the left on the shield is a rising sable, on the right is a lizard.

Symbols of modern times

In September 1991, by the decision of the city authorities, the historical coat of arms of Yekaterinburg was restored. The vector of public moods of the time was aimed at denying the communist ideology and everything connected with it. And the real support and the necessary landmarks tried to find in the past, sometimes very far.

But it turned out that the use of heraldic symbols of two hundred years ago at the end of the 20th century is unreasonable. In 1996, work began on a new coat of arms and a flag. First, a contest was announced among contemporary heraldists, historians and artists, followed by public discussion. But the sketches presented, which offered a lot of stamp elements - traditional and rarely used - did not receive full and unanimous approval.

Some variants did not find approval among the townspeople, sometimes the new flag and the coat of arms of Yekaterinburg were not examined at the Heraldic Council under the President of the Russian Federation. The final version of the urban symbolism was approved in the spring of 2008 on the basis of a project developed by Herman Ivanovich Dubrovin, the deserved architect of Russia.

The modern coat of arms of Yekaterinburg. Description photo

The main component of the coat of arms is a shield divided into two lower-intersected fields - green (the traditional color of the Urals) and gold. The upper part, reminiscent of the shape of the fortress of the Yekaterinburg plant, contains silver images of a log house with a collar designating a miner's mine and an old smelting furnace with a scarlet flame in the furnace. The lower part of the shield is crossed by a horizontal double blue wavy line bordered with silver - the symbol of the Iset River.

At the top of the shield is a tower gold crown of five teeth with a complement in the form of a laurel wreath. On each side are two figures of animal-bearers. On the left - symbolizing the European part of Russia, on the right - the symbol of Asia - the Siberian sable. They are adorned with collars of black and gold squirrel fur, and their teeth, like the guards of the city, bared their teeth and their scarlet tongues poked out.

Bear and sable rely on a golden ribbon - a symbol of the important status of the capital of the Urals. In the middle of the tape, on top of the shield - the image of the drusen - the fused crystals - the personification of the wealth of the Earth's interior of the Urals.