Sverdlovsk/Ekaterinburg
The city was originally known as Ekaterinburg, named after Saint Catherine, the namesake of Tsar Peter the Great's wife Empress Catherine I (Yekaterina). The city was named Sverdlovsk after the Bolshevik party leader and Soviet official Yakov Sverdlov from 1924 to 1991. It has since reverted to Ekaterinburg in spite of the signs at the train station.
It is famous for the place where Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra and five children were murdered by the Bolsheviks on July 17. 1918.
During WW II it was a major armaments manufacturing centre and continued to be until recently. It was closed to the outside until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990.
On May 1, 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane near Sverdlovsk and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers.
