I Love "Sverdlovesk"

Sverdlovsk/Ekaterinburg is a very nice town; spacious and calm, with nice wide streets and a big lake (now frozen) right in the centre. It does, however, have the dubious fame of being the place where the deposed Tsar Nicholas and his entire family were shot and bayoneted to death in 1919 after the Communist government decided that they were too great a threat. The same year, Nicholas’ sister Elizabeth was thrown down a well, and after they realised she was still alive they buried her alive and set her on fire. In honour of these achievements, the city, which was originally named Ekaterinburg after Empress Catherine the Great (who did not in fact die having sex with a horse, but did, apparently, have a room devoted to bizarre sex objects), Lenin decided to rename the city Sverdlovsk after the commander (Sverdlov) whose idea it was to do the Romanovs in.

Since 1992, the city has reverted to the old name of Ekaterinburg, and now Romanov-iana is back in a big way; the church has not only constructed the huge and ostentatious Church of the Blood on the site where the Romanovs were killed, but indeed has made the entire Romanov family (Tsar Nicholas, Tsarina Alexandra, their four daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, their haemophiliac son Alexei, and Nicholas’ sister Elizabeth) official Orthodox saints. The Church of the Blood is thus mega-blinged up, and houses the most expensive icon in all of Russia. Seeing twentieth century historical figures (and not particularly bright ones in the case of Nicholas and Alexandra) decked out in the full regalia of Orthodox saints was certainly one of the many surreal experiences I’ve had in Russia. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take pictures in the church, but you are (of course) allowed to buy tourist tat, meaning that I am now the proud owner of this rather glorious Romanov necklace.



What adds to the strangeness of the whole experience is that despite the official renaming the town is still often known by its old name of Sverdlovsk (and there is a sign saying 'I Love Sverdlovesk, the picture of which I was hoping to put up but which forgot to put on the flash drive). The name Sverdlovsk proudly stands above the railway station and the statue of Sverdlov continues to stand prominently in the town square. Only in post-Communist Russia could a city have both a big fat cathedral to the Romanov ‘saints,’ and a big fat statue of the guy who decided to do them in – and only in post-Communist Russia could both still be venerated by large groups of the population.