At the Center of it All

If you want to understand Yekaterinburg and the Urals, begin by

acquainting yourself with Eduard Rossel, governor of Sverdlovsk region. This tough, independent politician is the very model of a modern Russian regional governor. And much of his life mirrors the last half century of Russian history.

Rossel was born at the very height of the Great Terror in 1937. His family was ethnic German and his father, then 20, was executed in the purges, not long before Eduard was born. His mother was sent to the camps and Rossel bounced from orphanage to orphanage. In 1947, his mother was released from the camps and she undertook a nationwide search for Rossel, finally locating him in Kirov oblast. He was 11 years old and spoke very little Russian. Nonetheless, he went on to become an excellent student.

But the post-War world was not a favorable time for Germans in Russia. When Rossel first sought entrance to an agricultural institute, the reply was unequivocal:  “You, German, take up a shovel and turn the dirt at a Sovkhoz, and don’t count on anything else.” When he tried to enter a military institute, he got a similar  response: “A son of an enemy of the people does not have a right to test military planes of the invincible Red Army.”

Rossel finally gained entrance to the Sverdlovsk Mining Institute and, after graduation, obtained an advanced degree at the Urals Polytechnical Institute. He then began working in construction, starting as a foreman and working his way up to head a large construction association. In 1983, he was called to  Sverdlovsk by Boris Yeltsin, who soon thereafter left his post as Sverdlovsk governor to work in Moscow. In 1990, Rossel was elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies and in 1991 he was appointed head of the administration of Sverdlovsk oblast.

In 1993, Rossel came to national attention when he called for an independent Urals republic. It cost him his job. But he was not out of politics for long. Within a year, he had been elected to the upper house of the Russian Duma and, in 1995, when, for the first time anywhere in Russia, voters were allowed to directly vote for their region’s governor, Rossel won the polling. He remains a staunch exponent of federalism and said recently that he no longer calls for a Urals republic because the new Russian constitution has brought enough regional independence.

In August 1999, Rossel faced a serious reelection contest for governor. Before the polling, fully 35% of the local electorate said they would vote for anyone but him. Nonetheless, Rossel won in a landslide with 63% of the vote.

Rossel has persistently resisted alliances with any of the major political parties. He said in an interview at the end of 1999 that “Sverdlovsk oblast cannot be dragged hither and yon like a rag doll. We have our prestige, our opinion, which perhaps is uncomfortable for some. But that is how we will conduct ourselves.” And yet, in early 2000, Rossel endorsed the Kremlin’s Unity movement.

Rossel, the avowed populist, continues to toss out particularly brazen political ideas. He has called for halting circulation of dollars in Russia: “Russia needs to introduce a gold ruble [“chervonets”] and make it one-and-a-half times the value of the dollar.” And he has advocated introduction of a separate currency in the Urals. Rossel constantly stresses the significance of the Urals for the national economy, and for defense: “Without the Military Industrial Complex of Sverdlovsk oblast, the army would not exist.” Indeed, the oblast is among the top arms exporting regions in Russia.

Unfortunately, Sverdlovsk also leads the country in criminality. More crimes were committed in the region in 1998 than in any other region; there were 1025 murders that same year.

Notwithstanding this problem, the region has successfully pursued reforms under Rossel’s leadership. Fully three-quarters of the region’s economic output is from private enterprises. The region is one of the few net contributors to the federal budget and it is a veritable magnet for foreign investment. Over 130 foreign firms have branch offices in the region, with the US leading other nations in trade here.

Yekaterinburg has about 75,000 visitors annually, far more than local hotels can house in decent accommodations. Most visitors come on business and are from former CIS countries, but there are over 10,000 visitors each year from other countries (mainly the US, Italy, Germany and China). Aside from business, the “capital of the Urals” has much to offer, including several large parks in the city center, a fine arts museum that displays the region’s famous engraved trays, geological museums and a fascinating museum of military history.

Founded by Peter the Great at the divide between Asia and Europe, Yekaterinburg has repeatedly found itself at the center of Russian and international history. In 1745, gold was first discovered here: leading it to become a center of the Russian gold rush. In the 19th century, it was a center of Russian industrialization. In 1918, the imperial family was murdered here. In 1918 and 1919 it was a center for White forces in the Russian Civil War. In WWII, much of heavy industry from Moscow was removed to Yekaterinburg, to be out of reach of German bombers. In 1960, the American U2 pilot Gary Powers was shot down near here, to be exchanged for the Soviet spy Rudolph Abel two years later.

In 1976, a local boy, born in a village outside Yekaterinburg, became Communist Party First Secretary of the region. Fifteen years later, after  many contentious battles, Yekaterinburg’s most notable son, Boris Yeltsin, became Russia’s first freely-elected president.

Eduard Rossel is very much a politician in the Yeltsin mold. Headstrong and independent, Rossel is the personification of this tough, important region that straddles Asia and Europe—right in the middle of it all.