There’s another name for the city that is of historic importance. During the Soviet period the city was called Sverdlovsk, named after the Bolshevik hero Yakov Sverdlovsk. Who was this guy? Well, the usually reliable Wikipedia says that he was a close ally of Vladimir Lenin, and that he played an important role in planning the October Revolution. He is said to be the person who ordered the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, which took place here in the city of Ekaterinburg on July 17, 1918. Later Sverdlov was the chief architect of the Red Terror. “It was claimed that Lenin provided the theories and Sverdlov made sure they worked.” That is what Wikipedia says. Russians say differently.  

My friend Galina believes that in ordering the execution of the tsar, Sverdlov was merely carrying out Lenin’s diktat. Slava says that within the last week he read a historian’s report saying that local Bolsheviks were entirely responsible for the murder of the tsar, and that no one in Moscow was informed of it for four days. Sverdlov was in any case guilty of many other murders, which were called justified by the still-influential Communist Party. The statue of Sverdlov remains on the main street of Ekaterinburg