Cityguide

There are few more exciting moments in the world than when the curtain is at last lifted to reveal something long hidden, when we can look behind the stage and discover 'the secret'. The expression 'closed city' implies the promise of such excitement, something just enough for us to want to see it. Right up to the 1990s such a secret was represented by the town of Sverdlovsk (today Yekaterinburg) over the Ural Mountains, a place brimming with exciting stories about gold diggers, tsars, murderers and the Cold War atrocities of Soviet times.