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A journey of some thousands of miles north-east of Moscow will bring one to the vast and colourful Ural Mountains, which are also called the Stone Belt. This land is rich and its history is full of heroism. The ancient ridge of the Ural Mountains stretching for two thousand kilometres from the Kars Sea in the North to the Ural River in the South presents a natural boundary between Europe and Asia and, at the same time, a link, a steel seam, tying up the two parts of the world in a single grand continent of Eurasia. The total area of the Urals is 824 thousand square km. The population of this territory is more than 20 million people. Geographers divided the Urals info five regions: the South, the Middle, the North, the Subarctic and the Arctic Urals.
Sverdlovsk region is situated mainly in the Middle and partly in the North Urals and occupies territory, which might be enough to cover Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and Denmark taken together. It reminds a gigantic triangle with its base a little below the Transsiberian mainline and its apex reaching the Polar-side of the Urals. It stretches on both sides of the Stone Belt. Its highest natural point is the Konzhakovsky Kamen rising 1492 meters above the sea level. The total area of the Region is 195,000 square km. Its population is about 5 million people. When travelling through the Urals you cannot help admiring its mountains, woods, rivers and lakes. The Urals nature is extremely beautiful though not striking. It has its own peculiarity with its not very high mountains and taiga, not large lakes and not long rivers, steppes and forests.
The climate is extreme continental: winters are cold (16–20 °C below zero in January), and summers are warm (16–25 °C above zero in July). There are years, though, when it rains in December and snows in June. The weather in the Urals is characteristic more of Asia, rather than of Europe. The town of Ivdel stands in the latitude of St Petersburg, but the weather in January there is two times colder than in the city on the Neva. The region's mountainous landscape is a factor that influences strongly its climate.
The widest part of the Urals comprises dozens of parallel ridges. It is bounded by the valleys of the Ufalei and the Ural rivers in the North and the South and is called the South Urals. The highest mountains of the South Urals Yamantau (1640 m) and Bolshoi Iremel (1582 m) are located in the western row of the ridges.
The Middle Urals presents the most lived-in-part of the Urals. The major transport routes connecting European Russia and Siberia pass here. The legendary Chusovaya River, the only river in the Urals that crosses the mountain chains from the east to the west, runs its waters in the Middle Urals.
The North Urals extends strictly in the meridional direction up to the latitudinal section of the valley of the Shchuger River. Telposiz (the ‘Nest of Winds’) is the highest mountain (1617 m).
The highest land of the Stone Belt is the Subarctic Urals.
At the head of the Khulga River, where the Subarctic Urals and the Arctic Urals meet, the range is presented by a narrow chain of mountains which are practically unfrosted and open to all winds.
There are more than 30 thousand lakes in the Urals. The most famous of them are Shartash and Baltym lakes not far away from Yekaterinburg and lots of Chelyabinsk lakes known by their beauty.
The land of the Urals owns considerable forest resources: its share in the total volume of state timber purchasing amounts to 15 percent.
The main routes from Europe to Kazakhstan, Middle Asia and Siberia pass through the Urals and the role of Transsiberian main line is the most important.
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