Yekaterinburg Transportation

getting a Taxi in Yekaterinburg is exactly like hitchhiking, so 1) if you want to get anyplace just hitch, & 2) expect to pay for it, but not really much.

Literally just stick your hand out or up, & a car will pull over. Usually not marked as a Taxi Cab, just a car. I never had to negotiate a price myself, but there always seemed to be extensive negotiations...

I seem to remember an "expensive" ride being: 3 people, well across town, for US $0.29 (twenty-nine cents).
At that rate, a full day of going to the Zoo, lunch, a museum, shopping, dinner, a club, another club, a friend's crib, & back home about US$3.oo
That's about the cost for a day pass in most major US cities on a city bus, but you get to go exactly where you want, & probably places you didn't yet know you wanted to go...

Operation

The Metro is a typical Soviet design,
which when completed will form a triangle from
three lines intersecting in the city centre.
Currently the seven stations comprise 8.6 kilometres of length
and are split between deep and shallow. Of the latter two are
pillar-trispans and one is a single vault (built to Kharkov technology).
The deep level stations compromise of one pylon, one column
and two Leningrad technology single vault, although one was built to
an indegious design making it appear as a single deck. Like all
ex-Soviet Metros, the stations are elaborately decorated, although
the economic hardships prevented for the full original designs
to be implemented.

The Metro is served by one depot, Kalinovskoe
and 56 cars are assigned to it. The annual ridership
is approximately 42.8 million people.

Timeline

Segment Date opened

Prospekt Kosmonavtov-Mashinostroitelei April 26, 1991
Mashinostroiteley-Uralskaya December 22, 1992
Uralskaya-Ploshchad 1905 Goda December 22, 1994
Ploshchad 1905 Goda-Geologicheskaya December 30, 2002

Yekaterinburg Metro

Yekaterinburg Metro (Russian: Екатеринбургский Метрополитен)
is a rapid transit system that serves the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia.

History

Yekaterinburg, formerly called Sverdlovsk was
always known as the capital of the Urals,
a natural divide between Europe and Asia, between
Siberia and the European Russia.
The city grew very rapidly being an important industrial
centre and a transport hub. Rapid transit system plans
began to originate in the late 1970s
and in 1980 construction began.
Dynamo station
Enlarge
Dynamo station

The city's uneven landscape as well as its layout with
a very dense city centre prompted to combine deep
level and shallow stations. On the 26 April 1991 the
sixth Metro of Russia and the 13th and last Metro of the
Soviet Union, which ceased to exist only a few months later,
was finally opened to the public. However the economic crises
of the early 1990s rocked the Metro very hard and the first stage
encompassed only three stations. However, the then Russian
president Boris Yeltsin diverted a lot of funds to finish the started
construction and by 1995 the Metro doubled in length (most notable
reason for this was due to Yekaterinburg being the president's hometown).
However since then only one extension was made.

Yekaterinburg Metro
Prospekt Kosmonavtov

Uralmash

Mashinostroitelei

Uralskaya

Dinamo

Ploshchad 1905 Goda

Geologicheskaya

Bazhovskaya

Chkalovskaya

Botanicheskaya

2 more images

Yekaterinburg, still called by it soviet name
Sverdlovsk in timetables, is an important
railway junction on Trans-Siberian Railway,
with lines radiating to all parts of the Urals
and the rest of Russia. As the economic slump
subsided, several European airlines started or
resumed flying to the city's Koltsovo International Airport (SVX).
These include Lufthansa, British Airways and Czech Airlines.

The Yekaterinburg Metro was opened in 1991.

A great way to travel to Yekaterinburg is by train No. 16 from Moscow Kazanskij station. It leaves Moscow at 3.17pm, arriving in Yekaterinburg at 8.30pm local time the next day. Note that all times given on the tickets and at train stations in Russia are Moscow time, Yekaterinburg time is +2. On the tickets Yekaterinburg is still refered to as Sverdlovsk, its old name.

getting a Taxi in Yekaterinburg is exactly like hitchhiking, so 1) if you want to get anyplace just hitch, & 2) expect to pay for it, but not really much.

The Busses are almost always packed solid, I joked that they were "zoo-busses" (pronounced zO-a-bus, hard "o" soft distinct "a") & it is often worth the $ to just take a taxi.
But if they aren't packed they are fun, the people who aren't trying to rip you off are really into seeing someone from someplace else.

Now it is easier than ever to get to Yekaterinburg by air. No need to book a transit flight via Moscow, because since this summer, except the local airlines, there are lots of foreign airlines going directly to the city: Malev (Hungarian Airlines), British Airways, Lufthansa, CSA (Czech Airlines), Finnair (soon).