Alapayevsk () is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

Sverdlovsk Oblast Sverdlovsk Oblast ( rus, Свердловская область, Sverdlovskaya oblastʹ, p=svʲɪrdˈlofskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia located in the Ural Federal District. Its administrative center is the c ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, located at the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...

of the

Neyva The Neyva () is a river in the Sverdlovsk Oblast of Russia, which flows out of Lake Tavatuy along the slopes of the Ural Mountains through the urban-type settlement Verkh-Neyvinsky and the towns of Nevyansk and Alapaevsk. It is long, and has ...

and Alapaikha rivers. Population: 44,263 ( 2002 census); 50,060 ( 1989 census); 49,000 (1968).

History

Alapayevsk is one of the oldest centers of

ferrous metallurgy Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. The earliest surviving prehistoric iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. It is not known when or where the smelting of iron from ...

in the

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

with the first

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

built in 1704. The town proper was founded in 1781.

Murder of Russian Imperial family members

On July 18, 1918, the day after the shooting at

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg (, ; ), alternatively Romanization of Russian, romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( ; 1924–1991), is a city and the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District, Russia. The ci ...

of the last tsar, Nicholas II and

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

, other members of the extended Russian royal family, the

Romanovs The House of Romanov (also transliterated as Romanoff; , ) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russia. Nic ...

, including a

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 5 ...

, and their servants, met a brutal death there being thrown down a mineshaft near Alapayevsk by the local

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

s on the orders of the Ural Soviet. All except Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich (who was the first one to die; he was shot before they could throw him in) survived the fall, hand-grenades were thrown down after them killing Grand Duke Sergey's secretary, Fyodor Remez. Other victims died a slow death including the Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia,

Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia Prince Igor Constantinovich of Russia (''Игорь Константинович''; 10 June 1894 – 18 July 1918) was the sixth child of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia by his wife Elisaveta Mavrikievna née Princess Elisabet ...

and Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley, and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna (born Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine). Grand Duchess Elizabeth was the sister of Empress Alexandra; when her husband, the Tsar's uncle, was murdered in 1905, she gave all her wealth to the poor and became a nun, but she was shown no mercy."Death at Ekaterinburg"
''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

''. April 22, 1935. Archived fro
the original
June 4, 2008. Killed with her was a nun who had accompanied her -

Varvara Yakovleva Varvara Alexeyevna Yakovleva (; c. 1880 – July 18, 1918), called Nun Barbara (), was a Russian Orthodox nun in the convent of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna. She was killed by the Bolsheviks along with the grand duchess and Prince Ioann ...

. The bodies were recovered from the mine by the

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

in September 1918. The bodies were placed in coffins and despite the struggles between the Whites and the opposing

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, they were moved to the far east. Grand Duchess Elizabeth's remains were ultimately taken to

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

, where they were laid to rest in the

Church of Maria Magdalene The Church of Mary Magdalene (; ; ) is an Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church located on the Mount of Olives, directly across the Kidron Valley and near the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem. The church, dedicated to Ma ...

, while the coffins of the others were interred in a former Russian Mission in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, now beneath a parking area. In 1981, Grand Duchess Elizabeth was canonized by the

Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (), also called Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia or ROCOR, or Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA), is a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Pat ...

, and in 1992 by the

Moscow Patriarchate The Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus (), also known as the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, is the title of the Primate (bishop), primate of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). It is often preceded by the honorific "His Holiness". As the Ordinar ...

. Alapayevsk is a place of pilgrimage to the memory of Grand Duchess Elizabeth.Life Orphomed Russia
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Administrative and municipal status

Within the framework of the administrative divisions, it is, together with nine rural localities, incorporated as the

Town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

of Alapayevsk—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the

districts A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...

.Law #30-OZ As a municipal division, the Town of Alapayevsk is incorporated as Alapayevsk Urban Okrug.Law #85-OZ

Transport

The Alapayevsk narrow-gauge railway serves the communities around Alapayevsk.

Miscellaneous

Local orphanage (Alapaevsk Family-Type Orphanage) proclaims itself as the largest in the Urals.

Notable people

The composer

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popula ...

spent a part of his childhood in Alapayevsk.

References

Notes

Sources

* *

External links

Official website of Alapayevsk

Directory of organizations in Alapayevsk
{{Authority control Cities and towns in Sverdlovsk Oblast Verkhotursky Uyezd History of Yekaterinburg