Yekaterinburg is the city on the river Iset. And the Iset is our first toiler, our breadwinner and water source. And our early famous plants - Nizhne-Isetsky, Iron-making, and Verkh-Isetsky ones - were founded on its banks and worked due to its power.
The recent talk labeling Yekaterinburg the third capital of Russia fails to mention our small river. And no wonder: the Iset does give up to the marvelous powerful Neva and fattened up and the cared for river Moscow . But the Neva and the Moscow were not famous two and a half thousand years ago. And the Iset was. In V century B.C. the great ancient Greek historian Herodotus described Ryphean and Hyperborean mountains and mysterious Issedons who had been living on the river Issa. According to Herodotus the far mountains were fabulously rich: every year golden ears cropped up there on their own, and heavy golden grains fell onto the ground after had ripened. Some scientists believe that the Iset played an important role in the mythology of ancient Aries as one of the sacred rivers of the Paradise.
Such hypotheses might be easily accounted for by local patriotism. However the recent discovery of The Country of Towns located in the steppes of Southern Urals and Kazakhstan gave us a new point of view on ancient history of humankind and moved it far eastward to Urals.
V.N. Tatishchev found a wonderful place for the Ural capital: much ore, much wood and rivers flowing in all directions. «In spring the way from here throughout the whole Siberia by the Iset, to Kazan by the river Chusovaya and down by the river Kama and then by the river Koltma to Vychegda and Dvina is fairly available for merchants».
In 1695 Isbrant Ides, a Dutchman, going to China via Urals happened to cross our parts (the river Chusovaya, Nevyansk plant) and wrote that those lands «can be considered among the most beautiful in the world- all around there are wonderful flowers and plants giving off a nice ardor. Everywhere game occures in great amount»; he also remarked that on his way he saw beautiful fields, forests, rivers, lakes and the most well-developed and fertile lands one can imagine.
These are some sights of our city.
