Editing Ural Mountains (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of human settlement in the Ural Mountains}}
[[File:UralMountains1.png|thumb|upright]]
As merchants from the Middle East traded with the [[Bashkirs]] and other people living on the western slopes of the Ural as far north as [[Great Perm]], since the 10th century, medieval [[Arab geographers|mideastern geographers]] had been aware of the existence of the mountain range in its entirety, stretching as far as the Arctic Ocean in the north. The first Russian mention of the mountains to the east of the [[East European Plain]] is provided by the ''[[Primary Chronicle]]'', where it describes the [[Novgorod Republic|Novgorodian]] expedition to the upper reaches of the [[Pechora (river)|Pechora]] in the year 1096. During the next few centuries, the Novgorodians engaged in [[fur trading]] with the local population and collected tribute from [[Yugra]] and [[Great Perm]], slowly expanding southwards. The city-state of Novgorod established two trade routes to the [[Ob (river)|Ob River]], both starting from the town of [[Ustyug]].{{sfn|Naumov|2006|p=53}} The rivers, [[Chusovaya]] and [[Belaya (Kama)|Belaya]], were first mentioned in the chronicles of 1396 and 1468, respectively. In 1430, the town of [[Solikamsk]] (Kama Salt) was founded on the [[Kama (river)|Kama]] at the foothills of the Ural, where salt was [[Open-pan salt making|produced in open pans]]. [[Ivan III of Russia|Ivan III]], the grand prince of Moscow, captured Perm, Pechora and Yugra from the declining Novgorod Republic in 1472. With [[Yugra campaigns|the excursions]] of 1483 and 1499–1500 across the Ural, Moscow managed to subjugate Yugra completely.{{sfn|Naumov|2006|p=53}} The Russians received tribute, but contact with the tribes ceased after they left.{{sfn|Naumov|2006|pp=53–54}}

[[File:Herberstein-Moscovia-NE.png|thumb|A fragment of [[Sigismund von Herberstein|von Herberstein]]'s map]]
Nevertheless, around the early 16th century, Polish geographer, [[Maciej of Miechów]], in his influential ''Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis'' (1517) argued that there were no mountains in Eastern Europe at all, challenging the point of view of some authors of Classical antiquity, which were popular during the [[Renaissance]]. Only after Sigismund von Herberstein in his ''[[Notes on Muscovite Affairs]]'' (1549) had reported, following Russian sources, that there are mountains behind the Pechora and identified them with the [[Riphean Mountains]] and [[Hyperborea]]ns of ancient authors, did the existence of the Ural, or at least of its northern part, become firmly established in the [[Age of Discovery|Western geography]]. The Middle and Southern Ural were still largely unavailable and unknown to the Russian or Western European geographers.

[[File:Verkhoturye 1910 LOC prok 02108.jpg|thumb|[[Verkhoturye]] in 1910]]
In the 1550s, after the [[Tsardom of Russia]] had defeated the [[Khanate of Kazan]] and proceeded to gradually annex the lands of the Bashkirs, the Russians finally reached the southern part of the mountain chain. In 1574, they founded [[Ufa]]. The upper reaches of the Kama and Chusovaya in the Middle Ural, still unexplored, as well as parts of Transuralia still held by the hostile [[Siberian Khanate]], were granted to the [[Stroganovs]] by several decrees of the tsar in 1558–1574. The Stroganovs land provided the staging ground for [[Yermak Timofeyevich|Yermak]]'s [[Conquest of the Khanate of Sibir|incursion into Siberia]]. Yermak crossed the Ural from the Chusovaya to the [[Tagil]] around 1581. In 1597, Babinov's road was built across the Ural from Solikamsk to the valley of the [[Tura (river)|Tura]], where the town of [[Verkhoturye]] (Upper Tura) was founded in 1598. Customs was established in Verkhoturye shortly thereafter and the road was made the only legal connection between European Russia and Siberia for a long time. In 1648, the town of [[Kungur]] was founded at the western foothills of the Middle Ural. During the 17th century, the first deposits of [[iron ore|iron]] and [[copper ore|copper]] ores, [[mica]], [[gemstone]]s and other minerals were discovered in the Ural.

Iron and copper [[smelting]] [[manufacture|works]] emerged. In particular, the [[Gumyoshevsky mine]] was established in 1702 at an ancient copper deposit known since [[Bronze Age]] — so-called "legendary" [[The Mistress of the Copper Mountain|Copper Mountain]] which also produced [[malachite]]. Mining intensified particularly quickly during the reign of [[Peter I of Russia]]. In 1720–1722, he commissioned [[Vasily Tatishchev]] to oversee and develop the mining and smelting works in the Ural. Tatishchev proposed a new copper smelting factory in [[Yegoshikha]], which would eventually become the core of the city of [[Perm, Russia|Perm]] and a new iron smelting factory on the [[Iset (river)|Iset]], which would become the largest in the world at the time of construction and give birth to the city of [[Yekaterinburg]]. Both factories were actually founded by Tatishchev's successor, [[Georg Wilhelm de Gennin]], in 1723. Tatishchev returned to the Ural on the order of [[Anna of Russia|Empress Anna]] to succeed de Gennin in 1734–1737. Transportation of the output of the smelting works to the markets of European Russia necessitated the construction of the [[Siberian Route]] from Yekaterinburg across the Ural to Kungur and Yegoshikha (Perm) and further to Moscow, which was completed in 1763 and rendered Babinov's road obsolete. In 1745, gold was discovered in the Ural at [[Beryozovskoye deposit|Beryozovskoye]] and later at other deposits. It has been mined since 1747.

The first ample geographic survey of the Ural Mountains was completed in the early 18th century by the Russian historian and geographer Vasily Tatishchev under the orders of Peter I. Earlier, in the 17th century, rich ore deposits were discovered in the mountains and their systematic extraction began in the early 18th century, eventually turning the region into the largest mineral base of Russia.<ref name="brit"/><ref name=bse/>

One of the first scientific descriptions of the mountains was published in 1770–71. Over the next century, the region was studied by scientists from a number of countries, including Russia (geologist [[Alexander Karpinsky]], botanist [[Porfiry Krylov (botanist)|Porfiry Krylov]] and zoologist [[Leonid Pavlovich Sabaneyev|Leonid Sabaneyev]]), the United Kingdom (geologist Sir [[Roderick Murchison]]), France (paleontologist [[Édouard de Verneuil]]), and Germany (naturalist [[Alexander von Humboldt]], geologist [[Alexander Keyserling]]).<ref name=brit/><ref name="London1894">{{cite book|author=Geological Society of London|author-link=Geological Society of London|title=The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_dy8RAAAAIAAJ|year=1894|publisher=The Society|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_dy8RAAAAIAAJ/page/n74 53]}}</ref> In 1845, Murchison, who had according to ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' "compiled the first geologic map of the Ural in 1841",<ref name=brit/> published ''The Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains'' with de Verneuil and Keyserling.<ref name="London1894"/><ref name="Murchison1845">cf. {{cite book|last1=Murchison|first1=Roderick Impey|author-link1=Roderick Impey Murchison|author2=de Verneuil, Edouard |author3=Keyserling, Alexander |title=The Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_06hAAAAAcAAJ|year=1845|publisher=John Murray|author-link2=Édouard de Verneuil|author-link3=Alexander Keyserling}}</ref>

The first railway across the Urals had been built by 1878 and linked Perm to Yekaterinburg via [[Chusovoy]], [[Kushva]] and [[Nizhny Tagil]]. In 1890, a railway linked Ufa and [[Chelyabinsk]] via [[Zlatoust]]. In 1896, this section became a part of the [[Trans-Siberian Railway]]. In 1909, yet another railway connecting Perm and Yekaterinburg passed through Kungur by the way of the Siberian Route. It has eventually replaced the Ufa – Chelyabinsk section as the main trunk of the Trans-Siberian railway.

The highest peak of the Ural, [[Mount Narodnaya]], (elevation {{convert|1,895|m|ft|abbr=on|disp=sqbr}}) was identified in 1927.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://welcome-ural.ru/tours/309/|title=Climbing the highest mountains of the Nether-Polar Ural ::: Ural Expedition & Tours|website=welcome-ural.ru}}</ref>
[[File:Уральские горы - panoramio (1).jpg|left|thumb|300x300px|Wooded Ural Mountains]]
During the [[Soviet industrialization]] in the 1930s, the city of [[Magnitogorsk]] was founded in the South-Eastern Ural as a center of iron smelting and [[steelmaking]]. During the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the Soviet Union]] in 1941–1942, the mountains [[The Ural mountains in Nazi planning|became a key element in Nazi planning]] for the territories which they expected to conquer in the USSR. Faced with the threat of having a significant part of the Soviet territories occupied by the enemy, the government evacuated many of the industrial enterprises of European Russia and Ukraine to the eastern foothills of the Ural, considered a safe place out of reach of the German bombers and troops. Three giant [[List of Soviet tank factories|tank factories]] were established at the [[Uralmash]] in Sverdlovsk (as Yekaterinburg used to be known), [[Uralvagonzavod]] in Nizhny Tagil, and [[Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant]] in Chelyabinsk. After the war, in 1947–1948, Chum – [[Labytnangi]] railway, built with the forced labor of [[Gulag]] inmates, [[Salekhard–Igarka Railway|crossed the Polar Ural]].

[[Mayak]], {{convert|150|km}} southeast of [[Yekaterinburg]], was a center of the Soviet nuclear industry<ref name=brit/><ref name="PodvigBukharin2004" /><ref name=military /><ref name="Society2006" /> and site of the [[Kyshtym disaster]].<ref name=military /><ref name="Inc.1991" />