Ural Federal University Scientists to Digitally Recreate Sverdlovsk’s Vtuzgorodok

The Department of History at the Ural Institute of Humanities of UrFU will digitally reconstruct Vtuzgorodok, a district of Ekaterinburg. Construction of the district began in the late 1920s. The project was awarded 600 thousand rubles as a result of the History of the Fatherland Foundation project competition, along with another project, the IX Ural Archaeographical Readings.

“Vtuzgorodok is significant as the first specialized scientific and educational urban planning complex in the country and one of the largest industrial construction sites in the USSR during the 1930s. The district’s history highlights the link between science, higher education, and production that emerged during industrialization. This underscores the significance of effective scientific and educational policies for successful reindustrialization and the development of import-substituting industries”, says project leader Sergey Sokolov, Head of the Department of Russian History at UrFU.

The university believes that the project dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the start of industrialization in the USSR is significant for the development of domestic tourism.

The scientists will use their experience developing a virtual museum of urban space in quarter No. 89, which the department’s team carried out with the Ekaterinburg History Museum four years ago. They recreated one of the central quarters of the Ural capital as it was in 1938. The recreation includes an interactive map, a chronological table, and several articles and essays about the buildings, inhabitants, and significant historical events related to this location.

The All-Russian scientific conference ‘IX Ural Archaeographical Readings’ is scheduled for September 10-12. The conference is significant as it coincides with several important dates: the 450th anniversary of the publication of the first printed Slavonic ‘Alphabet’ by Ivan Fedorov, the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the 50th anniversary of the Ural Archaeographic Center.

“We are organizing a scientific and educational conference to highlight Russian traditional book culture. Additionally, we will showcase an exhibition of Cyrillic writing monuments from the 16th to the 20th centuries. This exhibition will reflect the main stages of Ivan Fedorov’s activity, his companions, and their successors”, notes Irina Pochinskaya, Head of the Academic and Research Laboratory of Archeographic Studies.

Pochinskaya adds that the exhibition will continue for a month after the conference ends.