Most people tend to think about minerals or other manufacturing industries when they think about the Urals. That’s because Ekaterinburg and many other cities in this region were originally founded as mining cities! The Ural Mountains are not only the physical border between Europe and Asia, but also rich with natural resources! Natural resources are materials and substances that comes from the land. Can you name any?
Some examples are energy sources like coal and oil, but also valuable materials like gold, copper, marble, and other minerals. Minerals come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. In September, I had the opportunity to visit a mineral show, where vendors sell small pieces of mineral stones and also jewelry made with them. Check out the pictures on the right -- look how different all the minerals look! Which one do you think is the prettiest?
As a souvenir, I bought a ring and earrings made of charoite, a mineral stone that is only found in Russia and not anywhere else in the world! How cool is that?
Since many cities in the Urals, including Ekaterinburg, were founded in order to be close to the places where minerals are found, there are a lot of engineers in Ekaterinburg. After all, it takes a lot of work and thinking to get the minerals out of the ground. Minerals are found fixed with other types of rocks, and you have to extract them. It’s kind of like searching for something that you can’t see! Mining engineers think of creative ways to dig up the rocks that contain these minerals, how to keep the miners safe when they are underground, and how to separate the minerals from other types of rocks.
