Partitioning of Sverdlovsk Oblast

The partitioning of the old Sverdlovsk Oblast between June of 2008 and October of 2009 was an important, but somewhat frustrating part of Uralica's history.

Reasons
Although the population of Sverdlovsk Oblast was predominantly ethnic Russian, it also had a large Mari population and was less affected by extremism than the more westerly regions. When Uralica began annexing territories that requested to be annexed in April of 2008, the people of the region seemed eager to join in. However, Uralica lacked the financial resources or the political clout to take all of the oblast at once. Therefore what Uralica could annex, they did, leaving the door open for future expansion.

Later Ramifications
When the Counties Act was passed in August of 2009, it became set in stone that even the remainder of Sverdlovsk Oblast were to be annexed, it would be as a different entity. East Uralica, which at the time was Uralica's easternmost county (since surpassed by Yamalia), was comprised of the nine most northwesterly districts of the old Oblast - that is, Serov City, Serov Region, Novaja Ljalja, Krasnoturjinsk (now Punaturjin), Karpinsk, Volchansk, Severouralsk, Gari, and Ivdel'.



The above image is a rough estimation of how the partitioning turned out. However the partitioning took a weird twist upon the creation of Southeast Uralica in early October of 2009. Nizhny Tagil's unitary authority was easy enough to create, as the Tribal Council simply went by the old boundaries from Russian times. However, Yekaterinburg, in spite of having its own district, was another story entirely.

The municipal council saw Y-burg as the centre of a "Greater Yekaterinburg," which only cut into parts of some of the various surrounding districts, most notably Sysert', Verkhnyaya Pyshma, and Beryozovski. It took another month to get the final border of the Greater Yekaterinburg Unitary Authority sorted out. Still, the pragmatism of the newly-formed Greater Yekaterinburg, coupled with the fact that the partition otherwise went smoothly without having to redraw any borders, made the mastermind behind the partitioning, one Yevgeny Kolpakov, deem this a success for Uralica. The upside to having the separation meant that operations didn't have to go so far to be ratified by the regional government. It was a break for a lot of settlements, particularly Ivdel', which is nearly 550 kilometres from Yekaterinburg, but only around 175 from Serov, the seat of Southeast Uralica.