Hydropower System of the Ural Factory City as a Unique Object of Industrial Heritage

The authors focus on the economic, sociocultural significance, and impact on the urban planning of dams and ponds created in the Ural factory cities in the 18-nineteenth centuries. The article provides the data on dams’ construction and their technical and design features. A number of hydroenergetic systems created in the 18–nineteenth centuries at the territory of modern Greater Ekaterinburg are presented: the dams and ponds in Ekaterinburg proper and its districts (former Nizhne-Isetski and Verkh-Isetski ironworks); the dams and ponds in Polevskoy, Revda, and Mariinsk. Their distinctive features are shown in comparison with dams of the seventeenth century in other regions of Russia, and updated quantitative data on these objects are given. The authors use a multicomponent model for the analysis (a dam from the architectural, urban, economic, sociocultural points of view), which contributes to better comprehension of the changing role of dams and ponds in the structure of industrial settlements and outline reasonable ways for their revalorization.