Qibla direction in Chelyabinsk

How to face the Qibla in Chelyabinsk

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 34.3° towards west: the result is the bearing of 214.3°. Because the angle sits far from the cardinal points, a rough guess such as “south” would be off by more than 30°, which is why a measured bearing matters in Chelyabinsk.

Scholars agree that someone who can see the Kaaba must face it exactly, while someone far away faces its direction (jihat al-Ka‘bah) as precisely as reasonably possible. The simplest check in Chelyabinsk is a local mosque: its mihrab and prayer lines already point to the Qibla. See the mosques of Chelyabinsk. At home, mark the direction once with tape or a small arrow so the whole family prays the same way.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Chelyabinsk to Mecca points to 205.9° (south-west), 8.4° away from the correct 214.3°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is 10 km longer than the true shortest route. The Qibla follows the great circle, the shortest path on the curved Earth, which is why the bearing differs.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 55.1611° N, 61.4288° E to the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E). It is the method used by mosque architects and by every serious Qibla calculator, and it gives one exact answer for each point on Earth.

Distance from Chelyabinsk to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,161 km from Chelyabinsk as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,853 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 24 min, although most pilgrims from Chelyabinsk connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Chelyabinsk run 2 hours ahead of Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Chelyabinsk rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Chelyabinsk

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Chelyabinsk while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in January (31 days); for example, on 1 January 2027 it happens at 15:28 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Chelyabinsk during daylight, so the shadow method does not apply here; the left-hand column is the one to use.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Chelyabinsk: at 14:18 and 14:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Chelyabinsk compared with other cities

Compared with Moscow, 1,495 km away, the Qibla in Chelyabinsk is turned 38.0° further clockwise (214.3° against 176.4°), and Mecca is 339 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Miass (85 km), prays towards 212.5°, a difference of 1.8°.

Across the 158 cities in Russia on this site, the Qibla ranges from 148.7° in Kaliningrad to 305.3° in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, a spread of 156.6°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Russia.

Qibla in cities near Chelyabinsk

• Miass212.5° · 85 km
• Zlatoust211.8° · 113 km
• Kamensk-Uralsky214.2° · 142 km
• Yekaterinburg212.0° · 195 km
• Pervouralsk211.0° · 215 km
• Kurgan219.6° · 250 km