Qibla direction in Yekaterinburg

How to face the Qibla in Yekaterinburg

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 32.0° towards west: the result is the bearing of 212.0°. 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 Yekaterinburg.

Facing the Qibla is a condition of the prayer. Whoever prays inside the Sacred Mosque faces the Kaaba itself; whoever is far away, as in Yekaterinburg, faces its direction and makes a sincere effort to be accurate. A nearby mosque is a handy reference, because its prayer rows were aligned when it was built. Once you know the direction at home, a discreet mark on the wall saves you from checking again.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Yekaterinburg to Mecca points to 203.6° (south-west), 8.4° away from the correct 212.0°. 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.

How is the figure of 212.0° obtained? From the coordinates of Yekaterinburg (56.8573° N, 60.6153° E) and of the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E), spherical trigonometry gives the starting bearing of the great circle joining them. Mosque architects and astronomical Qibla tables rely on exactly the same calculation.

Distance from Yekaterinburg to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,291 km from Yekaterinburg as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 3,978 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 33 min, although most pilgrims from Yekaterinburg connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Yekaterinburg 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 Yekaterinburg rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Yekaterinburg

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Yekaterinburg 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 15:21 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Yekaterinburg 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 Yekaterinburg: at 14:18 and 14:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Yekaterinburg compared with other cities

Compared with Moscow, 1,417 km away, the Qibla in Yekaterinburg is turned 35.6° further clockwise (212.0° against 176.4°), and Mecca is 469 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Pervouralsk (41 km), prays towards 211.0°, a difference of 1.0°.

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 Yekaterinburg

• Pervouralsk211.0° · 41 km
• Kamensk-Uralsky214.2° · 95 km
• Nizhny Tagil210.4° · 124 km
• Chelyabinsk214.3° · 195 km
• Zlatoust211.8° · 197 km
• Miass212.5° · 204 km