The paper examines the process of forming a cultural center of national level in Sverdlovsk, that is, a stable community of cultural actors working in one city and producing art which is measurably famous across throughout the country. The authors state that such cultural center arose in Sverdlovsk in the 1930s-1960s based on the acquired status of a “peripheral capital”, with Pavel P. Bazhov became the first Sverdlovsk literary figure possessing national popularity. Although local art and literary workers enjoyed certain popularity in the 1940s-1950s, it remained within a strict hierarchy of culture and was aimed at producing a “quasi-ethnic” Ural specificity. However, due to the socio-economic change of the 1960s, which led to the rapid growth of intelligentsia and bureaucracy (mainly in the fields of science, technology, planning, and projecting) in the city, Sverdlovsk cultural actors started to pursue innovative strategies, based on fashion, humanism, environmentalism, and historicism, to satisfy the growing non-market demand. Thus, in a planned economy, for the emergence of a national cultural center, not only stably funded cultural institutions were required, but also the presence of scientific and technical non-market demand, which would allow one to go beyond the strict hierarchy of cultural centers in a centralized Soviet system.