Irkutsk (, ) is one of the largest
cities in
Siberia and the administrative center of
Irkutsk Oblast, situated by rail from
Moscow. Population:
History
Irkutsk grew out of the winter quarters established (1652) by
Yakov Pokhabov for gold-trading and for the collection of the fur tax from the
Buryats. The town gained official city rights from the government in 1686. The first road connection between
Moscow and Irkutsk, the Siberian Road (,
Sibirsky Trakt), was built in 1760. The city benefitted economically from this new road. Many new products, often imported from
China, were widely available in Irkutsk for the first time, including
gold,
diamonds,
furs,
wood,
silk, and
tea.
In the early 19th century, many Russian
artists, officers, and
nobles were sent into
exile to Siberia for their part in the
Decembrist revolt against
Tsar Nicholas I. Irkutsk became the major center of intellectual and social life for these exiles, and much of the city's cultural heritage comes from them; many of their wooden houses, adorned with ornate, hand-carved decorations, survive today in stark contrast with the standard
Soviet apartment blocks that surround them.
Irkutsk railway station in the early 1900s
By the end of the 19th century there was one exiled man per two locals. Different people from the members of the Decemberists' uprising to Bolsheviks have been staying in Irkutsk for a long time. These people have greatly influenced the culture and the development of the city and it has finally became a prosperous cultural and educational center for Eastern Siberia.
1879, on
July 4 and 6, the palace of the (then) Governor General, the principal administrative and municipal offices and many of the other public buildings were destroyed by fire; and the government
archives, the
library, and the
museum of the Siberian section of the
Russian Geographical Society were utterly ruined. Three quarters of the city were destroyed, including approximately four thousand houses. However, the city quickly rebounded, with electricity arriving in 1896, the first theater being built in 1897, and a major train station in 1898. The first train arrived in Irkutsk on
August 16 of that year. By 1900, the city had earned the
nickname "The
Paris of Siberia."
thumb|right|275px|Epiphany Minster (built in 1718–1746)During the
civil war that broke out after the
Bolshevik Revolution, Irkutsk became the site of many furious, bloody clashes between the "
Whites" and the "
Reds". In 1920,
Kolchak, the once-feared commander of the largest contingent of anti-Bolshevik forces, was executed there, effectively destroying the anti-Bolshevik resistance.
During the Communist years, the industrialization of Irkutsk, and Siberia in general, was heavily encouraged. The large
Irkutsk Reservoir was built on the Angara between 1950 and 1959 in order to facilitate industrial development.
The Epiphany Cathedral (
illustrated, to the right), the governor's palace, a school of medicine, a museum, a military hospital, and the crown factories are among the public institutions and buildings. The
Alexander Kolchak monument, designed by
Vyacheslav Klykov, was unveiled in 2004. On July 27, 2004, the
Irkutsk Synagogue (1881) was gutted by a conflagration.
Geography and climate
The city proper lies at the
Angara River, a
tributary of the
Yenisei, below its outflow from
Lake Baikal, and on the bank opposite the
suburb of Glaskovsk. The river, which has a breadth of is crossed by a
flying bridge and two other bridges downstream. The
Irkut River, from which the town takes its name, is a small river which joins the Angara directly opposite the town. The main portion of the city is separated from several important landmarks—the
monastery, the
fort, and the
port, as well as its suburbs by another tributary, the Ida, or Ushakovka River.
As a Siberian city, Irkutsk experiences a
subarctic climate, characterized by extreme variation of temperatures between seasons. Temperatures can be very warm in the summer, and brutally cold in the winter. However, Lake Bajkal takes its effect, such that temperatures in Irkutsk are not as extreme as elsewhere in Siberia. The warmest month of the year in Irkutsk is July, when the mean temperature is , the highest temperature recorded being 37 C. The coldest month of the year is January, when the mean temperature is only .
Precipitation also varies widely throughout the year, with the wettest month also being July, when precipitation averages 119 mm (4.70 in). The driest month is February, when precipitation averages only 7.6 mm (.30 in). Almost all precipitation during the Siberian winter falls as fluffy, low moisture content snow.
thumb|left|300px|View of Irkutsk from spaceIrkutsk is situated in a landscape of rolling hills within the thick
taiga, typical of eastern Siberia, and in contrast to the flat, open
steppe of western Siberia.
According to the regional plan Irkutsk city will be agglomerated with the satellite industrial towns of
Shelekhov and
Angarsk to form a metropolitan area with a total population of over one million.
Emblem
The original version of the emblem
The emblem of Irkutsk features an old symbol of
Dauria: a
Siberian tiger with a
sable in his mouth. When the emblem was devised in 1690, the animal was described as a tiger ("babr", a bookish word of Persian derivation) with a
sable in his mouth. This image had been used by the
Yakutsk customs office from about 1642. It has its origin in a seal of the
Siberia Khanate representing a sable and showcasing the fact that Siberia (or rather
Yugra) was the main source of sable fur throughout the Middle Ages. (Actually, the English word "sable" is derived from the Russian "sobol").
By the mid-19th century, the word "babr" had fallen out of common usage, but it was still recorded in the
Armorial of the Russian Empire. Furthermore, the tigers became extinct in this part of Siberia. In the 1870s, a high-placed French heraldist with a limited command of Russian assumed that "babr" was a misspelling of "bobr", the Russian word for "
beaver", and changed the wording accordingly. This modification engendered a long dispute between the local authorities, who were so confused by the revised description that they started to depict the "babr" as a fabulous animal, half-tiger and half-beaver.
The Soviets abolished the image altogether, but it was restored following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Economy
Energetics
Irkutsk hydropower station was the first cascade hydropower station in the Irkutsk region. The building of the dam was started in 1950 and finished in 1958.
Industry
The most famous large-scale industry in Irkutsk is
Irkut (company). Irkut ( ) refers to the
Irkutsk Aviation Industrial Association,it was setup in 1932 in the
Transbaykal region in the
Russian Federation. It is best known as being the manufacturer of the
Su-30 family of
interceptor/
ground-attack aircraft.The Russian government is planning to merge Irkut with
Ilyushin,
Mikoyan,
Sukhoi,
Tupolev, and
Yakovlev as a new company named
United Aircraft Building Corporation.
["." The New York Times. February 22, 2006]There is
Irkutsk Aluminium Smelter which belongs to
Rusal company.
Transport
Passenger
railway station in Irkutsk
Important roads and railways like the
Trans-Siberian Railway connect Irkutsk to other regions in Russia and
Mongolia. Also, the city is served by the
Irkutsk International Airport and the smaller
Irkutsk Northwest Airport.
The Federal road to
Vladivostok passes through a suburb of Irkutsk.
Culture
Television and mass media
There are many state and privately owned television stations in Irkutsk, including state IGTRK company http://irkutsk.rfn.ru and private ones http://as.baikal.tv AS Baikal TV, TV company AIST http://www.aisttv.ru, TV company Gorod http://www.gorodtv.ru, and e.g. http://www.vsp.ru VSP newspaper agency.
Irkutsk live webcamera inlc. life temperature in city center: http://as.baikal.tv/webcam/
Education
Irkutsk is home to
Irkutsk State Railway Transport University (since 1975),
Irkutsk State University (1918),
Baykalsky State University of Economics and Law (since 1932),
Irkutsk State Technical University (since 1939),
Irkutsk State Academy of Agriculture,
Irkutsk State Linguistic University (1948),
Irkutsk State Medical University,
Irkutsk State Pedagogical College, and a number of private colleges:
Siberian Institute of Law, Economics and Management (since 1993),
Institute of Economics of ISTU (since 1996), and others.
Science
As part of the Siberian Branch of the
Russian Academy of Sciences there are nine research institutes located in the Irkutsk Academgorodok suburb: Institute of Geography, Energy Systems Institute, Institute of Geochemistry, Institute of Systems Dynamics and Control Theory, Earth's Crust Institute, solar-terrestrial physics institute, Institute of Chemistry, Institute of Limnology (located on lake Baikal's shore), Institute of Plants Physics, Laser Physics Institute (Branch of the Novosibirsk-based Institute). Apart from SB RAS Research Institutes, there are R&D institutes including
GAZPROM R&D Institute (Branch of Moscow-based Institute), Irkutsk Institute of Less-Common and Precious Metals and Diamonds.
Literature
Irkutsk has long been home to the well-known Russian writer
Valentin Rasputin; many of his novels and stories take place in the
Angara Valley. An essay on the cultural history of Irkutsk (and another one about the nearby
Lake Baikal) is included in Rasputin's non-fiction collection
Siberia, Siberia, which is also available in English translation.
Museums
The
Taltsy Museum (), located on the Angara 47 km south of Irkutsk, is an open-air museum of Siberian
traditional architecture. Numerous old wooden buildings from villages in the Angara valley which have been flooded after the construction of the
Bratsk Dam and
Ust-Ilimsk Dam have been transported to the museum and reassembled there. One of the centerpieces of the collection is a partial recreation of the 17th-century
ostrog (fortress) of Ilimsk, which consists of the original Spasskaya Tower and the Church of Our Lady of Kazan transported from the flooded
ostrog in the mid-1970s, to which an exact modern copy of another tower of the
ostrog and the southern wall of the fortress were added in the early 2000s
Sports
Bandy is a very big sport in the city. There are several clubs, and the best one,
Baykal-Energiya in the highest division of
Russian Bandy League, can draw spectator crowds of 30 000. It´s also the centre of women´s bandy in Russia with the club Rekord.
Sister cities/Twin Cities
Irkutsk has the following
sister/twin city relationships:
Images gallery
