Name: Irkutsk (derived from the name of the Irkut River, where the initial Cossack fortress was built)

Foundation date: July 6, 1661

Coat of arms: granted in 1686, depicts a babr (steppe tiger subspecies, inhabiting hot territories of China and sometimes coming to neighbouring Siberian areas) carrying a sable in its mouth. Sable stands for the prosperity of Irkutsk region and babr – for its powerfulness

Population 593,604 (Census of 2002)

Time zone: +5 hours Moscow Time

 Number of institutions of Higher Education: Irkutsk is home to Irkutsk State Railway Transport University (since 1975), Irkutsk State University (1918), Baykalsky State University of Economics & 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.

Number of theatres: 5 the Academic drama theatre named after N.P.Okhlopkov, the musical theatre, the young spectators' theatre, the regional puppet theatre, the national drama theatre and some amateur collectives. Concerts of chamber, classical and organ music take place in the regional philharmonic society.

Famous people about Irkutsk: “Like England created London and France – Paris, Siberia created Irkutsk. The land is proud of the city, and not to visit Irkutsk is equal to knowing nothing about Siberia.” (Nikolay Shelgunov, Russian publicist) “Of all Siberian cities the best is Irkutsk…The people are very intelligent. A theatre, city garden with live music performances, good hotels…Just like Europe.” (Anton Chekhov, Russian classical literature writer)

Siberian Pearls

When we started thinking about placing an essay about Irkutsk history on our web-site, we faced this evident situation: there is so much written and said, that it is basically impossible to succeed in making the story sound as fresh as spring lettuce.

If you are looking for a fundamental insight into the city history, visit official web-site of Irkutsk State Scientific Library.

We would like to contribute to the scope of information you might be interested in by offering you our exclusive intellectual dish: a narration about modern Irkutsk with some deviations to its history presented in form of comparative analysis with the development of a no less important Siberian city of Novosibirsk.

So, off we go!

Irkutsk was founded in 1661, so it is about 50 years older than St. Petersburg (interesting, isn’t it?) and over 3 times older than Novosibirsk (founded in 1891, when they started to construct Trans-Siberian over the Ob River, on which present-day Novosibirsk stands).

Needless to say, St. Pete’s easily surpassed Irkurtsk in terms of population and significance, primarily due to its geographic position (as we believe this particular aspect to be crucial when speaking about the chances for a settlement to turn into something bigger than a village. Take, for example, the famous Listvyanka village on the Baikal shore – during the iron curtain period nothing changed there for decades, these days when its geographic position has been evaluated to the full, there has been put forward the famous “Baikal - City” project, which aims at turning the place into a modern resort, scientific and political centre (learn more about it by clicking Investment Opportunities button on the main page of our web-site)).

If you are observant enough you will see, that Novosibirsk, despite its being over 200 years younger than Irkutsk, is a lot bigger. The population of the former is about one million and a half, where as the latter has only about 600,000 citizens. Again, this is all thanks to Mother Geography: firstly, the Ob River is full length navigable, which connects Novosibirsk with the territories to the north (all the way to the Kara Sea) and to the south (where the so-called “Siberian Switzerland” – Altai Mountains (a great tourist attraction) are) and there is basically no navigation on the Angara; secondly, Novosibirsk is about in the middle of Russia (from east to west, which makes it a convenient transportation point) whereas Irkutsk, being over 5,000 kilometers away from Moscow, is closer to the eastern part of the country, which turned it into an important trade crossroads with China (by the by, it has been reported recently that in Moscow there are so many trading centers, supermarkets, etc. that if total area they occupy is divided by the number of people living in the capital, there will be 1 m2 of shop area per a Muscovite. Nobody cared to conduct the same statistic investigation in Irkutsk, but we bet the figures would be a lot greater, as these days more and more trading centers and markets appear in the city – literally, like mushrooms after a warm summer rain; thirdly (though this point some might find controversial – we are only expressing our view and do not claim to be Mrs Always Right), it was sort of easier for Novosibirsk to adopt the conversion from Tsar rule to the Soviet regime (due to the fact it was founded just some 20 years before the Revolution and the people living there were mostly workers), compared to Irkutsk with its centuries-long tsarist history, merchants dynasties, hundreds of churches to be destroyed (though it is quite easy to blow up a cathedral, it is not as easy to alter a person’s way of thinking, especially if this is the descendant of the one who donated money for its construction). In other words, Novosibirsk passed over transition period without the complications Irkutsk had to struggle through, so the former gained a faster pace and the latter never managed to catch up.

Irkutsk enjoyed the title of the Capital of Siberia back though the XVIIIth – XIXth centuries thanks to its main treasure – people (Irkutsk was also called Siberian Paris because of educational and cultural influence of V.P. Sukachev on the city life (being born into a wealthy family, he studied in Europe, was the chairman of East Siberian Russian Geographic Society and was the one who started Irkutsk Arts Museum and Irkutsk State Local History and Geography Museum); Irkutsk had the fame of Siberian Athens if we speak about political innovations introduced by its governors (city heads) M.M. Speransky and N.N. Muravyev-Amursky), but time makes its corrections – today Novosibirsk overtook its older brother on the throne. It deserves the title, being the center of scientific research (its Academgorodok with over 30 Research Institutes being the seat of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences) and advanced technologies (famous Russian supersonic jets are produced here). Suffice it to say that back in 1990-ies, when the Soviet Union split, there was serious talk on governmental level about making Novosibirsk a political capital of Russia, leaving Moscow the role of a historical capital. As long as we have mentioned some differences between the two brothers, it would be reasonable to speak about some things they have in common.

 Like many other cities, Siberian brothers suffered from communist lack of respect for the past: Central Amusement and Leisure Parks in these cities are on the premises of old city cemeteries (mind it nobody cared to move the tombs to a new place – the majority of them were simply leveled to the ground). This act is equal of throwing away your great- great-grandmother’s photos, thinking: “I have never known the lady, so why bother keeping pictures of her? Besides, she looks not nearly as attractive as Mrs Lopez.” Such actions on the part of the big wigs have only negative effect on the society – this teaches young generations irresponsibility and heartlessness. Of course it is a lot more favorable for a city budget not to have an area located in the centre and bringing no profit but needing constant financial support (cemetery maintenance), but, on the other hand, aren’t society distortions caused by such destructive policy scary (what sort of people can bring their children to jump on the bones of their ancestors)? However, very few modern Irkutsk citizens are aware of the fact they are enjoying their weekends in the place, which used to be a graveyard. Forgetfulness is one feature common of all Siberians – not many people can trace their family tree even 100 years back. Is it because their life was too hard or too well packed with many events to remember everything? Or because good memory was not favored by the regime? Or is it simply because Siberians are more concentrated on their hopes to one day build their Brand New World (democratic Russia this time) that they have no time left to take care of the rear part of the house?

Both Irkutsk and Novosibirsk are important transport knots, having airports with domestic and international communication and being parts of the backbone of Russia – Trans-Siberian railway. They both have Academgorodok (scientists’ town).

Today Novosibirsk and Irkutsk are the biggest cities in the West and East Siberia respectively.

 Finally the ball of our speculations rolled into the year 2007. What is Irkutsk like today?

We look out of the window and see children’s playgrounds equipped with all possible types of swings, marry-go-rounds, ladders, and slides – all thanks to governmental program to support families having children. Everywhere around the city there are bill-boards informing us that according to the State Statistics Bureau data, there are only 6.6% families in Russia having more than 4 children. So the president and his team stimulate mothers to have a second child by giving 250,000 roubles to the family for educational purposes or for buying an apartment, after the second child reaches the age of three. Plus to that, it has to be a child born into the same family, i.e. if a woman had a child in its first marriage, then divorced, got married for the second time and gave birth to her second child in this new marriage, she will get nothing. Thus, this is also family consolidation policy. Can the prospect of getting 10,000 dollars keep people together for over three years?

May be the biggest piece of news pie is the construction of a new bridge over the Angara River. It involves dramatic changes in the city looks: firstly, car owners will sigh with relief, as the roads in some directions might get less jammed, besides, several modern highways are going to be put into action and central ones are getting considerably wider; however, we have to say our “secondly”, which is no less important – very many historical log buildings in the city are going to remain only in the pictures (if anybody takes care of that).

Some bitter news is that these days there are very few professionals in the field of mass media – those, who in some respect mold public opinion, develop taste for good writing and pleasurable reading: open any of Irkutsk fashion magazines, and you will find punctuation, stylistic and other types of mistakes even in the editorial. There are even mistakes in slogans of big trade companies, running their commercials on Federal channels!

Smoking, beer drinking and dogs of dangerous breeds (bull terriers, etc.) – a disgrace to let you know, but impossible to hide – are the curses of Irkutsk (and I bet you can also add to the list). The problem is that there is no law in Russia that would regulate these matters. That is why smokers exhale their poisonous fumes in the proximity of children’s playgrounds, broken beer bottles and chips packages are scattered in the streets (they have the right to enjoy their free time after work!), dangerous dogs walk unattended (sometimes without a muzzle, on a way too long leash, or with their drunk owners).

We do believe there is reason in some historian’s words, who said, that strict order is the only possible regime that can do Russia good. How else can you keep such a huge area in order?

We would like to finish the essay with a puzzle you might find fun in solving during your travels around Siberia. The concept of a Siberian log house is quite a hackneyed matter: an old building made of wood decorated with intricate carving is a usual tourist highlight in Novosibirsk and Irkutsk. But have you ever noticed that there are no two houses that look alike? Do you have the explanation to why the window decoration in Novosibirsk is relatively well balanced compared to disproportionally big upper part in Irkutsk (refer to the houses in open air Wooden Architecture and Ethnography Museum (on the way from Irkutsk to Listvyanka))? Has it ever occurred to you that each carving element has its own meaning, so by looking at a house a well-informed person can tell not only when, where and by whom it was built, but also what sort of problems a family that lived in this house had and what their aspirations were?

You know, cities are just like people: their background is different, their prospects are not the same, and in the course of time they change so much that you can barely tell any childish features in their ripe age. So you have to be very gentle and observant to discover a city’s true self. We are not putting a dot at this point…

Please let us know if You may have questions or comments