Иркутск: История и современность сибирского города

City in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia

Irkutsk (/ɪər/'/k//u//t//s//k/ eerKOOTSK; ; Buryat and , Erhüü, ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is the 25th largest city in Russia by population, the fifth largest in the Siberian Federal District, and one of the largest cities in Siberia. Located in the south of the eponymous oblast, the city proper lies on the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei, about 850 kilometres (530 mi) to the south east of Krasnoyarsk and about 520 kilometres (320 mi) north of Ulaanbaatar. The Trans Siberian Highway (Federal M53 and M55 Highways) and Trans Siberian Railway connect Irkutsk to other regions in Russia and Mongolia. Many distinguished Russians were sent into exile in Irkutsk for their part in the Decembrist revolt of 1825, and the city became an exile post for the rest of the century. Some historic wooden houses still survive. When the railway reached Irkutsk, it had earned the nickname of "The Paris of Siberia." The city was the center of bitter fighting in the Russian Civil War of 1918–20. Afterward, in the Soviet period, its architecture was dominated by the mandatory squared up style. The city became a major centre of aircraft manufacture. The historic centre of Irkutsk is included in UNESCO's tentative list of World Heritage Sites.

Irkutsk was named after the Irkut River. Its name was derived from the Buryat word for "spinning," and was used as an ethnonym among local tribes, who were known as Yrkhu, Irkit, Irgit, and Irgyt. The city was formerly known as Yandashsky, named after the local Tuvan chief Yandasha Gorogi. The old spelling of the city's name was «Иркуцкъ». Before the revolution, the city was called "East Paris", "Siberian Petersburg", "Siberian Athens".

In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye (winter quarters) near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for collecting fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov built an ostrog (a small fort) nearby. The ostrog gained official town rights from the government in 1686. The Irkutsk prison, founded in 1661 as an outpost for the advancement of Russian explorers in the Angara region, soon ceased to be only a defensive structure due to the advantage of its geographical position. According to historical documents, 10 years later, in 1671, here, in addition to servicemen and yasak people, lived "plowed peasants with their wives and children." A posad appeared, which gave rise to residential quarters of the future city. As for the prison itself, as its influence in the region grew, it was completely rebuilt twice (in 1669 and 1693), expanding in size. The fate of the prison was such that its military defensive significance was less noticeable than other previously erected forts near the Angara, for example, Bratsk (1631) or Verkholensk (1644). However, its location at the crossroads of colonization, trade and industrial routes predetermined the role of Irkutsk in the history of Eastern Siberia. In 1682 it became the center of an independent region, and in 1686 it received the status of a city. Irkutsk at the beginning of the 18th century was divided into two parts: "small town", or the prison itself, and "big city". The first one started from the bank of the Angara and was a wooden fortress with adjacent buildings. These included the stone building of the provincial chancellery, the house of the vice governor (former voivodship) with barns and cellars, the Church of the Savior. "Small town" was the administrative center of the vast Irkutsk province since 1731. In the "big city", as the posad was called, the commercial and economic life of Irkutsk was concentrated. It was inhabited mainly by people from the northern regions of Russia: Veliky Ustyug, Yarensk, Pinega, Solvychegodsk, Pereyaslavl Zalessky, who brought their traditions, customs, and culture to Siberia. From 1848 to 1861, Count Nikolay Muravyov Amursky was the Governor General. He annexed the Amur Territory to Russia, however, on the spot he showed unbridled despotism and extreme cruelty. Since the opening of communication along the Amur in 1854, on the way from St. Petersburg to the Pacific Ocean, the old Yakutsk tract began to decline. The population of the city is 28,000, of them there were 3,768 exiles. In 1879, on July 4 and 6, a fire burned out of control, destroying the palace of the Governor General, and the principal administrative and municipal offices. Many of the other public buildings, including the government archives, the library, and the museum of the Siberian section of the Russian Geographical Society, were completely ruined. Three quarters of the city was destroyed, including approximately 4,000 houses. The city quickly rebounded, installing electricity in 1896. The first theater was built in 1897 and a major train station opened in 1898. The first train arrived in Irkutsk on August 16 of that year. By 1900, the city had earned the nickname of "The Paris of Siberia." During the Russian Civil War, which broke out after the October Revolution, Irkutsk became the site of many furious, bloody clashes between the "White movement" and the "Bolsheviks", known as the "Reds". In 1920, Aleksandr Kolchak, the once feared commander of the largest contingent of anti Bolshevik forces, was executed in Irkutsk. This effectively destroyed the anti Bolshevik resistance. Irkutsk was the administrative center of the short lived East Siberian Oblast, from 1936 to 1937. The city subsequently became the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, after East Siberian Oblast was divided into Chita Oblast and Irkutsk Oblast. During the communist years, the industrialization of Irkutsk and Siberia in general was strongly encouraged. The large Irkutsk Reservoir was built on the Angara River between 1950 and 1959 in order to generate hydroelectric power and facilitate industrial development. The Epiphany Cathedral, the governor's palace, a school of medicine, a museum, a military hospital and the crown factories are among the public institutions and buildings. In 2018, the BBC reported that men in Irkutsk had an average life span of only 63. The society had declined and their health had suffered markedly. In October 2021, it was reported that armed Russian OMON (Special Purpose Mobile Unit of the Russian National Guard) officers physically assaulted and tortured two Jehovah’s Witness couples as part of a round up of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the city.

Irkutsk is located about to the south east of Krasnoyarsk, and about north of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The city proper lies on the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei, below its outflow from Lake Baikal and on the bank opposite the suburb of Glaskovsk. The population has been shrinking since the late 1980s: According to the regional plan, Irkutsk city will be combined with its neighboring industrial towns of Shelekhov and Angarsk to form a metropolitan area with a total population of over a million.

The center of the historical part of the city is Kirov Square. In that place on July 6, 1661, Yakov Pokhabov laid a prison for collecting Yasak, a tax collected from the local population with fur. The architectural appearance of present day Irkutsk has been born since the days of the wooden prison. The historic center of the city is now concentrated in its place. By the beginning of the 18th century, it had turned into a massive and developed wooden fortress, which protected the inhabitants from the raids of nomads. A major fire of 1716 almost completely destroyed the fortifications, but in just a year new ones were built, already made of stone. Of the buildings on the territory of the Irkutsk Kremlin of that time, the Savior Church has survived, the stone building of which was laid in 1706 in the north western corner of the fort. Along with the Epiphany Cathedral, erected behind the eastern wall of the fortress and also preserved to this day, this is one of the oldest stone building in Siberia. The protective palisade and the moat, which once defended the Irkutsk fortress from the south, from the Angara bank to the Ushakovka River, existed until the middle of the 18th century. Arising in such a place, in the absence of administrative regulation, early Irkutsk was built up only for reasons of expediency determined by the homeowners. The courtyards were located in convenient areas, initially there were no streets at all, the buildings approached the driveways with random turns and only with subsequent alterations were turned around with front facades. The first settlers did not orientate their houses in relation to neighboring buildings either. When building a new house, the owners usually adhered only to the orientation of the windows to the south side. This is how the layout of the oldest part of the city took shape—from Angara to modern Karl Marx Street: the main directions of the streets repeat the outlines of the coastline, which, in turn, are crossed by transverse passages connecting the outskirts of the city with the center and overlooking the Angara bank. Until now, in the location of the central streets, the curvature, the disparity of the quarters formed by them, the semi spontaneous process of their formation that once took place can be seen. This is especially noticeable in the example of Basninskaya Street (now Sverdlova Street), which they tried to straighten with each new attempt to streamline the development. And it simply repeated the outlines of the log that once was here, formed, possibly, by the old lady of the Gryaznushka river, which connected Ushakovka and Angara. a complete mismatch of street directions in the old and new parts of the city was revealed. The state of development of the "pre palisade" period is reflected in the first of the known plans of Irkutsk in 1729. Its main advantage is the fixation of the city's borders, which ran along the line of the modern Karl Marx Street. Between 1729 and 1768 in the space between Angara and Ushakovka, the first "zapalisadny" row of blocks is formed. A spontaneous settlement appears near the soldiers' barracks, first along the roads that approached the Mill and Overseas gates, and then between them. The development proceeded unevenly, the closest to the current state at that time were the fragments of buildings located in the area of Zamorskaya (Lenin st.) And Institutskaya (Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsii st.) Streets. Now it is, roughly, quarters No. 90, 91, 92. The last third of the 18th century was extremely significant both for the history of the city as a whole and for the formation of its buildings. With the formation of the Irkutsk province in 1764, Irkutsk became the center of the largest region in Russia—Eastern Siberia, which included Transbaikalia, Yakutia, the entire northeast to the Pacific Ocean. Irkutsk needed to expand, and by that time there were no enemies ready to lay claim to the city. The palisade was dismantled, and in its place appeared Bolshaya Preshpektnaya Street, now Karla Marxa Street, the only straight street in modern Irkutsk. The devastating fire of 1879 made its own adjustments to the construction laws as it was from here that the border began, beyond which it was forbidden to build from wood. This in fact has divided the old Irkutsk into two parts: closer to the Angara river, mainly stone buildings remained, and on the other side, where there were once outskirts, the wooden Irkutsk grew.

Irkutsk originally had a borderline subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification Dwc). Since 2000, the temperatures have resembled a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dwb). Snow cover has disappeared earlier, from late April in the 1930s to late March in the 1980s. Discontinuous permafrost depth had decreased from 200 m to 100 m during the same period. Irkutsk is characterized by an extreme variation of temperatures between seasons. It can be very warm in the summer, and very cold in the winter. However, Lake Baikal has a tempering effect, giving Irkutsk temperatures that are slightly less extreme than at similar latitudes elsewhere in Siberia. The warmest month of the year is July, when the average temperature is ; the highest temperature recorded being The coldest month of the year is January, when the average temperature is , and record low of Precipitation varies widely throughout the year, with July being the wettest month, when precipitation averages The driest month is February, when precipitation averages only Almost all precipitation during the Siberian winter falls as fluffy, dry snow.

Irkutsk is the administrative center of the oblast and, within the framework of administrative divisions, it also serves as the administrative center of Irkutsky District, even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative division, it is incorporated separately as the City of Irkutsk—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the City of Irkutsk is incorporated as Irkutsk Urban Okrug.

The coat of arms of Irkutsk features an old symbol of Dauria: a Siberian tiger with a sable in his mouth. When the coat of arms 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.

The 662.4 MW Irkutsk Hydroelectric Power Station was the first cascade hydroelectric power station in the Irkutsk region. The construction of the dam started in 1950 and finished in 1958.

The largest industry in Irkutsk is Irkut, the Irkutsk Aviation Industrial Association, which was set up in 1932 in the Transbaykal region of the Soviet Union. It is best known as being the manufacturer of the Su 30 family of interceptor/ground attack aircraft. The Russian government has merged Irkut with Ilyushin, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Tupolev, and Yakovlev into a new company named United Aircraft Building Corporation. There is the Irkutsk Aluminium Smelter which belongs to the Rusal Company.

Important roads and railways like the Trans Siberian Highway (Federal M53 and M55 Highways) and Trans Siberian Railway connect Irkutsk to other regions in Russia and Mongolia. The city is also served by the Irkutsk International Airport and the smaller Irkutsk Northwest Airport. The Federal road and railway to Moscow and Vladivostok pass through the other side of the Angara River from central Irkutsk. Trams are one major mode of public transit in Irkutsk. Other modes are trolleybus, bus, fixed route taxi (marshrutka) and cycling.

Despite its remoteness, Irkutsk was reported in 2004 to have the highest HIV infection rate in Russia. Tens of thousands of drug addicts, mostly ethnic Russians in their mid to late teens are infected. The number of reported AIDS cases increased by more than 10,000% during the 1999–2000 period. Although the epidemic, which started in 1999, is reported to have slowed down, Irkutsk will lose tens of thousands of its working age population from 2010 onwards. This is one of the reasons Irkutsk's male life expectancy, at 53 years, is one of the lowest in all of Russia. Preventive measures are in place to prevent the spread of the epidemic to the generation which was born after the breakup of the USSR.

There are many state owned and privately owned television stations in Irkutsk, including state company IGTRK and private ones, such as AS Baikal TV, TV company AIST, TV company Gorod, and also other media outlets, like the VSP Newspaper Agency. There is also a live webcam broadcasting from the city center.

Irkutsk is home to the East Siberian Education Academy (since 1909), Irkutsk State University (1918), Irkutsk State Medical 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 Railway Transport University (since 1975), and a number of private colleges: Siberian Institute of Law, Economics and Management (since 1993), Institute of Economics of ISTU (since 1996), and others.

As Irkutsk is within the influence of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, there are nine research institutes located in the Irkutsk Academgorodok suburb: the Institute of Geography, the Energy System Institute, the Institute of Geochemistry, the Institute of System Dynamics and Control Theory, the Earth's Crust Institute, the Solar Terrestrial Physics Institute, the Institute of Chemistry, the Limnological Institute (formerly located on Lake Baikal's shore), the Institute of Plant Physics, Laser Physics Institute (a Branch of the Institute of Laser Physics in Novosibirsk). A number of institutes conduct research within Irkutsk State University: the Institute of Biology, the Institute of Oil and Coal Chemistry and Synthesis, the Laboratory of Quantum Chemistry, the Institute of Applied Physics, the Interregional Institute of Social Studies, the Astronomical Observatory, and the Botanical Gardens. The East Siberian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences is also located in Irkutsk and is represented by the following research organizations: the Scientific Center for Medical Ecology, the Institute for Paediatrics and Human Reproduction, the Institute for Microbiology and Epidemiology, the Institute for Medicine of the Workplace and Human Ecology, the Institute of Reconstructive and Restorative Surgery, the Institute of Surgery, and the Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedics. Also, the Fyodorov Eye Microsurgery Scientific and Technical Center has a branch in Irkutsk. Additionally, there are R&D institutes including GAZPROM R&D Institute (a Branch of a Moscow based institute), the Irkutsk Institute of Rare and Precious Metals and Diamonds (Irgiredmet), part of the Petropavlovsk Group of Companies., and the Vostoksibacademcenter of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences that publishes the Project Baikal journal.

Irkutsk is a point of interest for tourists with its numerous museums and old architecture. The Taltsy Museum ([[:ru:Тальцы), located on the Angara 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. The Botanic Garden of the Irkutsk State University known as the "Irkutsk Botanic Garden" is the only botanic garden as a living museum in Irkutsk Oblast and Baikalian Siberia. Its mission is "to protect and enrich the flora of the Lake Baikal area and the world for people through public education, collection, propagation, research, and conservation of plants". The garden is mainly an educational and scientific tool for the Irkutsk State University and maintains the largest plant collection of living plants in Eastern Siberia (more than 5,000 plant taxa), a herbarium, and a seed bank. It occupies within Irkutsk city, West of Lake Baikal. It has a federal status of especially protected land and a nature memorial of Irkutsk.

Irkutsk is also home to several theaters, including the Okhlopkov Drama Theater, one of Russia's oldest.

Bandy is popular in the city. There are several clubs, most notably Baykal Energiya of the Russian Bandy Super League, which can draw spectator crowds of 30,000. It is also the centre of women's bandy in Russia with the club Rekord, which provides most players to the national team. In the national championship 2019, four teams were from Irkutsk and only two from the rest of the country. In Irkutsk, there are 384 sports facilities, of which 200 are municipal ones. Among them there are 23 swimming pools, 14 ski bases, a sports palace, 154 courts, 165 gyms, an athletics arena, a racetrack, 7 stadiums—Trud, Rekord, Dynamo, Zenit, Aviator, Lokomotiv 2, sports complex of Irktusk and the main football arena—Lokomotiv. 2012 Women's Bandy World Championship was hosted in Irkutsk and received praise from Federation of International Bandy. 2014 Bandy World Championship was played in the city. The final of Russian Bandy Super League 2016 was played at Rekord Stadium. The 2019 Bandy World Championship was scheduled to also be hosted in Irkutsk. The decision was reconsidered, though. Then it was thought that Irkutsk might get the right to host the 2020 tournament instead, if FIB was given guarantees that the planned indoor arena would be ready for use in time. It will also be an indoor speed skating arena. Its construction started in October 2018 and is expected to be ready for use by March 2020, just in time for the Bandy World Championship.