Irkoutsk

Irkoutsk (in Russian Ирку́тск ), the principal city of the Oblast d' Irkoutsk and the second of Siberia. Population: : 593400  inhabitants in 2002. Located at the 52°  17 '   NR and 104°  16 '   E.

It extends to the foot from the Monts Saïan Eastern, to the confluence of the river Irkoutsk and the river Angara, and is located at 66  km in the west of the Lake Baïkal.

One comes there:

  • of Moscow in the plane (: 4570  km, 6  H of flight) or in the train (: 5185  km, close to 87  H);
  • of Novosibirsk, 2  h  10 in the plane and 34  H in the train.

Telephone code: 3952.

Stories

In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov builds a relay for the Traite furs with the Buriat . The cossacks settle there and the town of Irkoutsk is officially founded in 1686. The city opens out thanks to the export of gold, the ivory of Mammouth and the Zibeline towards China. At the 19th century, fortunes are built quickly thanks to the gold mines which attract the pioneers. In this Far East , which is not connected yet to the remainder of the country by the Transsibérien, criminality and violence were the daily batch of the inhabitants. Taverns and cabarets attract the minors and the merchants.

The capacity tsarist sends prisoners and the political opponents in the area in order to exploit the iron layers: the artists, officers and aristocrats decabrists find themselves exiled in Irkoutsk and wanted to make a major cultural hearth of it. A fire from July 4th to 6th 1879 reduced of ashes most of the city which counted then close to: 33000  hearts. The governor obliges the inhabitants then to rebuild their stone-built houses. During the civil war which followed the Russian Révolution of 1917, the area of Irkoutsk was the theater of bloody operations between the White and the Reds.

Remarkable monuments, buildings

The town of Irkoutsk is called “London of Siberia” because of its architectural heritage:
  • the “White House” was used formerly as official residence to the general governor of Eastern Siberia. It is occupied today by a college library;
  • the dramatic Theater;
  • the old Russo-Asian Bank is currently used as dispensary;
  • the barracks of the officers, was formerly the Amour hotel.

See too

Related articles

external bonds

  • official site
  • russie.net
  • Claire Chartier, Georges Dupuy, Marc Epstein, Fabrice Lhomme, slow thaw of Irkoutsk , in '' the Express train '' of the 3/23/2000
  • Economy and undertaken in Siberia
  • the Alliance Fran1caise of Irkoutsk

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