Alexander Katashevtsev - The Most Detailed Travel Guide around Irkutsk. All the attractions with the route of movement & addresses

House on legs

The central dominant of the square is clearly visible opposite – it’s a fountain, which was installed in the park on July 1, 1960, and literally “stolen” from its creator, who designed the decoration specially for his native city called Kursk. Todayit is the oldest of 34 fountains in the city. Next to the fountain on the western side of the square, you can see a model of the central part of pre-revolutionary Irkutsk.

Fountain on the square of S.M. Kirov

Further, on the right side, we see one of the oldest stone constructions in the city – the building of the City Duma. By the way, it has been placed here since 1874, and in Soviet times, the building was occupied by a City Committee of the CPSU. Unfortunately, only the windows of the first floor resemble about the graceful forms created by the architect V.A. Rassushin. It acquired its modern look in 1934 due to a constructivist superstructure with two floors designed by architect K. W. Mital.

City Duma

Next to the State Duma is the building of the Central Bank, built by V.N. Volkov in 1936. It is here that gold mined in the territory of the region is temporarily stored. In terms of ore gold reserves, the region is in first place in the Russian Federation (thanks to the unique Sukhoi Log deposit) and ranks fifth in gold production (up to 16 tons annually, 10% of the total production in Russia).

Central Bank

Across the road is another giant of the mining business – “Vostsibugol”. This is the fifth largest coal mining company in Russia, it owns the rights to develop deposits in Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Republics of Buryatia and Tyva. It produces up to 22 million tons of coal annually. The organization occupies one of the most beautiful buildings of the Soviet era in Irkutsk, built in 1950 according to the design of I.G. Efimov.

Vostsibugol

Once on the site of the park in front of the building there was a temple that for many years gave the name to the entire square – this is the Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, built in 1759. Sadly, it was razed to the ground in 1932, together with the cathedral, and at the wasteland nothing was built. It was one of the richest churches in the city, and was famous for its paintings, as well as the iconostasis with images of the 17th century. Today, a public transport stop and a park nearby the “Vostsibugol” building are named in honour of the lost church.

Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God

But let’s look at the opposite side of the square. First of all, we will see the faceless silhouette of one of the main Soviet hotels in Irkutsk called “the Angara”, established here in 1969. Earlier at this place was the predecessor of the Irkutsk Polytechnic University – Irkutsk Mining School, which opened here in 1893. Its building was dismantled during the construction of the hotel, as well as the building of the oldest city public library, which existed at the corner of modern Sukhe-Bator and Zhelyabov streets starting from 1864.

Irkutsk Mining School

Another forerunner of all technical educational institutions in Irkutsk is hiding behind the body of the hotel – the building of the industrial school named after N.P. Trapeznikov, designed by the best architects of the city H.V. Rosen and V.A. Kudelsky in 1884. Today, its premises are occupied by the Faculty of Biology and Soil Science of Irkutsk State University.

Industrial school named after N.P. Trapeznikov

Opposite the building, there is a square named after M. M. Speransky, to whom a monument was established at this place in 2016 – the first in the history of modern Russia. For a year and a half from 1819 to 1821, this great lawmaker ruled Irkutsk Governorate. For 11 months of his direct work here, two governors and 48 officials were brought to justice, 2 million and 847 thousand silver rubles were returned to the treasury. But the main result of his stay in Irkutsk was a package of 10 bills for 4019 paragraphs regarding the arrangement of life in Siberia, which Alexander approved as a laws in 1822. Grateful Siberians did not forget their patron and Kirov Square was named after M. M. Speransky from 1886 to 1917.

Monument to M. M. Speransky

We return to the State Bank building and turn right into a small lane, formerly called Bankovsky. The walls of a residential building built in 1938 for the employees of the Irkutsk branch of the StateBank of the USSR for 40 apartments are still rise here. On the other side of the alleyway there is another creation of the Soviet era – Hotel “Sibir”, built according to the design of K.W. Mital in 1933. Half of that building facing Lenin Street burned down in a severe fire on March 13, 1995.

Hotel “Sibir”

Today it is Kanazawa Street, named after the oldest sister city of Irkutsk (since 1967), the center of Ishikawa province in Japan. In memory of strong relations at the end of the lane a monument to Russian-Japanese ties which symbolizes a common undertakings was built in 1994.

Monument on Kanazawa Street

In total, Irkutsk has 15 twin towns, and the capital of Eastern Siberia was one of six places in the USSR, which were allowed to establish such relations with foreign cities.

The city has old ties with Japan. In the summer of 1783, the ship “Shinshu-Maru” of the Japanese captain Daikokuya Kodayu with 16 sailors, after six months of drifting ended up in the waters controlled by Russia. Wanting to return to their homeland the Japanese made a long journey from the Aleutian Islands to Irkutsk where they met Academician E.G. Laxman, who helped the five surviving sailors get an audience with Empress Catherine the Greatin in St. Petersburg. Only three returned to their native land in 1792, two remained as teachers of the first Japanese language school in Siberia. Thanks to the care for seafarers Russia received the right to enter one of the closed ports of Japan for the next few years. However, it was not possible to achieve a strong friendship then, but modern relations are already have a more than half a century of history.