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'Irkutsk' () is one of the largest cities in Siberia and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, situated by rail from Moscow. Population: 593,604 (2002 Census); 626,135 (1989 Census); 500,000 (1975); 49,106 (1900); 35,512 (1875).

Contents

Geography and climate

History

Emblem

Transport

Television and mass media

Twin cities

Education

Science

Images of Irkutsk

References

Notes

Additional sources

External links

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. 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. The warmest month of the year in Irkutsk is July, when the mean temperature is , and 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), mainly due to the fact that almost all precipitaion during the Siberian winter falls as fluffy, low moisture content snow.
Irkutsk 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.

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 (Сибирский Тракт, ''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.
During the past centuries Siberia, with its severe climate, has had a reputation as the place for exile. In Genghis Khan's army, punishment was either death or exile to Siberia.^[2] 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.
By the end of the 19th century there was one exiled man per two locals. Different people from the members of the Decembrist's 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.
Irkutsk has long been reputed to be a remarkably fine city—its streets being straight, broad, well paved and well lighted; but in 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."
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.

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 repesenting 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 entinct 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 ridiculous image altogether, but it was restored following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Transport

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.
Federal road to Vladivostok goes via Irkutsk suburb.

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/

Twin cities

City of Shenyang, China; city of Kanazawa, Japan; city of Eugene, Oregon, U.S.A., and Ulan Bator, capital of neighbouring Mongolia, are twin cities of Irkutsk.

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.

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 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.

Images of Irkutsk

References

Notes

1. Pogoda.ru.net
2. Irkutsk

Additional sources

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External links

★ Satellite picture by Google Maps

★ Flickr photos tagged irkutsk

★ Irkutsk in old and modern photos

★ Kyzyl