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Irkutsk () is one of the largest cities in Siberia
Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
 and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast

Irkutsk Oblast is a federal subjects of Russia of Russia , located in south-eastern Siberia in the basins of Angara River, Lena River, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers....
, situated by rail from Moscow
Moscow

Moscow is the capital and the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia of the Russian Federation. It is also the largest European cities and metropolitan areas, with the Moscow metropolitan area ranking among the largest urban areas in the world....
. Population:

city proper lies at the Angara River, a tributary
Tributary

A tributary is a stream or river which flows into a Mainstem river. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea. Tributaries and the mainstem river serve to drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater by leading the water out into an ocean or some other large body of water....
 of the Yenisei
Yenisei River

Yenisei is the greatest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean, and at 5,539 km is the List of rivers by length. Rising in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course to the Yenisei Gulf in the Kara Sea, draining a large part of central Siberia, the longest stream following the Yenisei-Angara-Selenga-Ider....
, below its outflow from Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is in southern Siberia in Russia, located between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryatia to the southeast, near the city of Irkutsk....
, and on the bank opposite the suburb
Suburb

Suburbs are commonly defined as the residential areas which surround the central area of the urban area of a town or city. In the United States, suburbs have a prevalence of usually detached single-family homes.....
 of Glaskovsk. The river, which has a breadth of is crossed by a flying bridge
Flying bridge

A flying bridge is a area on top or at the side of a ship's pilothouse that serves as an operating station for the ship's officer in good weather or when manoeuvring in port, where good views along the ship sides are important....
 and two other bridges downstream. The Irkut River
Irkut River

Irkut is a river in the Buryatia and Irkutsk Oblast of Russia; Angara River's left tributary. The length of the river is . The area of its drainage basin is ....
, from which the town takes its name, is a small river which joins the Angara directly opposite the town.






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Irkutsk () is one of the largest cities in Siberia
Siberia

Siberia , is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of North Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the Soviet Union from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the 16th century....
 and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast
Irkutsk Oblast

Irkutsk Oblast is a federal subjects of Russia of Russia , located in south-eastern Siberia in the basins of Angara River, Lena River, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers....
, situated by rail from Moscow
Moscow

Moscow is the capital and the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia of the Russian Federation. It is also the largest European cities and metropolitan areas, with the Moscow metropolitan area ranking among the largest urban areas in the world....
. Population:

Geography and climate

The city proper lies at the Angara River, a tributary
Tributary

A tributary is a stream or river which flows into a Mainstem river. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea. Tributaries and the mainstem river serve to drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater by leading the water out into an ocean or some other large body of water....
 of the Yenisei
Yenisei River

Yenisei is the greatest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean, and at 5,539 km is the List of rivers by length. Rising in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course to the Yenisei Gulf in the Kara Sea, draining a large part of central Siberia, the longest stream following the Yenisei-Angara-Selenga-Ider....
, below its outflow from Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is in southern Siberia in Russia, located between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryatia to the southeast, near the city of Irkutsk....
, and on the bank opposite the suburb
Suburb

Suburbs are commonly defined as the residential areas which surround the central area of the urban area of a town or city. In the United States, suburbs have a prevalence of usually detached single-family homes.....
 of Glaskovsk. The river, which has a breadth of is crossed by a flying bridge
Flying bridge

A flying bridge is a area on top or at the side of a ship's pilothouse that serves as an operating station for the ship's officer in good weather or when manoeuvring in port, where good views along the ship sides are important....
 and two other bridges downstream. The Irkut River
Irkut River

Irkut is a river in the Buryatia and Irkutsk Oblast of Russia; Angara River's left tributary. The length of the river is . The area of its drainage basin is ....
, 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
Monastery

Monastery , a term derived from the Greek language word ???ast?????, neut. of ???ast????? - monasterios denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of Monk, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in Cenobium or alone ....
, the fort, and the port
Port

||-||-|-||-||-||-||-||-||-|}A port is a facility for receiving ships and transferring cargo. They are usually found at the edge of an ocean, sea, river, or lake....
, as well as its suburbs by another tributary, the Ida, or Ushakovka River.

As a Siberian city, Irkutsk experiences a subarctic climate
Subarctic climate

Regions having a subarctic climate are characterized by long, usually very cold winters, and short, cool to mild summers. It is found on large landmasses, away from the moderating effects of an ocean, generally at latitudes from 50? to 70?N....
, characterized by extreme variation of temperatures between seasons. Temperatures can be very warm in the summer, and brutally cold in the winter. However, Lake Bajkal takes its effect, such that temperatures in Irkutsk are not as extreme as elsewhere in Siberia. The warmest month of the year in Irkutsk is July, when the mean temperature is , the highest temperature recorded being 37 C. The coldest month of the year is January, when the mean temperature is only . Precipitation
Precipitation (meteorology)

File:MeanMonthlyP.gifIn meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of Atmosphere water vapor that is deposited on the earth's surface....
 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 precipitation during the Siberian winter falls as fluffy, low moisture content snow.

Irkutsk is situated in a landscape of rolling hills within the thick taiga
Taiga

Taiga is a biome characterized by coniferous forests. Covering most of inland Alaska, Canada, Sweden, Finland, inland Norway and Russia , as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States , northern Kazakhstan and Japan , the taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome....
, typical of eastern Siberia, and in contrast to the flat, open steppe
Steppe

In physical geography, a steppe , pronounced , is a grassland plain without trees . The prairie can be considered a steppe. It may be semi-desert, or covered with Poaceae or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude....
 of western Siberia.

According to the regional plan Irkutsk city will be agglomerated with the satellite industrial towns of Shelekhov
Shelekhov

Shelekhov is a types of settlements in Russia in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located some 20 km southwest of Irkutsk. Population: 48,300 ; 47,520 ; 47,702 ....
 and Angarsk
Angarsk

Angarsk is a types of inhabited localities in Russia in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, situated on the Angara River, from Moscow. Population: 262,300 ; ...
 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
Buryats

The Buryats or Buriyads, numbering approximately 436,000, are the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia and are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryatia, a Federal subjects of Russia of Russia....
. The town gained official city rights from the government in 1686. The first road connection between Moscow
Moscow

Moscow is the capital and the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia of the Russian Federation. It is also the largest European cities and metropolitan areas, with the Moscow metropolitan area ranking among the largest urban areas in the world....
 and Irkutsk, the Siberian Road (Sibirsky Trakt), was built in 1760. The city benefitted economically from this new road. Many new products, often imported from China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, were widely available in Irkutsk for the first time, including gold
Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
, diamond
Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is the Allotropes of carbon where the carbon atoms are arranged in an isometric-hexoctahedral crystal lattice. After graphite, diamond is the second most stable form of carbon....
s, fur
Fur

Fur is a Hair of any non-human mammal, also known as the pelage. It may consist of short ground hair, long guard hair, and, in some cases, medium awn hair....
s, wood
Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
, silk
Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from Pupa#Cocoons made by the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity ....
, and tea
Tea

Tea refers to the agricultural products of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant, prepared and cured by various methods....
.

In the early 19th century, many Russian artist
Artist

The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art....
s, officers, and nobles
Nobility

Nobility is a government-privileged title which may be either hereditary or for a lifetime. Titles of nobility exist today in many countries although it is usually associated with present or former monarchies....
 were sent into exile
Exile

Exile means to be away from one's home while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened by prison or death upon return....
 to Siberia for their part in the Decembrist revolt
Decembrist revolt

The Decembrist revolt or the Decembrist uprising took place in Imperial Russia on 14 December , 1825. Russian army officers led about 3,000 soldiers in a protest against Nicholas I of Russia's assumption of the throne after his elder brother Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia removed himself from the line of succession....
 against Tsar
Tsar

Tsar or czar , occasionally spelled csar or tzar in English language, is a slavs term designating certain monarchs.Originally, the title Czar meant Emperor in the European medieval sense of the term, that is, a ruler who has the same rank as a Ancient Rome or Byzantine emperor due to recognition by another emperor or...
 Nicholas I
Nicholas I of Russia

Nicholas I , , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the List of Russian rulers. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometres....
. 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
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 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 Decemberists' 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.

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 archive
Archive

An archive refers to a collection of historical records, and also refers to the location in which these records are kept.'Archives' are made up of records which have been accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime....
s, the library
Library

A library is a collection of information, sources, resources, books, and services, and the structure in which it is housed: it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual....
, and the museum
Museum

A museum is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, for the purposes of education, study, and entertainment", as defined by the International Coun...
 of the Siberian section of the Russian Geographical Society
Russian Geographical Society

The Russian Geographical Society is a learned society, founded on 6 August, 1845 in Saint Petersburg, Russia....
 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
Nickname

A nickname is a descriptive name given in place of or in addition to the official name of a person, place or thing. Another class of nickname is the familiar or truncated form of the proper name, such as Bob, Bobby, Rob, Robbie, and Bert for Robert, more properly called a short name....
 "The Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
 of Siberia."
Orthodox Church Irkutsk
During the civil war
Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Bolshevik party assumed power in Saint Petersburg....
 that broke out after the Bolshevik Revolution, Irkutsk became the site of many furious, bloody clashes between the "Whites
White movement

The White movement , whose military arm is known as the White Army or White Guard and whose members are known as Whites comprised some of the Russian forces, both political and military, which opposed the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution and fought against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1923...
" and the "Reds". In 1920, Kolchak
Aleksandr Kolchak

Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak was a Imperial Russian Navy commander, polar explorer and later head of part of the anti-Bolshevik White movement during the Russian Civil War....
, 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
Vyacheslav Klykov

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Klykov was a Russian sculptor who specialized in public monuments to key figures of national history and culture.He was born into a peasant family near Kursk and studied in the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow, matriculating in 1964....
, 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
Sable

The sable is a small carnivorous mammal, closely related to the martens. It inhabits taiga environments primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaido in Japan....
 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
Sable

The sable is a small carnivorous mammal, closely related to the martens. It inhabits taiga environments primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaido in Japan....
 in his mouth. This image had been used by the Yakutsk
Yakutsk

kutsk is a types of inhabited localities in Russia in the Russian Far East, located about 4? below the Arctic Circle. It is the capital of the Sakha Republic , Russia and a major port on the Lena River....
 customs office from about 1642. It has its origin in a seal of the Siberia Khanate
Siberia Khanate

The Khanate of Sibir was a Tatar people Turkic people khanate in the later Russian Siberia. The Khanate had an ethnically diverse population of Siberian Tatars, Khanty, Mansi, Nenets people and Selkup people....
 representing a sable and showcasing the fact that Siberia (or rather Yugra
Yugra

Yugra was the name of the lands between the Pechora River and Urals in the Russian annals of the 12th–17th centuries, as well as the name of the Khanty and partly Mansi tribes inhabiting these territories....
) 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
Beaver

Beavers are two primarily nocturnal, semi-aquatic species of rodent, one native to North America and one to Eurasia. They are known for building dams, canals, and lodges ....
", 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.

Economy


Energetics

Irkutsk hydropower station is the first cascade hydropower station in Irkutsk region. The building of dam was started in 1950 and finished in 1958.

Industry

The most famous large-scale industry in Irkutsk is Irkut (company)
Irkut (company)

Irkut refers to the Irkutsk Aviation Industrial Association,it was setup in 1932 in the Transbaikal in the Russian Federation.It is best known as being the manufacturer of the Sukhoi Su-30 family of interceptor/ground-attack aircraft.The Russian government has merged Irkut with Ilyushin, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Tupolev,...
. Irkut refers to the Irkutsk Aviation Industrial Association,it was setup in 1932 in the Transbaykal region in the Russian Federation. It is best known as being the manufacturer of the Su-30 family of interceptor
Interceptor

Interceptor may refer to:...
/ground-attack aircraft.The Russian government is planning to merge Irkut with Ilyushin
Ilyushin

Ilyushin , or Ilyushin Design Bureau is a Russian design bureau and aircraft manufacturer , founded by Sergey Ilyushin. It began operations on January 13, 1933, by order of the People's Commissar of the Heavy Industry of the USSR and the Head of the Main Department of Aviation Industry, P.I.Baranov....
, Mikoyan
Mikoyan

Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG, or RSK MiG, is a Russian joint stock company. Formerly Mikoyan or Mikoyan-i-Gurevich Design Bureau , it is a military aircraft design bureau, primarily designing fighter aircraft....
, Sukhoi
Sukhoi

Sukhoi is a major Russian aircraft manufacturer famous for its fighter aircraft. Founded by Pavel Sukhoi in 1939 as the Sukhoi Design Bureau , it is currently known as Sukhoi Corporation....
, Tupolev
Tupolev

Tupolev is a Russian aerospace and defence company, headquartered in Moscow. Officially known as Public Stock Company Tupolev, it is the successor of the famed Tupolev OKB or Tupolev Design Bureau headed by the renowned Soviet aerospace engineer Andrei Tupolev....
, and Yakovlev
Yakovlev

A.S. Yakovlev Design Bureau JSC is a Russian aircraft designer and manufacturer . It was formed in 1934 under designer Alexander Sergeevich Yakovlev as OKB-115 , but the birthday is considered on 12 May 1927, the day of maiden flight of the AIR-1 aircraft developed within the Department of Light Aircraft of GUAP under the supervision of A.S....
 as a new company named United Aircraft Building Corporation.

Transport


Important roads and railways like the Trans-Siberian Railway
Trans-Siberian Railway

The Trans-Siberian Railway or Trans-Siberian Railroad is a network of railways connecting Moscow and European Russia with the Russian Far East provinces, Mongolia, China and the Sea of Japan....
 connect Irkutsk to other regions in Russia and Mongolia
Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west....
. Also, the city is served by the Irkutsk International Airport
Irkutsk International Airport

Irkutsk Airport is an airport in the centre of Irkutsk, Russia. As of 2006, a new passenger terminal is nearing completion. In the meantime a 1960s ex-international terminal is being used for both international and domestic departures while domestic arrivals are handled in a small shed-like structure by the side....
 and the smaller Irkutsk Northwest Airport
Irkutsk Northwest Airport

Irkutsk Northwest Airport is an airport in Russia located 11 km northwest of Irkutsk. It is a civilian airfield with maintenance hangars, and features a very spartan taxiway pattern....
.

The Federal road to Vladivostok
Vladivostok

File:vladivostokrussia.jpgVladivostok is Russia's largest port types of inhabited localities in Russia on the Pacific Ocean and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai....
 passes through a suburb of Irkutsk.

Culture


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/

Education

Irkutsk is home to Irkutsk State Railway Transport University (since 1975), Irkutsk State University
Irkutsk State University

Irkutsk State University was founded in October 1918 in Irkutsk, Siberia.At present, the University consists of 10 faculties, 4 educational institutions and 2 branches....
 (1918), Baykalsky State University of Economics and Law
Baykalsky State University of Economics and Law

Baikal National University of Economics and Law is a state educational institution of higher professional learning which provides under-graduate, graduate, post-graduate and advanced education in Economics, Management, Law, Applied Computer Science in Economics, Journalism, Psychology and Sociology....
 (since 1932), Irkutsk State Technical University (since 1939), Irkutsk State Academy of Agriculture, Irkutsk State Linguistic University
Irkutsk State Linguistic University

Irkutsk State Linguistic University is a university in Irkutsk, Siberia in eastern Russia founded in 1948....
 (1948), Irkutsk State Medical University, Irkutsk State Pedagogical College
Irkutsk State Pedagogical College

Irkutsk State Pedagogical College, also called Irkutsk State Teacher Training University was founded in 1909 in Irkutsk, Siberia as the University for training intending teachers for schools and colleges....
, 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
Russian Academy of Sciences

The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
 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
Gazprom

OAO Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Economy of Russia.Total gas production in Russia in 2007 was 23.1 Trillion cubic feet, of which 85 percent was produced by Gazprom; with reserves of , it controls 16 percent of the List of countries by natural gas proven reserves ....
 R&D Institute (Branch of Moscow-based Institute), Irkutsk Institute of Less-Common and Precious Metals and Diamonds.

Literature

Irkutsk has long been home to the well-known Russian writer Valentin Rasputin
Valentin Rasputin

File:Valentin Rasputin.jpgValentin Grigoriyevich Rasputin is a Russian writer. He was born and lived much of his life in the Irkutsk Oblast in Eastern Siberia....
; many of his novels and stories take place in the Angara Valley. An essay on the cultural history of Irkutsk (and another one about the nearby Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is in southern Siberia in Russia, located between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryatia to the southeast, near the city of Irkutsk....
) is included in Rasputin's non-fiction collection Siberia, Siberia
Siberia, Siberia

Siberia, Siberia is a non-fiction book by the Russian writer Valentin Rasputin. It was originally published in Russian in 1991 by Molodaya Gvardiya Publishers....
, which is also available in English translation.

Sister Cities / Twin Cities

Irkutsk has the following sister/twin city
Town twinning

Town twinning, also known as sister cities, is a concept whereby towns or city in geographically and politically distinct areas are paired, with the goal of fostering human contact and cultural links between their inhabitants....
 relationships:
  • Ulan Bator, capital of neighboring Mongolia
    Mongolia

    Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and People's Republic of China to the south, east and west....
  • Shenyang
    Shenyang

    Shenyang , or Mukden , is a sub-provincial city and capital city of Liaoning Provinces of China in Northeast China.Along with its nearby cities, Shenyang is an important industrial center in China, and the transportation and commercial centre of China's northeastern region....
    , China
    China

    China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
  • Kanazawa
    Kanazawa, Ishikawa

    is the capital cities of Japan of Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan....
    , Japan
    Japan

    Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
  • Eugene, Oregon
    Eugene, Oregon

    The city of Eugene is the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, Oregon, United States. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie River and Willamette River rivers, about 60 miles east of the Oregon Coast....
    , U.S.A.
    United States

    The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
  • Novi Sad
    Novi Sad

    Novi Sad is the capital city of the northern Subdivisions of Serbia of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Backa District.According to the 2002 Census, Novi Sad is Serbia's second city, after Belgrade, with around 300,000 inhabitants....
    , Serbia
    Serbia

    Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country in Central Europe and Balkans Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans....
  • Pforzheim
    Pforzheim

    Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-W?rttemberg, southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. It is world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry....
    , Germany
    Germany

    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
  • Evian
    Evian

    Evian is a France brand of mineral water coming from several sources near ?vian-les-Bains, on the south shore of Lake Geneva.Today, Evian is owned by Groupe Danone, a France multinational company....
    , France
    France

    France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
  • Strömsund
    Strömsund

    Str?msund is a town in J?mtland, Sweden and the seat of Str?msund Municipality, J?mtland County.References ...
    , Sweden
    Sweden

    Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
  • Pordenone
    Pordenone

    Pordenone is a comune of Province of Pordenone of northeast Italy in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.The name comes from the Latin "Portus Naonis" meaning the port on the river Noncello ...
    , Italy
    Italy

    Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
  • Grenoble
    Grenoble

    Grenoble is a city in southeastern France situated at the foot of the Alps where the Drac River joins the Is?re River.Located in the Rh?ne-Alpes regions of France, Grenoble is the capital of the Departments of France of Is?re....
    , France
    France

    France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
  • Dijon
    Dijon

    Dijon is a communes of France in eastern France, the capital of the C?te-d'Or Departments of France and of the Bourgogne Regions of France. Dijon is the historical capital of the provinces of France of Burgundy ....
    , France
    France

    France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....


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  • (in English) Articles about lake Baikal by different people from all over the world.