The most detailed guide around Circum-Baikal Railroad: Irkutsk, Listvyanka, Slyudyanka, Shelekhov. A. D. Katashevtsev
also initially sentenced to death, moved to Malaya Razvodnaya from Khomutovo near to Irkutsk – Lieutenant of the Life Guards A.N. Sutgof. Both of them then moved from Irkutsk land.
Decembrist A.I. Yakubovich (1792—1845)
At the end of the 17th century, a chapel in the name of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul appeared in Bolshaya Razvodnaya, which was rebuilt in 1740. In 1842, instead of a dilapidated church, a new church was constructed in 100 sazhens (a native system of measures in old Russia about 2.13 m) from its former place. But it was closed in the late 1920s. A children’s home, a radio center and a stable were placed inside, and in 1956 it was dismantled. Many of the Decembrists rested at the cemetery next to the church.
Decembrist A.N. Sutgof (1801—1872)
The first who arrived in the neighboring Malaya Razvodnaya in 1840 was the colonel of the Akhtyrsky hussar regiment and the hero of the war with Napoleon A.Z. Muravyov, who lived here until his death in 1846. In 1840, one of the six generals of the participants in the Decembrist uprising and a fighter for the freedom of Bessarabia A.P. Yushnevsky moved here from Kuzmikha. After his sudden death at the funeral of the Decembrist F.F. Vadkovsky in 1844, his wife M.K. Yushnevskaya had to wait until 1855 to leave Siberia.
The remains of officers with grave monuments in 1952 were transported to Irkutsk to the Lisikhinsky cemetery, although part of the churchyard was preserved in the area of the first enduro park for motorcyclists at Chertugeevsky Peninsula. Interestingly, inside the gravestone of A.Z. Muravyov found an immured bust of one of his sons who died early – N.A. Muravyov, which is now kept in the collection of the museum-estate of S.P. Trubetskoy in Irkutsk.
Decembrist A.Z. Muravyov (1793—1846)
Less fortunate were the Decembrist brothers A.I. and P.I. Borisov. Both of them stood at the origins of the Southern Society and were part of the «cohort of the doomed» (regicides), for which they were sentenced to the 1st category. The elder brother, Andrey, lost his mind in the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint-Petersburg and remained in the arms of the youngest – Peter, who became a brilliant watercolor artist and scientist, leaving a heritage of more than 670 drawings. During their life in Malaya Razvodnaya in 1841—1854 they brought up many local merchant’s children, creating on the basis of the school of A.I. Yakubovich, a plant nursery and a school for young naturalists. Unfortunately, on the day of the death of his brother A.I. Borisov committed suicide, after which both according to ancient orthodox custom were buried behind the church fence and their graves were not preserved.
Decembrist P.I. Borisov (1800—1854)
Opposite Bolshaya Razvodnaya, which stretched for almost 3 versts (an obsolete Russian unit of length defined as 500 sazhen equal to 1.06 km) along the Angara, on the other side, bypassing the islands of Brodny and Ershovsky, there was the village of Ershi, founded no later than 1806. Previously, there was a train checkpoint of the same name with a passing loop (20 km from Innokentievskaya station). Today there is a bay here, where in 1965 the most famous boat station in the vicinity of Irkutsk was opened. Since 1976, one of the two water supply networks in Irkutsk has been operating here, a ski slope and a forest nursery, familiar to all Irkutsk residents, since it is from here that New Year trees are most often brought.
Yershi passing loop next to the construction Irkutsk HPP, 1950s
We will continue moving further along the Baikal tract. Behind the Dyachkovo Valley, we are met by the next village on our way – Molodyozhny. It was formed in 1956 on the basis of migrants from flooded settlements along the Angara River, and also due to the transfer of the Agricultural Academy from the center of Irkutsk. In 1964, students began to be moved here. In parallel, with the help of the latter, the town was being built up: houses for employees, dormitories, a boiler room, laboratories, vegetable stores and warehouses appeared. Since its establishment in 1934, the Agricultural Academy has trained more than 30,000 specialists who work in all countries of the former USSR. In 1992, on the basis of the village, an association of homeowners was formed, which soon turned into a kind of Moscow «Rublyovka». Today, more than 7 thousand people live in the formed cottage settlement.
Agricultural Academy in Molodyozhny
At the entrance to the village, on the right in front of the junction, a brand new school is visible, which appeared here in 2018. Down to the Angara, the road to the main building of the Irkutsk State Agrarian University named after A.A. Yezhevsky (ISAU), as well as to the ski track, known to all participants in the competition «Ski Run of Russia», which is held annually here.
«Ski Run of Russia» in Topka Bay of the village of Molodyozhny
Shopping and entertainment centers stretch along the road. Two restaurants especially stand out, stylized as old buildings: «Melnik» and «Rytsarskiy Dvor». Opposite the latter, on the other side of the road, at the very top of the Uskov Valley, in a lonely and completely unmarked glade, 6109 people from the nearby flooded villages along the Angara River were buried. These are not the only burials that are located in this forest, which is closely adjacent to the runway of the Irkutsk airport.
Restaurant «Rytsarskiy Dvor»
Among the people, this place received the ominous name «Cottage of the Moon King.» The fact is that in 1874—1890 until his death here lived the former agent of the Polish Central Committee in Saint Petersburg – Y.P. Ogryzko, who was sentenced to permanent settlement in Siberia. He almost completely lost his vision during the Vilyui exile and could only walk on moonlit nights, for what he received his nickname. Only the ruins near the runway at the edge of the forest remind of the place of his residence. Next to them in a small meadow in 1992, a memorial «Wall of Sorrow» was set, dedicated to the J.V. Stalin’s repressions of 1937—1938. In those terrible years, a special zone of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs in the Irkutsk region was allocated in this forest area for the burial places of the executed, where, according to various data, from 7 to 23 thousand people were buried in storage ditches. Only from one of the burial grounds in 1989 were seized the remains of 304 people with traces of violent death. On the memorial you can find the name and photo of the great-grandfather of the author of this book, V.V. Zhuk, who perished in the dungeons of the North-Eastern Corrective Labor Camps («Sevvostlag») in 1942 on Magadan city.
Memorial «The Wall of Sorrow» in Pivovarikha
Then we cross the Krutoy Klyuch Valley and climb the hill, where the next village called Novolisikha is located (population 1098). The name is due to the fact that in the past there was a subsidiary farm of the Lisikhinsky brick factory from the city canteen trust, which was engaged in rabbit breeding and growing vegetables. Today, only the nursery of berry and vegetable crops, which has been operating here since 1947, reminds of this. During this time, more than 700 plant varieties have been studied. The fields for the garden were created by Japanese prisoners of war.
Siberian Garden of Leontiev in Novolisikha
In the