The most detailed guide around Circum-Baikal Railroad: Irkutsk, Listvyanka, Slyudyanka, Shelekhov. A. D. Katashevtsev
pike) that dwells here to this day, but because in 1669 a certain Grigory Shchukin settled here. Before the construction of the hydroelectric power station, it was a vast village with a school, club, dairy, pig and poultry farms. Today, only the eponymous of local country gardening reminds of the village, which is closest to the flooded settlement.
Shchukino village on the map
Having passed the Volchya Valley with the stream of the same name, we find ourselves at the Uzkaya Valley, in which, since 1967, under the cover of the forest, the satellite antenna TNA-57 has been based (Baikal tract 20 km, 1). The same one with which the central television program was broadcast to the whole of Eastern Siberia via the Orbita-3 system from the Ostankino television center. Thanks to it the people of Irkutsk, ten years after the appearance of the television tower, were able to receive a signal from Moscow.
Satellite dish TNA-57 in Uzkaya valley
It is interesting that in the neighboring village of Patrony there is a receiving radio station No. 2 (Garazhnaya Str., 1), which used to be engaged in trunk communications from Moscow to Kamchatka, as well as a complex magnetic-ionospheric observatory of the Irkutsk Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, which continues to work, started back in 1887 in Irkutsk by the first such laboratory. The choice fell on this place not by chance. They are far away from the rest of the radar stations of the capital of Eastern Siberia and thus are able to avoid interference from other signals. In Soviet times, this is where the secret «mailbox No. 194» was located.
Magnetic-ionospheric observatory in Patrony
Today, no one can remember what the name of the village is connected with. Someone is talking about robbers who robbed caravans with Chinese goods going along the Baikal Tract. Some remember the names of the old-timers – Patron. Others even argue that everything is connected with the barracks and the arsenal that were here. It is only known for certain that one of the three original postal stations on the way to Baikal was located here. Most likely, the village arose in the 1730s.
The settlement itself was quite small and was located exactly at the exit from the modern Eloviy Bay. Only two moved houses remained from it along Naberezhnaya Street, as well as the old barracks built in 1938, where many people were resettled after the flood. Today, along the shores of the bay, there are the camping hotels «Baikal-21» and «Yolochka», the children’s sanatorium «Elovaya Pad» and the former regional committee summer residences, where today the training center of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate for the Irkutsk Region is located. In addition, this is the widest place of the Irkutsk reservoir on the way to Baikal. The distance along the line from the extreme point of the Eloviy Bay to Kurminsky Bay is more than 18 km.
Icebreaker «Angara» in Eloviy Bay, 1970s
Once the postal station Patroninskaya was connected by a ferriage with the village of Grudinino, which was located on one of the three largest islands on the way to Baikal. Having appeared at the end of the 17th century as a place for fishing, it was considered the most picturesque of the villages on the upper Angara.
Subsequently, the first shipyards near Irkutsk appeared here, and in 1843 the oldest steamship in Siberia, the Emperor Nicholas I, was built. In 1884, a chapel with an altar was built in the village, later reconsecrated into a church in the name of Michael the Archangel. Despite the fact that the island was annually suffered from winter floods, and it actually had no connection with the railway passing by, people refused to leave their native place during the cleaning of the bed of the future reservoir. Perhaps it was Grudinino that became the prototype of the settlement in V.G. Rasputin «Farewell to Matyora» Many famous Irkutsk citizens were born here. Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences and Leading Researcher of the Institute of the Earth’s Crust SB RAS M.I. Grudinin dedicated two books to this village: «My Memoirs» and «The Island of My Childhood.»
The village of Grudinina on the map
Today, the island disappeared at a depth of 18 meters in the waters of the Angara River, and its inhabitants settled on housing in the villages of Melnichnaya Pad and Novogrudinina. The remains of the first settlers were reburied from the cemetery already in 1950 near the southern slope of the Kortokoi valley. As well as the bones of the inhabitants of the village of Mikhalevo, which was located at the end of this peninsula. The latter was founded by the Cossack chieftan and the first Siberian ore explorer Anisim Mikhalev back in 1681. He found the first mica, a «grass stone» (jade) and a «pure pencil» (graphite) on Baikal.
Mikhalevo and Parky villages on the map
Interestingly, this place has been inhabited since Paleolithic times. Since time immemorial, there has been access to the richest hunting grounds through the Dabat River (from the buryat language dabaan – «mountain pass») up to the upper reaches of the Olkha River, as well as logging facilities, where in Soviet times more than 300 thousand cubic meters of timber were harvested annually. Therefore, here were located the only railway station of the IV class on 7 tracks (Mikhalevo, 32 km from the Innokentievskaya station) and two brick factories on the way from Irkutsk to Baikal. Two iron bridges 21 and 43 m long, respectively, were thrown across the Kaley and Kurma rivers. The arrival of the Trans-Siberian Railway here led to a doubling of the population of the village and the creating of the neighboring village of Parky, where Kurminsky Bay is now located. By the way, on its shore in Ugolniy Bay today there are several houses transferred from the village of Mikhalevo.
Mikhalevo cemetery
Since 1903, summer military camps of the 7th East Siberian Rifle Division have also been located in the area of the village of Parky on the banks of the Kurma River. Under them, in 1911, the Peter and Paul Church was built, which in 1918 was dismantled and transported to Irkutsk to the Glazkovo market, in connection with the transfer of the barracks to a new location. The 28th East Siberian Rifle Regiment, which was part of the mentioned division, headed by the illustrious Lieutenant General R.I. Kondratenko, during the Russo-Japanese War carried the 159-day defense of Port Arthur. Only after the death of this commander, the fortress was surrendered. The Russians destroyed 112 thousand Japanese, while losing 27 thousand killed, and also fettered the advance of the enemy army of more than 200 thousand people. Despite unbroken resistance, the citadel was given to the enemy along with the soldiers, which became one of the greatest shames in the history of the Russian army and one of the reasons for the first Russian revolution of 1905.
28th East Siberian Rifle Regiment in Mikhalevo, 1916
We return to the Baikal tract and climb from the Eloviy Bay to Mount Dolganikha. At the top, turn left to the abandoned position of the S-75 air defense system of military unit No. 92712. These places have been inhabited for centuries. Shortly before the arrival of the «big water» in 1957, archaeological excavations were carried out here. The participants of the expedition were such prominent researchers as A.P. Okladnikov, N.A. Kozyrev and L.N. Gumilyov. They discovered a number of ancient sites from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age.
Climbing the next mountain Uladova, let’s not forget to stop at the source with the сiborium, consecrated in 2005 by the rector of the church in the village of Bolshaya Rechka, Priest Alexander in honor of the icon of the Kazan Mother of God. It is interesting that down the valley on the bank