The most detailed guide around Circum-Baikal Railroad: Irkutsk, Listvyanka, Slyudyanka, Shelekhov. A. D. Katashevtsev
basis for the agro-industry in the vast Siberian territory.
Garden «Locomotive» and the monument to I.V. Stalin, 1950s
At the intersection with 2nd Zheleznodorozhnaya Street, on the right side, it is hard not to notice the buildings of the Road Clinical Hospital of the Eastern Railway (Botkin Str., 10), built in 1965 to serve railway workers and their families. Directly behind them, in a relic pine grove, is the territory of the «Angara» health resort. It was built at the expense of the merchant of the 1st guild I.L. Medvednikov as a hospital for chronic patients in 1901. The old building of the medical institution can still be seen if you go down the street to Irkut River (2nd Zheleznodorozhnaya Str., 4). The construction project was created by the famous Irkutsk architect A.I. Kuznetsov.
Medvednikovs hospital for chronic patients, 1911
Today, here is the hospital which houses the Irkutsk State Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, which was created on the basis of a physiotherapy institute that opened here in 1932. During the WWII, there was a neurosurgical officer’s evacuation hospital, and after the victory in 1955, a sanatorium with mineral waters was opened. It operates in our time, scientific research is being carried out, new methods of treatment are being introduced.
Health resort «Angara»
We reach the intersection with Kasyanova street. In the past, this area was mostly inhabited by families of railway workers, due to the proximity of the station. At the intersection with Ostrovsky Street (Kasyanova Str., 35) there is a lonely wooden house in which the future famous film director L.I. Gaidai lived since 1937. In the summer of 1961 here he wrote the script for the film «Dog Barbos and Unusual Cross» while visiting his parents. By the 350th anniversary of Irkutsk, it was planned to create the director’s memorial museum with a cinema alley. However, the plans were not destined to come true due to litigation between the heirs of L.I. Gaidai.
Monument to L.I. Gaidai in Irkutsk
Let’s go down the street the same way that young Leonid went to school every day. At the intersection with 2nd Zheleznodorozhnaya Street, we are greeted by a completely ordinary wooden house (Kasyanova Str., 17), where since 1900 lived the famous creator of the publishing house «Irisy» M.E. Stozh. He not only published pocket guides about Siberia and postcards with views of Irkutsk, but also published such outrageous Russian poets as A.S. Sorokin and D.D. Burliuk. Next to it is the Center for the Culture of the Indigenous Peoples of Baikal Region.
We continue to move along Kasyanova Street and turn left at the intersection with Profsoyuznaya. At the crossroads, on the so-called Mogilev’s site, you can see the memorial complex, installed in 1967 on the site of a mass grave of 19 participants in the uprising against A.V. Kolchak in the Glazkovo suburb in December 1919.
Memorial at the Mogilev site
A little further away you can see an old brick building built in 1916 according to the project of V.I. Kolyanovsky for the primary railway school, which was later transformed into the school No. 10 and then No. 42 (Profsoyuznaya Str., 3). Here was the headquarters of the worker-peasant squads during the battles on December 1917. Until 1941, a famous film director L.I. Gaidai studied here, who graduated from school three days before the start of the war. Among the graduates of the school there are other famous personalities: the writer I.I. Molchanov-Sibirsky, author of the method of restoring the human appearance of a person based on the skeletal remains M.M. Gerasimov, the first director of the Irkutsk Institute of the Earth’s Crust N.A. Florensov and many others.
Railway Lyceum No. 36
In 2002, according to the plan of the architect S.A. Chumakov, a new school building appeared nearby, which two years later was transformed into the Russian Railways Lyceum No. 36. Until the middle of the 20th century, a very picturesque wooden church built in 1916 and the almshouse of the educational brotherhood of Saint Innocent stood on this site.
Church of St. Innocent, first half of the 20th century
On the left, at the intersection with Mayakovskogo Street, you can see a stele dedicated to the Sverdlovsk district of Irkutsk. It stands opposite the magnificent wooden tenement house of the Verkholensk merchant A.N. Abramov (Mayakovskogo Str., 5). From here we will go down to Dzhambul Street, which is named after the famous Kazakh poet and winner of the Stalin Prize. But before that, let’s linger on the top of the Kaya mountain and admire one of the best panoramas of Irkutsk city.
The Glazkovsky Bridge, the oldest in Irkutsk, goes to the right bank of Angara River. And, although it had a predecessor like pontoon Nikolaevsky bridge, the remains of which are still visible near the shore downstream (it existed since 1891), nevertheless, a permanent crossing appeared in Irkutsk only in 1936. By the time it was put into operation, this was the most longspan reinforced concrete bridge in the USSR. The architect of the bridge I.A. Frantsuz was the author of the project of the mausoleum of V.I. Lenin on Red Square in Moscow. And on the last parapet pedestal on the left towards the city, you can still see a sign stating that this bridge is a real «monument to V.I. Lenin.»
Glazkovsky bridge, 1936
In the meantime, we will turn right and continue our movement along Chelnokov Street, named after the twice Hero of the Soviet Union, General N.V. Chelnokov, who made more than 270 sorties, bringing death to the enemy in the air and on the ground from the Baltic to Black Sea. How symbolic that he was born in Irkutsk on a Great Victoru Day on May 9, 1906. A monument to him was set here at the entrance group to the Sverdlovsk region, in a small square at the foot of the Kaya Mountain. However, this was done unforgivably late: only on October 2, 2016, on the 110th anniversary of the birth of the aviation general.
Twice Hero of the Soviet Union N.V. Chelnokov (1906—1974)
Ahead appeared the building of one of the most beautiful passenger stations in Russia – Irkutsk. It was built in 1907 according to the project of architect V.I. Kolyanovsky, and which is undergoing a complete reconstruction in our time (Chelnokova Str., 1). Above the station, on a steep slope, the small Saint Nicholas and Innocent Church froze. It became the first temple that arose in Irkutsk on the left bank of the Angara.
Irkutsk railway station, old (right) and new (left), 1907
Previously, the residents of the Glazkovo suburb were forced to cross the tempestuous waters of the river, sometimes risking their lives in order to be able to pray at the nearby Holy Trinity Church (5 Armii Str., 8). Therefore, in 1859, at the expense of the merchant of the 3rd guild, Y.S. Malkov, on the left bank of the Angara, a new stone temple was built in the classical style (Profsoyuznaya Str., 45A).
Praam on the Holy Trinity ferry, 1890
With the arrival of the railway in Irkutsk, the population of the city doubled, and the church became small for all parishioners, but due to lack of funds and the Russian Revolution, plans for enlargement were not destined to come true. In 1934, the emergency building