Irkutsk airport, 1999
Next, we will go up by Deputatskaya Street past numerous educational institutions that have remained as a legacy from the Irkutsk State Agricultural Institute (Baikalskaya Str., 257). Hiding among the surrounding buildings are the Irkutsk branch of the Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation (Baikalskaya Str., 261A), the Training Center of Trade Unions (house 263), as well as the Irkutsk Technological College (house 255) and even the State Olympic Reserve School (house 267). For the latter, in 2012, the largest sports complex in Siberia and the Far East – «Baikal Arena», with a total area of more than 22,000 m2, was built in Solnechny (Baikalskaya Str., 267И).
Sports complex «Baikal Arena»
Having passed the Dry Brook and the Butakova Valley, between which the new buildings of the residential complex «Symbol» are squeezed, we leave the capital of Eastern Siberia. However, the city is in no hurry to end. It continues with a variety of low- and high-rise buildings. Having passed the «Green Land» cottage village, we will see one of the most unusual educational institutions in Siberia – the educational complex «Point of the Future» of 27 buildings, including a school, a kindergarten, sports facilities, a center for social and psychological support, as well as a cottage village for reception families (Baikalskaya Str., 374—408). At Chertugeevskaya Valley, about a thousand children are trained in the most comfortable conditions according to experimental programs. The complex was built in 2020 with private funds from the creator of the first wireless Internet in Russia, A.A. Avdolyan and with the support of the director of State Corporation «Rostec» S.V. Chemezov. The future elite of Russian society is trained here.
The Educational Complex «Point of the Future»
Baikal Tract
We are moving out for the Baikal tract, which is the beginning of the old Zamorsky or Amur tract, built back in 1733. It went through three postal stations (Patronovskaya, Taltsinskaya, Listvenichnaya) to the shore of Lake Baikal, from where the path continued to Transbaikalia and further to the Far East. On June 11, 1890, it was this route that A.P. Chekhov, on the way to Sakhalin, sharing his impressions with his relatives, he wrote the following: «The shores are picturesque… I was rode and for some reason I felt that I was unusually healthy; I felt so good that it’s impossible to describe… because the shore of the Angara River looks like Switzerland». Most of the old road went under water during the construction of a hydroelectric power station. However, in the area of the villages of Molodezhny (allotment «Pribrezhny») and Novolisikha (allotments «Irkutyanin», Sosnovaya Street), you can still see the forest belts left from the old tract.
Old Baikal tract, first half of the 20th century
68 kilometers of the new and, probably, the shortest federal highway in Russia were built here in just four winter months from January to April 1960. The reason for the rush was the visit of the 34th US President D.D. Eisenhower, who chose Irkutsk as the first place to visit the USSR by old memory. Because, from March 1918 to November 1919 he worked in the capital of Eastern Siberia as a security guard at the US Consulate General, which was located in Perfilevsky lane, house No. 3 (now Pugacheva lane, the original building has been lost). Then in Irkutsk for 50 days, from November 14, 1919 to January 4, 1920, there was the last center of the Russian Empire, all its ministries and embassies of the countries participating in the intervention. On the eve of D.D. Eisenhower, rumors spread around the city about Vera (or Nastya) Baranova, who was the illegitimate daughter of the American president. Perhaps this was the main reason for his decision to revisit.
34th US President D.D. Eisenhower
By the arrival of the American leader, there was a real commotion. First Secretary of the Irkutsk City Executive Committee N.S. Patrov had to prepare everything for the visit of the distinguished guest in record time, and after all, just recently the city lost its only short road to Lake Baikal, which completely disappeared under water a year earlier. It was impossible to conduct a reconnaissance of the area so quickly, but the plans for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway along the right bank of the Angara from Irkutsk to Listvenichny, created back in 1894, but never implemented due to a number of circumstances, came in handy.
Construction of the Baikal tract, 1960
In addition, the chief Irkutsk architect N.A. Rumyantseva went to the trick to bring to the city for the visit of the American president a beautiful fountain, which was cast by a resident of the city of Kursk especially for his fellows. She phoned the sculptor’s apartment, and, introducing herself as the secretary of the Central Committee, ordered to transfer the fountain to Irkutsk. On the same day, the documents were drawn up, and the fountain was sent by rail to the capital of Eastern Siberia – much to the surprise and delight of the regional authorities. Since then, it has been flaunting on the main plaza of Irkutsk – the S.M. Kirov Square. Also, a hostel for employees of the state university was resettled in the city and rebuilt for the needs of the high embassy. Several comfortable motor ships («Babushkin» and «Irkutsk») were brought to Baikal, as well as the fourth in the history of the USSR ultra-modern hydrofoil ship «Rocketa-4».
Fountain in the Kirov Square in Irkutsk, 1960s
But, despite all the preparations, the visit was never destined to come true. Since just a week before it, on May 1, 1960, an American Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft took off over Afghanistan in Peshawar. It flew over the territory of half of the Soviet Union and was shot down by a rocket near Sverdlovsk (modern Ekaterinburg). On board was a spy named F.G. Powers, whom USSR exchanged years later in Berlin on the Glienicke bridge for the Soviet agent V.G. Fisher. After this incident, there could be no talk of a friendly visit. However, despite the failed trip, the gradual development of tourism began on Baikal. Ironically, the next world leader to visit these places was Eisenhower’s worst enemy – communist Cuban leader F.A. Castro (on May 11—12, 1963).
Fidel Castro on Dekabrskikh Sobytiy Street in Irkutsk, 1963
Moving further along the Baikal tract, we run into a village with the mysterious name «New Razvodnaya». In fact, below its present location there were two villages – Malaya and Bolshaya Razvodnaya, founded in 1674 by settlers from Moscow, Petrushka Grigoriev and Grishka Pavlov. During the construction of the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station, these villages were the first to disappear under water, already in 1957 at a depth of about 16 m. 130 km of auto-drawn roads and 58 km of the Trans-Siberian railway with Mikhalevo station and 6 passing loops. The water went deep into the coast in some places up to 150 meters, about 138.6 thousand hectares of land, 127 settlements, including 9 urban ones, fell into the flood zone. 3.3 thousand households were resettled, where more than 17 thousand people lived.
Peter and Paul Church in Bolshaya Razvodnaya, early 20th century
But once it was in these prosperous villages lived in the settlement many of the first Russian revolutioners (Decembrists from rebellion on 26 December, 1825). In 1839—1841 one of the initiators of the 1825 uprising was sent to Bolshaya