Saint Innocent Church with a fire wagon, 1906
Well, we will continue to move along the street named after the twice winner of the Stalin Prize in the field of transport, Academician V.N. Obraztsov. At its beginning, in the Sarafanovka terrain, another amazing church lurked. This is the oldest wooden temple preserved in Irkutsk – the St. Michael the Archangel Zhilkino’s Skete (Obraztsova St., 1), built in 1874 at the place where the first Bishop of Irkutsk, St. Innocent, liked to stop on his way to Malaya Elan. Two springs are also named in his honor, which formed a small lake with time here. In addition, this temple was one of the first after the revolution to open its doors to parishioners. Already in June 1945, services began to be held here, and since 1987, the oldest parish school in the city in the name of Saint Sophrony of Irkutsk with an extensive library has been operating at the church.
Michael the Archangel Zhilkinsky Skete
On the other side of the lake, the remains of an ancient cemetery at the St. Innocent Skete are visible. It was closed in 1937, but about a dozen tombstones and fences have survived today. According to one of the urban legends, it was here in the spring of 1920 that the body of the Supreme Ruler of Russia A.V. Kolchak was secretly buried. However, Ust-Kuda, Meget and even the Monastery of Icon of Our Lady of the Sign are named among the possible places of burial, and it is virtually impossible to verify the authenticity of these versions.
Old cemetery at Innokentievsky Skete
Not far from the cemetery, behind Rosa Luxemburg Street, on the Novo-Innokentievsky outskirt, there is a garden of the Latvian breeder A.K. Thomson (St. Thomson, 3), which since 1914 began to supply the whole of Irkutsk with rich harvests of ranet. Thanks to this talented botanist, 230 varieties of apple trees, 77 species of fruit and berry plants, 47 spe-cies of ornamental trees (in particular, elm, oak, maple, linden and hazel, rare for Siberia) grew here by the 1930s. Today, there are more than 150 species of relic plants on the territory of the garden, and since 1996 Sovetsky Lane has been named after Thomson.
The garden of breeder A.K. Thomson
Right behind its green spaces rise the walls of the Irkutsk ceramic factory, which since 1929 has been the main supplier of bricks in Irkutsk. It is interesting that the first such enterprise appeared here back in 1872. Along the Trans-Siberian Railway stretch Novoleninsky swamps, which since 2010 have been included in the special nature protected area called «Bird’s Harbor». And this is not surprising, since more than 200 species of birds nest on this lake and swamp complex, right in the center of the city, besides factories and the railway. Among them there are also the Red Book black stork, gyrfalcon, peregrine falcon, saker falcon and steppe eagle.
Novoleninsky Swamps
Irkutsk II Microdistrict
Next, we will go along the Novo-Lenino bypass road to the junction, near which the plant of reinforced concrete structures of the East Siberian Railroad (hereinafter ESR) has been operating since the 1980s. Here we turn left at the junction under the bridge, towards the Irkutsk II district by the Leninsky Trakt, which appeared as a permanent connection with the city center only in 1935.
Having passed the street food market «Parus», as well as the «Bazar» and «Priboy» shopping centers (Traktovaya St., 35), we will see on the right hand behind the fence the far drive beacon of the «Irkutsk II» military airport. Behind it, we have to overcome three railway crossings, leading in in the following sequence: the first – to the Irkutsk mill, meat processing plant and woodworking enterprises; the second – to the branch of the Buryat meat processing company, the warehouses of the Federal Reserve Agency and the Irkutsk vegetable warehouse; and the third – to the blanking and stamping production of the Irkutsk aircraft factory. The latter produces up to 70% of the details of future aircraft in three workshops. The personnel of the plant have been forged here since 1934 in the technical school of aircraft construction and metalworking (Mira str., 14). It was here in 1939—1940 was studied the future Hero of the Soviet Union A.D. Evstigneev.
Hero of the Soviet Union A.D. Evstigneev, 1940s
From Mira Street (former Monastyrskaya) we will turn right onto Maria Ulyanova Street (previously known as Detskoy Radosty and Krestovsky Lane), walking round the territory of the blanking and stamping plant, we will drive to the Siberian Partizans Street (formerly 9th or Tverskaya). The latter is named in memory of the liberation of Irkutsk from the admiral Kolchak squads in February 1920. Once it was the very outskirts of the Innokentievskaya settlement, but since the 1930s, it has become the arterial road of this area.
Fire Department of Aircraft factory
The first thing that attracts attention is the beautiful building with a tower standing to the right of the road (Sibirskih Partizan Str., 2) – this is a fire station built in 1936 according to the project of architect B.M. Kerbel. Opposite it is the M. Gorky Park, which in 2018 was renamed to the Peace Square. It is symbolic that at the very end of this territory there is a monument «Woman with a Child» – in memory of a brave lady out of this district, who saved a baby from a fire in 1935. Now the sculpture has been restored, and in 2000 the participants of the Great Patriotic War planted the «Veterans’ Alley» here. And this is not accidental, since a street passes along the park, named in memory of the Hero of the Soviet Union V.F. Zhukov, who worked in the lumber industry of Irkutsk and died in 1944 during the liberation of Sevastopol. His portrait can be seen in the form of a monumental panel (artist Y.N. Kvasova) on one of the houses (Mira Str., 62).
Panel with a portrait of the Hero of the Soviet Union V.F. Zhukov
Right behind the crossroads rise the walls of the oldest residential building on Siberian Partizans Street, built back in 1939 by architect V.N. Volkov (Sibirskih Partizan Str, 4). From the moment the house was commissioned and until his death in 1997, the Hero of Socialist Labor and an honorary citizen of the city, the milling operator of the aircraft factory M.D. Parkhomenko lived here. On the other side of the street, behind a typical building, there is a brick house No. 3A, in which from 1963 to 1996 lived the writer and artist V.P. Starodumov.
Writer and artist V.P. Starodumov, 1990s
We continue our way to Muravyov Street, formerly known as Upravskaya Lane, named after the village administration located here. Once this street led straight to the Innokentievskaya station, from where the formation of this area began. At the intersection on the right side there are two residential buildings (Sibirskih Partizan Str., 16 and 18), in which the documentary film director B.P. Rakin and poetess N.K. Sidorova were lived.
In the