Having passed the semi-antique guest house on Zvezdinskaya Street, we will return to Lermontov Street and at the Sports Palace «Izumrud» we will again turn to Angara River (Chernyshevsky Str., 12). The latter is under the jurisdiction of the Irkutsk State University of Communications (IrSUC), whose unusual building we will see a little lower down the slope (Chernyshevsky Str., 15). This educational institution appeared in 1975 due to an acute shortage of engineers during the resumption of the construction of the Baikal-Amur Magistral (BAM).
Irkutsk State University of Communications
At the intersection with Belinskogo Street, there is a small but very picturesque two-story house of Syskov (Belinskogo Str., 1) built at the end of the 19th century. Next, near the bank of Angara, we turn right after the rails of Trans-Siberian Railway. In front of the intersection with Zhukovskogo Street, there are two beautiful wooden houses built in 1915 (Gerzen St., 16 and 18). The first belonged to the clerk of the traffic service of Trans-Baikal Railway A.S. Dubenevich, and the second to a certain Vishnyakova.
House of A. S. Dubenevich
Having reached the end of Herzena Street, we will find ourselves at the ancient border of the Glazkovo suburb. From the side of the Angara River, since 1890, there was a favorite place for summer recreation of Irkutsk people – «Tsar’ Devitsa» garden. It was named after the historical figure of Maria Titova, who lived in the 19th century, who left at home alone without a father and hacked to death with an ax five robbers who got into her room at night. The park operated a restaurant with drinks, light snacks and confectionery, as well as a photo pavilion. However, a few years later, when a railway passed along the park, and the smoke from passing steam locomotives began to pester the guests, the place lost its popularity, and in 1910 it was closed for debts. In 1930, the first broadcast radio station in Irkutsk appeared in the garden, and it’s still there today (Radiostantsiya 5 Str., 1).
Garden «Tsar Devitsa», 1908
Slightly upstream of the Angara, next to the park, was the village of Titovo, which today is reminiscent of several wooden houses at the very edge of the railway along Lesia Ukrainka Street. The first settlement at this place was mentioned by the ambassador to China N.G. Melescu-Spafari in 1675. It was also inhabited in the earlier eras of the Bronze, Iron, Neolithic, Early Metal and Mesolithic, as evidenced by the collection of ceramics and stone tools collected here.
Radio Station No. 5
Studgorodok Microdistrict
From here we get to the Studgorodok microdistrict, on the territory of which there are 17 student dormitories today, the first were built in 1957. Moving up Lomonosova Street, at one of the turns you can still find a monument hidden from prying eyes on a mass grave where were burried brother-in-law of P.P. Postyshev and the first chairman of the Siberian Extraordinary Commission I.S. Postolovsky, along with his six comrades. They were hanged on August 3, 1918 in revenge for the execution of participants in the anti-Bolshevik uprising and buried on the outskirts of the city near the former garden «Tsar Devitsa» (Lomonosova Str., 70).
Grave of I.S. Postolovsky
To the left on the hill rises the huge building of the Irkutsk National Research Technical University (INRTU), which appeared here in 1957 and today is one of the 300 best higher educational institutions in the world (Lermontova Str., 83). He was the first in Siberia to create the Eurasian Open University on its basis, so graduates, in addition to the usual diploma, receive an international document. Every year more than 30 thousand students study within the walls of this institution. Among the famous graduates of the educational institution, the pilot and Hero of the Soviet Union G.S. Aseev, aircraft builder L.A. Khvorostukhin, scientist-metallurgist E.P. Bochkarev, writer G.N. Mashkin, General Director of the Ulan-Ude Shipbuilding Plant G.I. Tsukanov, as well as the first Soviet woman who climbed to the top of Everest – E.N. Ivanova.
Irkutsk National Research Technical University, 1978
Today, on the first floor of the university, in wing «B», from the side of Igoshina Street, there is the largest mineralogical museum in Siberia, the collection of which includes more than 27 thousand exhibits. The basis for the creation of the exposition in 1930 was the collections of the oldest geologists of Siberia – V.I. Tikhomirov and A.V. Lvov. Since 1991, the institution has been named after A. V. Sidorov, Associate Professor of the Department of Geology at INRTU, who significantly expanded the collection. Opposite the entrance to the museum, you can see a small cross, installed in 1999 on the site of the proposed construction of a youth church in the name of Saint Sergius of Radonezh.
Mineralogical Museum of INRTU
On the other side of the road from the university, you can see the silhouette of the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God, built in 2000 according to the project of the Polish architect Andrzej Chwalibog and funded by the communities of Russia, Poland, Germany, Italy and Slovakia (Griboedova Str., 110). It is here that today is the center of the diocese of St. Joseph – the largest in terms of area in the world (about 10 million km2). The altar in the temple is made of Baikal jade, and on the sides of it are the statues of the Mother of God of Fatima and St. Joseph the Betrothed.
Cathedral of the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God
On the north side of the cathedral you can see the Chapel of Reconciliation and Peace with a bronze sculpture of Jesus Christ by the Polish sculptor Vincenta Kuchma. At the base of the slab of black dolerite with inscriptions in Russian and Latin, there are urns with earth from the mass graves of prisoners of 14 «GULag « (chief administration of the camps).
Chapel of Reconciliation and Peace
We continue our way down Lermontov Street and move towards the Trans-Siberian Railway, which turns sharply here to the west, which passed this way in 1949. Until 1957, the rails ran along the left bank of the Angara to Baikal itself. There we will go further, restoring the history of the old road step by step. During the laying of the turn of the Trans-Siberian Railway near the Angara coast, one of the largest burials of the Paleolithic times (22 thousand years old) was discovered, about 40 thousand finds were collected.
Next to the viaduct on the left we can see the building of the Lyceum of the Irkutsk State University (hereinafter ISU), which opened here in 1995 and today is among the 200 best schools in Russia (Akademika Kurchatova Str., 13A). On the right hand is the East Siberian Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, founded on this site in 1962. Today it is the leading educational institution in Eastern Siberia that trains law enforcement officers (Lermontova Str., 110).
East Siberian Institute of the MIA
Academgorodok Microdistrict
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