The Most Detailed Travel Guide around Irkutsk. All the attractions with the route of movement & addresses
to Verkhoyansk for him from St. Petersburg. From here, right after the wedding, he went to war with Japan, crossing Lake Baikal on foot along the ice railway. Finally on February 7, 1920 A.V. Kolchak was shot in the Irkutsk prison castle, and his body was thrown into an ice-hole of the Angara River, where the nuns of the Monastery of Icon of Our Lady of the Sign took water. Therefore, the location of the monument is not accidental: opposite the mouth of the Ushakovka River at the intersection with the former Yakutsk Tract (nowdays Rabochego Shtaba street), along which A.V. Kolchak first entered Irkutsk in 1902, returning from an expedition to search for Sannikov Land (a phantom island in the Arctic Ocean).
Admiral A.V. Kolchak
Every year, the court hearings do not subside with the demand to dismantle the monument to the “tyrant and executioner”. However, it is worth recalling that whole world polar expeditions to this day are carried out according to the methods developed by A.V. Kolchak. It was not without reason that he was the fourth person in history to be awarded the Konstantine gold medal – the highest award conferred by Russian Geographical Society.
Constantine Medal of IRGS
In addition, without his participation in the Collegium of the Naval General Staff, as well as a talented strategy for mining the Baltic, the WWI would have ended in defeat for Russia already in the summer of 1915, when Germany brought down all the power of its fleet. And thanks to his command of Black Sea Fleet (he was the youngest admiral among the warring countries) the Turks forever forgot the entrance to Black Sea. If only for this reasons the monument must be preserved.
A.V. Kolchak on the expedition
But we will continue our journey and visit the territory of Monastery of Icon of Our Lady of the Sign, where there is a small but famous cemetery, which was almost completely destroyed after the creation of the first hydro-airport in the history of Siberia in 1928 on the Angara River. Our Lady of the Sign Cathedral itself, built back in 1762. But during the years of Soviet power it was taken to the aircraft workshop, and the territory of the cemetery was razed to the ground. Despite all the changes, it was possible to find and even preserve some of the most significant burials.
Znamensky Necropolis
Right at the entrance we meet the grave of the Decembrist V.A. Bechasnov – one of the few who stayed in Siberia of his own will after the amnesty. Left in the corner of the front garden you can see the grave of N.A. Panov – the only of the rebels who led the grenadier detachment to Senate Square on December 14, 1825 and surrounded the Winter Palace – he was 22 years old at that moment. Opposite him was buried P.A. Mukhanov, who was not a participant in the main events of the Decembrist Uprising but paid for the intention to kill the emperor by exile to Siberia. He only a little did not live up to the amnesty and before his wedding after moving to a settlement in Irkutsk.
Decembrist V.A. Bechasnov
The Decembrists may be treated differently, but the feat of their wives can be considered only in one way. Only 11 women (out of 23 marrieds) followed the 121 Decembrists exiled to Siberia. And the first of them was buried in this cemetery – this is Princess E.I. Trubetskaya. As the heir to one of the richest families of France, she was the wife of Colonel S.P. Trubetskoy – the manque dictator of the Russian Republic and the head of the uprising. She did not live less than two years before the amnesty and died in Irkutsk in 1854 – the whole Irkutsk buried her. The feat had a miraculous effect on this woman: being childless in health, she gave birth to her first child only here in Siberia – that was her daughter Alexandra, and then six more children. Three of them rest next to their mother under a small stone cube behind the gravestone to E.I. Trubetskaya. Her husband managed to return to central Russia after the amnesty, and soon moved the four surviving children out of here.
Princess E.I. Trubetskaya
In addition to old burials, you can see modern ones here. Further on the left we will see the place where the buried “conscience of Russia” V.G. Rasputin who is the last “village writer”, public figure and creator of the festival “Days of Russian spirituality and culture ‘Shining of Russia’”. He died in Moscow on March 14, 2015, several hours before his 78th birthday. Novels of V.G. Rasputin “Farewell to Matera”, “Live and Remember”, “French Lessons” are immortal works of Russian literature and are taught in the school curriculum. This writer has no connections with the famous family friend of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II G.E. Rasputin, since he was killed in 1916 and his only son Dmitry died in 1933 and could not be the father of this man of letters, who was born in 1937.
V.G. Rasputin
Behind the grave of the famous writer, you can see a strange monument resembling a tree trunk with a chopped off top, branches and roots. This is the grave of the honourary citizen of Irkutsk, the 1st guild merchant of Shuya and Irkutsk, the gold miner and tea trader V.F. Kolygin, who left no heirs, since all of his five children died in infancy.
Time to visit the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign, which is one of two churches in Irkutsk, where the original iconostasis has been partially preserved. The church was re-painted, but already by Soviet artists, what immediately catches the eye.
Original iconostasis of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign
The main treasure of the monastery is a feretory with the relics of St. Innocent of Irkutsk, the first saint of Eastern Siberia. He was born not here, but in Malorussia (modern Ukraine) near Chernigov in 1682. He received a good theological education, which helped him, after being tonsured a monk, to get a teaching position at the first school at the history of Russia called Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy in 1714. There he met Peter I, who took him to his fleet on the ship “Samson”.
St. Innocent
Fate brought Innocent to Siberia when he was sent as part of the embassy to China in 1721. However, due to a number of circumstances, he stayed here forever and was appointed as the first bishop of Irkutsk and Nerchinsk. Having held this post for less than five years, Innocent died and was buried at the Ascension Monastery near Irkutsk in 1731, but various miracles at his the burial place, as well as lifetime exploits led to the canonization of the bishop in 1804.
His relics have disappeared at the devastation of the monastery in 1921. Only in 1989, in one of the museums of Yaroslavl it was discovered in the exhibition under the label “Siberian mummy”. St. Innocent’s relics were solemnly returned to Irkutsk in 1990, and still they are here in a feretory to the right of the main aisle.
Return of St. Innocent
Having got acquainted with the interior of the church, let’s complete the circle along the temple. Here at the apse is the resting place of the “Russian Columbus” G.I. Shelikhov, who founded the first Russian settlement in North America on August 3, 1784.
“Russian Columbus”