IRKUTSK, a town in the Siberian Area of the R.S.F.S.R. in lat. 36' N., long. 10' E., altitude 1,490 ft. It is situated on the right bank of the Angara river, a tributary of the Yenisei river, 45 m. below its outflow from Lake Baikal; its suburb Glazkovskoe lies on the left bank, and a pontoon bridge spans the river, which is 63o yd. wide. The railway and station are on the left bank. The Irkut river, from which the town of Irkutsk takes its name, enters the Angara river on its left bank, but is not navigable and the small Ushakovka river. flows through the town and enters the Angara on the right bank. The town grew out of the winter quarters established by Ivan Pokhabov in 1652 for the collection of the fur tax from the Buriats. Its advantageous position for trade with China, the Amur region, the Lena goldfields and the fur regions of Siberia have made it an im portant city; its population in 1933 was 158,50o. A post road runs north to the Lena and Yakutsk and south-east to Listvenichnoe on Lake Baikal, and other roads link it with the east. The Angara is navigable for steamers to Lake Baikal, though the current is against them. The river is frozen from January to April. The average January temperature is — F, July F; the aver age rainfall per annum is 14.5 in. The town is well built with wide streets and has a drainage system and an electric power station.
In 1879 fire destroyed many of the public buildings, including the library and museum of the Russian Geographical Society which has here the headquarters of its Siberian section, with valu able books, maps and exhibits. The town has long been a cultural centre for the district. It contains schools, a training college for teachers and a recently established Workers' Scientific Institute. St. Innocent's monastery, five miles outside the town influenced much of Eastern Siberia. Its industries include brewing, timber milling, flour-milling, leather works, the making of fur and sheep skin coats and various small articles especially for the posting routes. It was a storm centre from 1918 to 1921 and much dam age was then done to the town and railway. The State gold treas ure, which had been removed from Leningrad under the charge of employees of the tsarist regime, was handed over by them to the Bolshevists in Irkutsk in 1920; and here Admiral Kolchak was executed in the same year. The town was in tsarist times the centre of the Irkutsk government, an area occupying 287,061 sq.m., but is now only the centre of one of the twenty counties of the Siberian Area (q.v.).