Webcam Irkutsk. Viaduct at Batareinaya station online
Irkutsk is a unique, ancient city, the capital of Eastern Siberia. Its proximity to Lake Baikal makes it a true tourist center, annually thousands of Russian and foreign tourists visit Irkutsk.
Irkutsk was founded in 1661 on the bank of the Irkut River. In 2011, Irkutsk celebrated its 350th anniversary.
Favorable geographical location of Irkutsk at the intersection of many trade routes largely determined its history and development. The city has become a kind of "window to the East", all the expeditions, organized to the Far East, Mongolia, China, Alaska were formed in Irkutsk. This is also where the settlement of the Amur shores began.
In the 1840s, Irkutsk became the gold-producing center of Eastern Siberia, and Irkutsk merchants became the richest in Siberia. The construction of the Trans-Siberian railroad through Irkutsk led to increased economic and cultural ties between the Siberian city and European Russia and enhanced its role as the administrative center of a vast region.
Today, Irkutsk is among the largest cities of the Russian Federation and has the status of one of the seven cities with a unique historical and cultural heritage. More than 600 thousand people live here.
It is an administrative, business, industrial, scientific and educational center with more than 10 thousand companies of various sizes, a branch of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences with a network of research institutes, universities and higher educational institutions with about 100 thousand students.
Irkutsk is a multinational city with representatives of more than 100 nationalities.
Irkutsk is a Siberian city in which old lace wooden houses neighbor modern high-rise buildings. There are drama and musical theaters, a theater for young spectators, a philharmonic society with a symphony orchestra, and a hall of organ music. In one of the oldest in Russia local history museum of Irkutsk there are rich archaeological and ethnographic collections. For about 120 years operates in Irkutsk art museum, created on the basis of a private collection. Works of Irkutsk writers Konstantin Sedykh, Alexander Vampilov, Mark Sergeyev, Valentin Rasputin are known not only in Russia, but all over the world.
