Читать книгу The Most Detailed Travel Guide around Irkutsk. All the attractions with the route of movement & addresses - Alexander Dmitrievich Katashevtsev - Страница 15

We turn left and run into Labour Square, the main dominant of which is the circus building, built in 1964. Irkutsk became the first city in Siberia and on Far East where such a building appeared. Irkutsk residents are longtime fans of such performances. The first circus troupe of a certain Mikoletto visited the city back in 1795, and a permanent wooden building appeared on Tikhvin Square thanks to the Italian entrepreneur Soulier in 1868.

Earlier, starting from the 1780s, this place was occupied by Ivanovskaya Square with trading rows of Melochny (“Trivial”) Bazaar, where people traded mainly in agricultural goods brought from the villages. Behind the circus building, you can still see the shops of the Old City Public Administration, which have been occupied by a mica factory since 1929 (now Sverdlova Str., 41).

Trading rows of Melochny (“Trivial”) Bazaar

Here from the house of the merchant V.A. Ostapin on June 22, 1879, the Great Fire began, which destroyed the best part of Irkutsk. The flames blazed for three days and swallowed up the entire city center. Burnt out 75 blocks with 105 stone and 3418 wooden buildings. The fire took away practically all public, educational and state institutions, many temples, museum; also destroyed the entire city archive with unique documents.

Map of the Great Fire in Irkutsk

However, one of the oldest buildings in Irkutsk is still preserved on the other side of the square – the building of the hotel “Moscow Courtyard” created in 1821 at the expense of the merchant N.P. Trapeznikov, and donated to the city for free use of the City Court in 1887 by his grand-nephew, which already known to us as V.P. Sukachev. The justice authorities are here to this day.

Moscow Courtyard

At the end of the ensemble of the square, the building of the central telegraph, built in 1932 by the architect N.N. Baikov. It is located on the site of the former house of I. A. Nemchinov, where in November 1903 the main telegraph office of Irkutsk was transferred. Today the representative office of OJSC “Rostelecom” is located here.

Main telegraph office of Irkutsk

There is an illuminated fountain in the center of the square. Earlier in its place was located one of the most picturesque stone chapels of Irkutsk – in the name of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God. It was installed here in 1892 by the architect V.A. Kudelsky at the expense of the Irkutsk industrialist and philanthropist A.M. Sibiryakov.

Chapel in the name of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God

Noteworthy is the nearby best monument in Russia to the famous film director L.I. Gaidai, established here in 2012. For a talented cinematographer, Irkutsk has become a fateful city. Here he graduated from school No. 42 (now Lyceum No. 36 of JSC “Russian Railways”), volunteered for the front, returned injured, received his first theatrical experience and decided to become an actor. In addition, L.I. Gaidai wrote his first script, which brought him worldwide fame for the film “Dog Barbos and Unusual Cross”, when had found a play of S.I. Oleinik in the attic of his parents’ house in Irkutsk in 1961. It is the scene from this film that is shown in the composition of the monument designed by S.B. Demkov.

Monument to the famous film director L.I. Gaidai