Irkutsk

Pinned on the peripheries of the great Siberian wilds, Irkutsk is known to any readers of Russian literature as the tray that once collected the exiled and ostracised of imperial society. During the reign of the tsars, Bolsheviks, artists, writers, Decembrists and political thorns of all shapes and sizes were thrown this way down the rattling Trans-Siberian Railway, infusing the city with a brash confidence and attitude that was to set it apart from the styles of Soviet Russia—at least in character if not in politics. Consequently that means that the Irkutsk of today is a curious mishmash of the orthodox and the baroque; of the Oriental and Eastern European. This is a place where the towering onion-domes of the Cathedral of The Epiphany rub shoulders with the filigreed apses of Shastin's House and rustic timber homes put together in Siberian style. The latter in fact, have been the focal point of a municipal initiative to put together a tourism centre called 130 Karvtal, a lively complex of shops, restaurants, cafes and the like. Irkutsk tour guides are also at hand to help plan daytrips to Lake Baikal, or travels further into the East; into mysterious Mongolia, through to China on the Trans-Siberian, or even deeper into the vast wonders of the Siberian steppe.