Museum of City Life

Irkutsk


This small museum filling six rooms of a former merchant’s house illustrates just why 19th-century Irkutsk was nicknamed the ‘Paris of Siberia’. Changing exhibitions of everyday and decorative items such as lamps, dolls, tableware and porcelain are donated free of charge by the people of Irkutsk and are displayed against a background of period wallpaper, elegant double doors and high ceilings. The ticket is also valid for the tiny Tea Museum above the tourist office opposite.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Irkutsk attractions

1. Volkonsky House-Museum

0.12 MILES

The duck-egg-blue and white home of Decembrist Count Sergei Volkonsky, whose wife Maria Volkonskaya cuts the main figure in Christine Sutherland’s…

2. Trubetskoy House-Museum

0.24 MILES

Irkutsk’s second Decembrist house-museum emerged from a recent renovation with English-language information, touchscreens and tinkling background music…

3. Bronshteyn Gallery

0.31 MILES

A large and sparkling new modern-art venue that most prominently features a collection of Dashi Namdakov’s sculptures inspired by Buddhist prayer dolls…

4. City History Museum

0.47 MILES

Despite its palatial 19th-century home (built by wealthy merchant Sibiryakov in 1884), what should be Irkutsk's main repository of the past is in fact a…

5. Usadba Sukacheva

0.7 MILES

A small park on the edge of the historical centre contains a smattering of beautiful wood-lace buildings and arbours. These house exhibitions dedicated to…

6. Kazansky Church

0.72 MILES

The gigantic Kazansky Church is a theme-park-esque confection of salmon-pink walls and fluoro turquoise domes topped with gold baubled crosses. Get off…

7. Sculpture Gallery

0.93 MILES

Opened in 2016, this lovely gallery puts in the spotlight Russian and Soviet sculpture previously kept in the city's main art museum and private…

8. Raising of the Cross Church

0.97 MILES

The 1758 baroque Raising of the Cross Church has a fine interior of gilt-edged icons and examples of intricate brickwork in a rounded style that’s unique…