Originally imported in kit form from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to carry Trans-Siberian Railway passengers across Lake Baikal (the trains went on her bigger sister ship Baikal, sunk during the Russian Civil War), this icebreaker is now a less-than-inspiring museum reached by a permanent gangway. Trolleybuses 3, 5, 7 and 8 head this way.
Angara Icebreaker
Irkutsk
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Nearby Irkutsk attractions
1. Angara Dam
0.2 MILES
Some 6km southeast of the centre, the 1956 Angara Dam is 2km long. Its construction raised Lake Baikal by up to 1m and caused environmental problems, most…
2. Usadba Sukacheva
2.24 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…
3. 130 Kvartal
2.64 MILES
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4. Raising of the Cross Church
2.65 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…
5. Museum of City Life
2.84 MILES
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…
6. Regional Museum
2.95 MILES
Irkutsk’s rapidly ageing Regional Museum occupies a fancy 1880s brick building that formerly housed the Siberian Geographical Society, a club of Victorian…
7. Volkonsky House-Museum
2.95 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…
8. Statue of Tsar Alexander III
2.95 MILES
Adorning the Angara embankment, a recast statue of Alexander III (a copy of the 1904 original) has the only tsar ever to visit Siberia looking as though…