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 rather limited exhibition on the city's history with absolutely nothing in English. Highlights include some interesting pre-Russian wooden yurts and tepees, a model of the Kazansky Church, some fascinating blown-up photos of 19th-century Irkutsk, and a 20th-century section with bric-a-brac from the Revolution up to the late 1990s.
City History Museum
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
3.47 MILES
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The duck-egg-blue and white home of Decembrist Count Sergei Volkonsky, whose wife Maria Volkonskaya cuts the main figure in Christine Sutherland’s…
0.61 MILES
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1.12 MILES
What does a city boasting some of Siberia’s most impressive original timber architecture do to improve the visitor experience? Yes, that’s right,…
0.24 MILES
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Taltsy Museum of Architecture & Ethnography
22.15 MILES
About 47km southeast of Irkutsk, 23km before Listvyanka, Taltsy Museum of Architecture & Ethnography is an impressive outdoor collection of old Siberian…
0.47 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…
1.17 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…
Nearby attractions
0.24 MILES
Irkutsk’s second Decembrist house-museum emerged from a recent renovation with English-language information, touchscreens and tinkling background music…
0.24 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…
0.41 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…
0.47 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…
0.6 MILES
This fairytale ensemble of mini onion domes atop restored salmon, white and green towers first appeared on the Irkutsk skyline in 1718, but during the…
0.61 MILES
Stranded on the wrong side of a thundering roundabout, the 1762 Znamensky Monastery is 1.9km northeast of Skver Kirova. Echoing with mellifluous plainsong…
0.64 MILES
Constructed in 1706, this is the oldest stone-built church in Eastern Siberia and has remnants of the original murals on its facade. Until the late 1990s…
0.73 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…