Merchant I.I. Bazanov
Opposite the orphanage behind a fence hides the stone mansion of Irkutsk merchant of the 2nd guild I.V. Samsonov, which was built in the middle of the 19th century and one of the few survived the Great Fire of 1879. After the construction of the hotel Sibir nearby, it remained in oblivion and today is in a sorrowful condition. From April to July 1915 there was an underground printing of the Bolshevik organization Union of Printing Workers. In Soviet times, communal apartments were appeared in the house.
Mansion of merchant I.V. Samsonov
Lenin Street
On the other side of the intersection, on the left, you can see the building of the oldest bank in Irkutsk. These is a former State Bank, established in 1899, which today is occupied by the Faculties of Geology and Social Sciences of ISU, as well as the Research Institute of Biology. The building was badly burned out during the revolutionary battles in 1917, and was rebuilt several years later with tetrahedral and octahedral domes that accentuated the buildings volumes.
State Bank
Across the road from it to the right is the building of the largest and oldest museum of arts in Siberia, which has more than 23 thousand works of painting, graphics, sculpture and decorative arts in its collection. The collection was based on the assemblage of the famous Irkutsk philanthropist and mayor V.P. Sukachev, who held the first exhibition back in 1874 and left his creation to Irkutsk shortly before the revolution. It is his name that the museum bears, which counts its creation from 25 April 1936.
The building itself was originally built for the needs of the Irkutsk gymnasium for boys in 1907 according to the project of D.R. Magidey. The main fund of the museum moved here in 1975, and despite the existence of three branches the exposition contains no more than 3% of all works of art.
Irkutsk gymnasium for boys
The nearby building of the Governorate Gymnasium for boys is also interesting. Its opened here in 1805 and still is one of the oldest stone buildings in Irkutsk which was built back in 1799 for the needs of the main public school according to the project of A.I. Losev. Count M.M. Speransky, when he was the governor-general of Siberia, called this institution authentically the best gymnasium in all of Russia. And this is not surprising, since among the teachers there were such prominent historians as I.E. Muller, I.L. Slovtsov, I.V. Shcheglov and N.N. Kozmin.
Founder of the Soviet school in agronomic chemistry D.N. Pryanishnikov
Many famous people were graduates of this gymnasium, as the founder of the first school of Tibetan medicine P.A. Badmaev, Deputy Minister of Public Education of Russia M.S. Volkonsky, organizer of the first revolutionary political organization Peoples Will in Siberia I. G. Neustroev, medical scientists V.N. Popov, K.M. Pavlinov, S.A. Sukhanov and P.N. Shastin, travellers V.C. Dorogostaysky and A.P. Fedchenko, founder of the Soviet school in agronomic chemistry D.N. Pryanishnikov, first rector of ISU M.M. Rubinstein, three times cavalier of Order of the Red Banner L.I. Kotelnikov, writers I.T. Kalashnikov, N.S. Shchukin, V.M. Mikheev, I.V. Fedorov-Omulevsky and F.M. Lytkin.
Tibetologist P.A. Badmaev
Tellingly, this building still houses an educational institution the Irkutsk Aviation Technical School, which moved here in June 1945 to replace the cartridge plant No. 540 evacuated from Leningrad during the WWII (it was one of the four most powerful such factories in the country, produced more than 700 million ammunition).
On the site of the building opposite, where the Irkutsk Regional Geriatric Center is now located, there used to be the oldest kindergarten in the city, opened at the initiative of M.G. Tyumentseva in 1869. Its building, designed by the best architect of Irkutsk, Baron H.V. Rosen in 1882 instead of the burnt down old one, it was one of the best wooden buildings in the capital of Eastern Siberia. However, in 1938, during the construction of the clinic, it was moved and installed on the site of the parish cemetery of the St. Charalambos Church. Today, on the site of the kindergarten, there is a public garden named after one of the first doctors of sciences in the USSR, as well as the Irkutsk author of the textbook on nervous diseases K.G. Hodos.
At the crossroads there are towering buildings representing the reference buildings of the Soviet era, which surprisingly organically fit into the old city face. At the corner of Lenin and Gorky streets there is the famous Irkutsk house with a trunk built in 1950 according to the project of E.F. Yanko. Here lived the main artist of Irkutsk in 1970s and the author of the memorial Eternal Flame V.G. Smagin. Opposite on the left the house in which she spent the last years of her life Peoples Artist of the RSFSR G.A. Kramova. On the other side of the crossroads there is another magnificent monument of Soviet architecture a house buit in 1948 according to the project of A.S. Butenko, where lived until his death the famous poet-ethnographer A.S. Olkhon (Pestyukhin).
Poet-ethnographer A.S. Olkhon (Pestyukhin)
Gorky Street
The next thing that attracts our attention is the monument to the five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature M. Gorky, established in 1984 on the left in a small square. Nearby is the Radiohouse one of the most bizarre buildings of the Soviet era in Irkutsk, consisting of parts made at different times in more than half a century, but united into a single complex thanks to the talented architect N.N. Belyakov in 1982.
Radiohouse
On the other side of the road are the buildings of the Baikal State University, which opened in Irkutsk in 1930. They are adjoined by a small park, organized here in 2011 and named after Shigeki Mori the permanent mayor of the Japanese town of Neagari, Ishikawa province, which has twinning relations with the city Shelekhov an industrial neighbour of Irkutsk. Also he was this mayor who initiated the twinning relationship between Irkutsk and the Japanese city of Kanazawa in 1967.
Park named after Shigeki Mori
After the park, the first wooden house on the right side of the street belonged to a member of the Irkutsk judicial chamber M.S. Stravinsky and served as the building of the vice-consulate of Belgium in Irkutsk from 1914 to 1920. Moreover, the owner of the mansion himself became the first ambassador.
On the same side of the street, at the crossroads, you can see the estate of the mayor V.V. Zharnikov, who went down in history as the creator of the first water supply system in Irkutsk in 1905. An old sculpture Boy with a Swan is hiding in the garden which surrounding the house.
Mayor V.V. Zharnikov