Irkutsk

Irkutsk stands on the Angara opposite the mouth of the Irkut, the river from which it takes its name. Near Lake Baikal and the routes leading into Mongolia and China, it grew from a wooden stockade into a major commercial and administrative centre of eastern Siberia. Merchants, officials and travellers passed through the town on journeys between the Russian heartland and the lands beyond Baikal.

In 1661 a Cossack party under Yakov Pokhabov built a fort on the right bank of the Angara. It became the seat of a governor in 1682 and received town status four years later. After the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689, caravans travelling to China passed through Irkutsk; furs moved east, while tea and textiles travelled back through the Baikal region. The town also became a place where missions and negotiations connected Russia with Mongolia and China.

During the eighteenth century Irkutsk grew in importance as an administrative and trading centre. Fairs began in 1768, and merchants came to play a leading part in its civic life. Goods passing through the town linked Kyakhta and the Chinese frontier with Russian markets to the west, while roads and rivers connected it to settlements across Siberia. Its wealth and influence rested on these long-distance connections as well as on the surrounding agricultural land.