History Department Exhibitions

About exhibition

For visitors, the History Department presents the following exhibitions: Ethnography of the Peoples of Eastern Siberia: Buryats, Evenks, Tofalars. The Evenks are the descendants of the most ancient population of Eastern Siberia among the modern indigenous peoples. Another people living in the Irkutsk region are the Tofalars. And the largest of the indigenous peoples of Siberia are the Buryats, numbering almost half a million people, of whom 80,000 live in the Irkutsk region. Archaeological Collections: On the site of Irkutsk, human settlements existed as far back as the Paleolithic, about 25,000 years ago. This is confirmed by numerous archaeological finds held in the museum's collections and displayed in the exhibition. Annexation and Economic Development of the Angara Region by the Russians: The Russians came to Eastern Siberia in the 1620s. On July 6, 1661, the boyar's son and Cossack sotnik Yakov Pokhabov reported to the Yenisei voivode about the construction of an ostrog (fort) on the Verkholensk side at the mouth of the Irkut River. From that moment the history of the city of Irkutsk is considered to begin. Pages of 20th-Century History: This exhibition reveals the entire history of the Irkutsk region over more than 100 years, from the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Soviet period to the most recent contemporary events.