The Paris of Russia

Old Irkutsk

New Irkutsk

So, since I've decided to be here, people have continuously quoted Wikipedia to me, telling me that Irkutsk is supposedly the Paris of Russia. I would have assumed each one of these people to be very knowledgeable about this had I not already checked out the wikipedia article on this city myself, and had they been able to back this claim up and throw a few more facts about for us all to enjoy. Today, however, after lessons and a brief chat to Rima, I decided, that as lessons had finished early I would take advantage of this to go church-hunting around Irkutsk. To do so I went to stare at a map which was to be found in the centre of Kirov Square. I stared blankly at it for a few minutes, until I realised it was from 1920, and therefore little use to any church-hunters, as many of those churches would have been pulled down. However, I did make friends with a French couple there, who had come to adopt a Russian baby (three years old), and we had a brief chat before they scuttled off.

One of the affluents to the Angara

One of my zebra crossings

I shall only bore you with the details of my walk, but not with those of the churches, which I intend to save for a future blog post on a relevant subject - I was also unable to photograph all of the churches here, as it got dark earlier than I had anticipated, and I wanted good photos of all of these. My path took me from Kirov Square along the banks of the Angara and through a few back streets to come across what was meant to be a church, but was the most unpleasant-looking church-architecture I've laid eyes on here, and I walked on, crossed the river (My readers will be pleased to know that I risked my life making this perilous crossing to take photos for this blog (and posterity), at least, when I put them up!) and then made my way through a Russian-chav-ridden den full of car tyres to find one of the most attractive churches here, which I took the trouble to go into, but did not photograph, as I was getting nasty looks from the cleaning lady...

One of the prettier houses here - actually a museum

As I walked towards my next destination, I met an old man with a dog, whom I talked to for a while about Irkutsk. He told me that he was from the Urals, and had lived here for 25 years, and it was nice to see that he understood my every word and that our conversation was not limited to my name and the weather! However, after this it soon got dark and I had to work out how to get home, as unsurprisingly I had managed to get lost in the process of church finding. Finally got home just as Maria was finishing cooking to find a lovely surprise up on our wall - they had painstakingly picked out the best photos we'd taken and stuck them up all over the wall. The idea appears to be to cover the entire kitchen by the time we leave. In reference to the beginning of this blog, I feel the need to say, that on my walk I found, for the first time, the reason why Wikipedia says what it does. However, if Irkutsk is indeed, like Paris, then the area where we live is the Aubervilliers of Irkutsk.

I do not yet own any photos of 'Panorama', so
readers must make do with 'Puss in Boots'

Maybe slightly less excitingly, the other eight of them appear to have picked up some strange obsession with going out to a nightclub, 'Panorama', tonight. Much as I find that nightclubs are not something I am particularly keen on, I have decided to give this one a shot just so I can say I have been to a nightclub in Russia. Thus, I am assuming that tomorrow's post will primarily be based on this so that any of you will be forewarned if you decide to go out to a nightclub in here...