Taltsy Museum, Irkutsk, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia

Taltsy Museum, Irkutsk, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia 

One of the most distant of these museums is Taltsy, located at a picturesque site among the forests midway between the Siberian city of Irkutsk and the village of Listvyanka, on the southwest shore of sacred Lake Baikal. In a recent innovation, a number of the reconstructed log structures now have displays of traditional dress as well as recent fashion. Taltsy even boasts a surprising connection with Russian America.

Although the origins of the museum at Taltsy date from the early 1960s, a Russian settlement at the site, located near the confluence of the Taltsinka River with the Angara, can be dated much earlier. In 1758, for example, there is written evidence of a convent in the area.

Drawn in the early 1780s to the cultural and administrative center of Irkutsk, Laxman explored the surrounding area and discovered deposits of sand rich in silica at the Taltsy site.

Learning of the discovery, Baranov brought his entrepreneurial skills to Laxman, and together they formed the Taltsy glass factory, which met an acute need for glass containers throughout the Far East and into Alaska.
Other enterprises arose at Taltsy, which functioned as a factory settlement, throughout the 19th century.

Although its significance declined at the beginning of the 20th century, the settlement and glass factory existed until the late 1950s, when the area near the Angara River was submerged with the creation of the Irkutsk Hydroelectric Station. The usable parts of the glass factory were moved to another location.
By virtue of steep cliffs above the Angara, part of the Taltsy site remained above the new reservoir.
At the same time construction of the Ust-Ilim Hydroelectric Station elsewhere on the Angara River threatened one of Siberia’s most important historical monuments, the 17th-century Ilim Fort, with its impressive Savior Gate tower (1667) and portions of the fort walls, as well as the small Church of the Kazan Icon of the Virgin (1679) — all built of logs.

Epic Russia Culture & Adventure Route © Monika Newbound