Taltsy Museum, Butyrki P, Irkutskaya oblast’, Russia
In the early 60’s. XX century. During the construction of the Ust-Ilimskaya HPP, the need arose to save unique monuments of history and architecture of all-Union significance – the Spassky Roadway (1667) and the Kazan Gate Church (1679) of the Ilimsky prison, which fell into the zone of the forthcoming flooding of the Ust-Ilimsky Reservoir.
During this period, the problem of preserving elements of traditional folk culture and especially unique wooden architecture was raised for the first time in the Soviet Union. In the regions of the country, attempts were made to create open-air museums. Irkutsk region was among the few where it managed to be done.
On January 9, 1966, the Irkutsk Regional Executive Committee decided to create a museum of folk architecture. To choose a place for the construction of the future museum, was entrusted to the Moscow architect Galina Gennadyevna of Orange. She chose the Taltsinsky tract, at the confluence of the Angara and Taltsinki.
The first mention of the tract is found in the information that in 1758 on its lands the capture of the Znamensky nunnery was founded. In 1784, the famous scientist and traveler, Academician Erik Gustav Laksman, at the confluence of Taltsinka in the Angara, discovered glass sands. Together with Alexander Baranov, a former Kargopol merchant, and at that time the manager of the Russian-American company, Laxmann built a glass plant in the Taltsinsky tract, which, in addition to utilitarian products, produced glass containers for transporting liquor in it to Chukotka, Alaska, to California and the gold ore mines of Eastern Siberia.
Near the plant grew a village, in 1859 a wooden Orthodox church was built. Over time, the village appeared cloth and porcelain factories, but in the 80’s. XIX century. the last one was closed. Glass production is practically not developed, lacking raw materials.
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