Biryulka () is a rural locality (a '' selo'') in

Kachugsky District Kachugsky District () is an administrative district, one of the thirty-three in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia.Charter of Irkutsk Oblast Municipally, it is incorporated as Kachugsky Municipal District.Law #71-oz The area of the district is . Its administ ...

Irkutsk Oblast Irkutsk Oblast (; ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara River, Angara, Lena River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers. The administrative center is ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, located on the

Lena River The Lena is a river in the Russian Far East and is the easternmost river of the three great rivers of Siberia which flow into the Arctic Ocean, the others being Ob (river), Ob and Yenisey. The Lena River is long and has a capacious drainage basi ...

near its headwaters northwest of

Lake Baikal Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...

Etymology

Biryulka is named after the small Bira River, the name of which in turn comes from an Evenk word.

History

In 1688, sixteen peasant families settled here. The founders were Stepan Alexandrovich and Mikhail Kostyakov. The Yakutsk ''stavlenik'' Onichkov allocated them an average of per family. It seems that seven of these families were exiles and nine were of freed serfs. The population increased quickly through natural increase and immigration. Other villages developed in the area around Biryulka. Biryulskaya Volost, subordinate to Yakutsk, was eventually established. In 1696, the inhabitants of Biryulka staged a revolt led by Pavel Khaletsky. At the beginning of the 20th century, well-known archeologist

Alexey Okladnikov Alexey Pavlovich Okladnikov (; 1908–1981) was a Soviet archaeologist, historian, and ethnographer, an expert in the ancient cultures of Siberia and the Pacific Basin. He was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1968 ...

went to school here, but later moved to the ''selo'' of

Anga Anga was an ancient Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan tribe of eastern South Asia whose existence is attested during the Iron Age in India, Iron Age. The members of the Aṅga tribe were called the Āṅgeyas. Counted among the "sixteen great na ...

where he finished secondary school in 1925. One of the streets in Biryulka is named after him. One of the battles of the

Great Siberian Ice March The Great Siberian Ice March () was the name given to the winter retreat of Admiral Kolchak's Siberian Army from Omsk to Chita, in the course of the Russian Civil War between 14 November 1919 and March 1920. General Vladimir Kappel, who w ...

, a retreat of the White Army east across Lake Baikal, took place near Biryulka in 1920. A number of inhabitants were arrested during the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

Politics

Municipally, Biryulka is the

administrative center An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located. In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgiu ...

of the Biryulskoye Rural Settlement in Kachugsky Municipal District, the head of which is Tatyana Sergeyeva, of the

United Russia The All-Russian Political Party United Russia (, ) is the Ruling party, ruling List of political parties in Russia, political party of Russia. As the largest party in the Russian Federation, it holds 325 (or 72.22%) of the 450 seats in the St ...

party who was elected in October 2009.

Economy and infrastructure

Biryulka is well known for the manufacture of shallow-draft river boats called s, which have been used on the upper Lena for centuries. Near Biryulka is the

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

of Mokrushinsky burial ground. Work has been conducted since the 1980s, in part by students and archeologists. In 2006, a volunteer fire department was organized with its own fire-engine and a water tower. In winter, there is a

winter road A winter road is a seasonal road only usable during the winter, i.e. it has to be re-built every year. This road typically runs over land and over frozen lakes, rivers, swamps, and sea ice. Segments of a winter road that cross an expanse of flo ...

with an ice-bridge across the Lena River. This is the uppermost crossing of the Lena.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Rural localities in Irkutsk Oblast Populated places established in 1668 1668 establishments in Russia Irkutsk Governorate Populated places on the Lena River