Bodaybo ( rus, Бодайбо, p=bədɐjˈbo) is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares ...

and the

administrative center An administrative center 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 administrative language (such as Belgium, L ...

Bodaybinsky District Bodaybinsky District (russian: Бодайбинский райо́н) is an administrative district, one of the thirty-three in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia.Charter of Irkutsk Oblast Municipally, it is incorporated as Bodaybinsky Municipal District.Law ...

Irkutsk Oblast Irkutsk Oblast (russian: Ирку́тская о́бласть, Irkutskaya oblast; bua, Эрхүү можо, Erkhüü mojo) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara, Lena, and ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

. It is located from Irkutsk, the administrative center of the

oblast An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdom ...

Geography

The town is located in the

Patom Highlands The Patom Highlands ( rus, Патомское нагорье) are a mountainous area in Eastern Siberia, Russia. Administratively most of the territory of the uplands is part of Irkutsk Oblast, with a smaller section in northern Transbaikal Krai. ...

, on the right bank of the

Vitim River The Vitim (russian: Витим; evn, Витым, ; sah, Виитим, ; Buryat and mn, Витим, ''Vitim'') is a major tributary of the Lena. Its source is east of Lake Baikal, at the confluence of rivers Vitimkan from the west and China ...

at its

confluence In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river ( main stem); ...

with the Bodaybo River. Besides Bodaybo, some of the settlements of the district are

Aprilsk Aprelsk (russian: Апрельск) is a '' posyolok'' (rural settlement; formerly urban-type settlement) in Bodaybinsky District, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia included in Artyomovsky municipality ( :ru:Артёмовское муниципальное � ...

, Artyomovsky, Balakhninsky,

Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (; russian: link=no, Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин ; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, historian, scientist, philosopher, and activist ...

, Mamakan, Svetly, Vasilievsky, Perevoz and

Bolshoy Patom The Bolshoy Patom (russian: Большой Патом), "Big Patom", is a river in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. It is the 11th longest tributary of the Lena with a length of and a drainage basin area of .

. Google Earth

History

It was founded in 1864 and served the needs of the local

gold mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surfac ...

industry. The

Lena massacre The Lena Massacre or Lena Execution (russian: Ленский расстрел, ''Lenskiy rasstrel'') refers to the shooting of goldfield workers on strike in northeast Siberia near the Lena River on . The strike had been provoked by excepti ...

took place near Bodaybo in 1912. It was granted town status in 1925.

Vitim event

The Vitim event occurred on September 25, 2002 near the town. It was believed to be caused by a

bolide A bolide is normally taken to mean an exceptionally bright meteor, but the term is subject to more than one definition, according to context. It may refer to any large crater-forming body, or to one that explodes in the atmosphere. It can be a ...

or a

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma, and sometimes also a Comet ta ...

nucleus impact.

Administrative and municipal status

Within the framework of administrative divisions, Bodaybo serves as the

,Law #49-OZ to which it is directly subordinated.''Registry of the Administrative-Territorial Formations of Irkutsk Oblast'' As a municipal division, the

of Bodaybo, together with the '' selo'' of Nerpo in Bodaybinsky District, is incorporated within Bodaybinsky Municipal District as Bodaybinskoye Urban Settlement.Law #67-oz

Transportation

The

Bodaybo Airport Bodaybo Airport is a regional airport built in Bodaybo, Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, during World War II for the Alaska-Siberian (ALSIB) air route used to ferry American Lend-Lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An A ...

is the only airport in Bodaybo and is quite small. It is served by

Angara Airlines JSC Angara Airlines (russian: ЗАО «Авиакомпания «Ангара») is an airline based in Irkutsk, Russia. Overview Established in 2000, it operates on behalf of its owner, the Irkut Corporation aircraft repair factory out of Ir ...

which flies only to Irkutsk.

Climate

Bodaybo has a subarctic climate (

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

''Dfc''), with bitterly cold winters and warm summers.

Precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hai ...

is quite low, but falls mostly in summer, with the climate being arid at other times of the year.

References

Notes

Sources

* * * *
Registry of the Administrative-Territorial Formations of Irkutsk Oblast
'

External links

Official website of Bodaybo

Bodaybo Business Directory
{{Use mdy dates, date=March 2011 Cities and towns in Irkutsk Oblast Populated places established in 1864 Irkutsk Governorate Gold mines in Russia Gold mines in the Soviet Union