Photo: museums and exhibitions, Irkutsk Regional Memorial Decembrists Museum , Irkutsk

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Irkutsk Regional Memorial Decembrists Museum: Two Estates of Exiled Revolutionaries

Museums and Exhibitions

Irkutsk Regional Memorial Decembrists Museum unites the estates of families of two Decembrists exiled to Siberia - Trubetskoy and Volkonsky. However, the exposition of the estates tells about the fate of a much greater number of Decembrists. The museum was opened in 1970, but its collection is still being replenished.

Irkutsk Regional Memorial Decembrists Museum in the carefully recreated interiors of the Volkonsky estate shows the life of Sergey Volkonsky, his wife Maria, who voluntarily followed him to the hard labor in Siberian exile, and their children, who were born in Siberia. After a decade of hard labor, the family was allowed to settle in the village of Urik near Irkutsk, where it led an ordinary life. Volkonsky's wife loved music, and her piano, acquired here in Irkutsk, is displayed in the museum. The cases for the smoking pipe shank, beaded by her, have also been preserved. Sergey Volkonsky himself was a book lover, and his extensive library is also presented in the museum. The Volkonskys' children differed little from the usual noble heirs: they studied, read and played: their desks, books and cubes are kept in the estate.

The estate of Trubetskoy family has quite an indirect bearing upon them: the exiled Prince Sergey Trubetskoy did not live here. The house where he lived in Irkutsk with his family burned down. Perhaps this house was built by him for one of his daughters, but the city legend dubbed it the Trubetskoy estate. The permanent exposition "Decembrists in Irkutsk, presented here, contains the personal belongings of both Trubetskoy and other exiled participants of the Decembrist Uprising of 1825. These are books, documents, portraits of the Decembrists and their own drawings. Part of the exhibition is dedicated to Trubetskoy’s life before the uprising: his medals, letters and a copy of his own “Manifesto to the Russian People”, a program document of the Decembrists. Several rooms of the estate are decorated as habitable: the prince's study, the living-room and the dining room.

Irkutsk Regional Memorial Decembrists Museum: Two Estates of Exiled Revolutionaries

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