NOV 12, 18 .. IRKUTSK OBLAST

I had a theory about the name .. Irkutsk Oblast ..

From July of 1974 until October of 1978, just over four years, I lived in (at the time it was called) West Germany. I lived in the City of Frankfurt am Main. According to Google Translate (help me out here Kleiner Bär *) the German word ‘am’ means ‘at the’. What Frankfurt am Main means is that the City of Frankfurt is located at the River Main. So why is the city of Frankfurt am Main not simply called Frankfurt?

*For some reason unknown to me, in the German language “Main” is masculine and “Oder” is feminine. (Boy rivers and girl rivers?? Manly rivers and …??? rivers).  As a result, the two Frankfurts became Frankfurt am Main and Frankfurt an der Oder. 

As Kleiner Bär just helped me out above, Frankfurt am Main is so named because there are two cities in Germany named Frankfurt. At the time I lived in West Germany, the other Frankfurt was in East Germany. This other Frankfurt is on the River Oder, on the border between Germany and Poland. Thus this Frankfurt was called Frankfurt an der Oder.

So you have : Frankfurt am Main and Frankfurt am Oder.

Now I sit in a city in Russia commonly called Irkutsk Oblast. So I assumed, since I am in Irkutsk Oblast, there must be another city named Irkutsk in Russia with its own, but different, adjective attached to it.

Another theory of mine – shot to hell !

I can find NO other city named Irkutsk in the Russian Federation.

However, I did discover the name Oblast is also attached to four other Federation of Russia, Federal Districts.

Kemerovo oblast, Novosibirsk oblast, Omsk oblast and last Tomsk oblast.

So I am in the Russian Federation. I am in the Federal District of Siberia. I am in the Irkutsk Oblast Region. I am in the City of Irkutsk.

Lord God In Heaven Above : Then I went-looking for the meaning of the Russian word oblast.

From Wikipedia I learn :

Oblasts are a constituent political entity in a federal union under the Government of Russia with representation in the Federation Council, and serve as a first-level administrative division. Each oblast features a state government holding authority over a defined geographic territory, with a state legislature, the Oblast Duma, that is democratically elected. The Governor is the highest executive position of the state government in an Oblast, and is directly appointed by the President of Russia.

Oblasts are divided into raions (districts). Cities of oblast significance (district-equivalent independent cities), and autonomous okrugs, which are legally federal subjects equal to an oblast but are administratively subservient to one.

Currently only 2 oblasts still have autonomous okrugs: Arkhangelsk Oblast (Nenets Autonomous Okrug) and Tyumen Oblast (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug).

The term oblast can be translated into English as “province” or “region”. There are currently 46 oblasts, the most common type of the 85 federal subjects in Russia. The majority of oblasts are named after their administrative center, the official term for a capital city in an oblast, which is generally the largest city. Exceptions to this include Leningrad Oblast and Moscow Oblast, which have no official capital, and Sakhalin Oblast, which is named after a geographic location. Leningrad Oblast and Sverdlovsk Oblast retain the previous names of Saint Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, respectively. Oblasts are typically areas that are predominantly populated by ethnic Russians and native Russian language speakers, and are mostly located in European Russia.

The largest oblast by geographic size is Tyumen Oblast at 1,435,200km2.  Excluding autonomous okrugs Irkutsk Oblast is the largest at 767,900km2 and the smallest is Kaliningrad Oblast at 15,100km2. The most populous oblast is Moscow Oblast at 7,095,120 and the least populous is Magadan Oblast at 156,996.

Thank You So Much Wikipedia. To which I happily subscribe and contribute money.

Irkutsk is the sixth largest city in Siberia, and it is the capital of the Irkutsk region, Russia. It is located in Eastern Siberia, on the banks of the Angara River, at the confluence with the Irkut River (hence the name of the city), 66 km to the west of Lake Baikal, about 5,200 km to the east of Moscow.

Irkutsk was founded in 1661. At that time, it was a small settlement playing the role of a gold and fur trade center. The settlement received the status of a town in 1686. Later, in 1760, the Siberian Road connected Irkutsk with the European part of the Russian Empire. It was the reason for further economic growth of Irkutsk.

From the beginning of the 19th century, Siberia in general, and Irkutsk in particular, became the place where a lot of Russian officers and nobles were exiled for taking part in Decembrist uprising.

At the end of the 19th century, about 30% of the Irkutsk population consisted of exiles. It was one of the reasons why the city became the cultural and educational center of Siberia.

Electricity came to Irkutsk in 1896, the first theater – in 1897, and the railway station – in 1898. Irkutsk had the nickname “Siberian Paris” at the beginning of the 20th century. The city was one of the centers of Bolshevik Revolution resistance during the Russian Civil War.

The city and surrounding territories were heavily industrialized during the Soviet period.

Let me tell you all, I am fascinated at being here.

So, IF I read the history correctly, when you were exiled to Siberia, many were exiled here to Irkutsk.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Monday, the 12th of November 2018.

Snow. Real, honest-to-goodness snow. Irkutsk is now WHITE in color. The snow came in very quietly during the dark of night last night.

Today’s Rhetorical Question : Will the snow stay? Does The Shadow Know?

I am now living just directly down the street from where I was living for the past two weeks. Nice. It is an 11-minute walk, door-to-door (not including the rigorous regimen required to lock and to unlock a Russian door in each of my apartment buildings nor the time to walk down and up the 24-steps). So I have not lost any of my prior knowledge of this area of Irkutsk. I have just increased it.

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Landmarks are absolutely essential to me.

Landmarks let me know what-to-look-for so that I will know that I am home or nearing home. I can’t get totally lost and then have no idea of what to tell someone trying to assist me where I belong.

I have two types of LANDMARKS.

Major and Minor Landmarks.

MAJOR LANDMARKS.

THE Major Landmark for my former apartment.

The Irkutsk Academic Drama Theater.

The Irkutsk Academic Drama Theater is one of the most famous venues in all of Irkutsk

THE Major Landmark for my current apartment.

The Hotel Irkutsk.

Because both my former and my current apartments are so close to one another, both of the above major landmarks are useful to me.

MINOR LANDMARKS.

THE Minor Landmarks for my former apartment.

My two small convenience stores.

THE Minor Landmarks for my current apartment.

A Church one block away.

THE WALL directly across from the above Church.

What a great landmark THE WALL is. Let me tell you all, THE WALL is very special.

IRKUTSK .. in Russian .. ИРКУТСК

I did not photograph each and every sub-scene on THE WALL.

And we are at the other end of THE WALL.

My final Minor Landmark to my current apartment is the below advertisement.

I can see the above advertisement looking down from my room ..

When I come to the above advertisement, I turn left and into my below apartment building.

In the above photo, the first floor window is my apartment. As you look up the driveway into my building (on the left side of the photo) look straight ahead. In the far distance you can see the backside of the Hotel Irkutsk. The below photos were taken from my apartment.

“Mister Taxi Driver. Mister Policeman. Mr and/or Mrs helpful person. Get me to the Hotel Irkutsk and I can find my way home.”

“Oh we know where the Hotel Irkutsk is Sir. We’ll get you there.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

As tired as I was today, in the snow, I hauled in six more 5 liter bottles of drinking water. Six 5 liter bottles of water weigh about 66-pounds. Add to that two liters of fruit juice and a loaf of bread and you have a task-on-your-hands. Oh, by-the-way, en route I did the above photo shoot. Stopping to shoot many of the above photos gave my entire body a rest from pulling the heavy bag over VERY difficult sidewalk conditions that I could not see due to the snow covering the sidewalk.

Believe it or not, with the assistance of my convenience store clerk, we two somehow managed to get all of the above into my new suitcase.

To save wear-and-tear on my new bag, when I got to my apartment building, I then took the water bottles out of the bag and, in a relay, two bottles at a time, carried them up the first flight of 6 stairs. Then up the next flight of 9 stairs. And finally up the third and final flight of 9 stairs. When I had everything on the next-to-last flight of stairs, I came on into my apartment and I rested for a full 30-minutes during which time I drank water / fruit juice and had a hard boiled egg with a Snickers bar. Then I brought them all up and into my apartment.

Smiling ..

Cap .. or ..

Alaska Cap .. in Russian ..

АЛЯСКА КАП

“Captain?” ..

“Yes.” ..

“When a Post such as this one gets-away-from-you and takes-on-a-life-of-its-own, can’t you just reel-it-in?”

“No.”

“IF I get into should’s and buts, IF I get into serious self-censoring, I will bog down and completely come to a full stop, paralyzed with the perfectionism of trying to decide what you want to read, and what you do not want to read. What photos you want to see, and what photos you do not want to see. I have my proverbial hands-full trying to decide for myself what I want to put in any given Post. IF you, my followers don’t want to read a Post, or all of a Post, you certainly have that option.”

“Have none of you noted that sometimes I put in the by-line to a Post, ‘Delete before reading’. THAT verges on self censoring.”

• ← NOV 11, 18 .. MOVING DAY .. THE SECOND MOVING DAY
• NOV 13, 18 .. HERE IS MY LOCATION IN IRKUTSK .. FOR MICHIGAN GORD →