Despite its palatial 19th-century home (built by wealthy merchant Sibiryakov in 1884) what should be Irkutsk's main repository of the past is in fact a rather limited exhibition on the city's history with absolutely nothing in English. Highlights include some interesting pre-Russian wooden yurts and tepees, a model of the Kazansky Cathedral, some fascinating blown up photos of 19th-century Irkutsk and a 20th-century section with bric-a-brac from the Revolution up to the late 1990s.
