Kirensk ( rus, Киренск, p=ˈkʲirʲɪnsk) is a

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

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 A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or ...

Kirensky District Kirensky District (russian: Ки́ренский райо́н) is an administrative district, one of the thirty-three in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia.Charter of Irkutsk Oblast, Article 13 Municipally, it is incorporated as Kirensky Municipal Di ...

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 Nizh ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, located at the

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); o ...

of the

Kirenga The Kirenga () is a river in Irkutsk Oblast in Russia. The name originated in an Evenki word. The length of the river is . The area of its basin is . There are many settlements in the river valley. The Baikal Amur Mainline follows and crosses ...

and

Lena River The Lena (russian: Ле́на, ; evn, Елюенэ, ''Eljune''; sah, Өлүөнэ, ''Ölüöne''; bua, Зүлхэ, ''Zülkhe''; mn, Зүлгэ, ''Zülge'') is the easternmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean ...

s, north of

Irkutsk Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and mn, Эрхүү, ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is ...

, 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 of ...

. Population:

Geography

The town is located in the

Lena-Angara Plateau The Lena-Angara Plateau ( rus, Лено-Ангарское плато), is a plateau in Siberia. Administratively it is in the Irkutsk Oblast, Russian Federation. The plateau is named after the Lena and Angara rivers, of which it forms the water ...

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

History

It was founded in 1630 by the

Cossacks The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...

under Vasily Bugor as a winter settlement called Nikolsky

pogost ''Pogost'' (russian: погост, from Old East Slavic: погостъ) is a historical term with several meanings in the Russian language. It has also been borrowed into Latgalian (''pogosts''), Finnish (''pogosta'') and Latvian (''pagasts'' ...

. Along with

Ust-Kut Ust-Kut (russian: Усть-Кут) is a town and the administrative center of Ust-Kutsky District in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located from Irkutsk, the administrative center of the oblast. Located on a western loop of the Lena River, the town ...

, it was one of the two main portages between the Yenisei and Lena basins. In the 1630s,

Yerofey Khabarov Yerofey Pavlovich Khabarov or Svyatitsky (russian: Ерофе́й Па́влович Хаба́ров (Святи́тский), ; the first name is often spelled Ярофей (Yarofey) in contemporary accounts; 1603 – after 1671), was a Russia ...

ran a salt works here. In 1665, it was renamed Kirensky Ostrog. In 1775, it was granted town status. In the 19th century, a large number of political prisoners were forcibly resettled here, among whom was

Józef Piłsudski ), Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (now Lithuania) , death_date = , death_place = Warsaw, Poland , constituency = , party = None (formerly PPS) , spouse = , children = Wan ...

. Under Stalin there was a GULAG transit camp. In 1991, over eighty bodies were found buried in the basement of the former NKVD building. All were said to have been killed on a single day in 1938 and all were killed by blows on the head, apparently to hide the noise. During the construction of the

Baikal–Amur Mainline The Baikal–Amur Mainline (russian: Байкало-Амурская магистраль, , , ) is a broad-gauge railway line in Russia. Traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, the -long BAM runs about 610 to 770 km (380 to 4 ...

, goods were shipped up the Kirenga to Magistralny. In the 1970s, a dam was built across one mouth of the Kirenga (the place was originally an island) to reduce flooding and ice jams. In 2001, there was a major flood.

Administrative and municipal status

Within the framework of administrative divisions, Kirensk 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 Kirensk, together with nine rural localities in Kirensky District, is incorporated within Kirensky Municipal District as Kirenskoye Urban Settlement.Law #87-oz

Economy

Transportation

There is ship transport along the Lena in summer and an airport, but no railroad, and no proper road link to the rest of Russia. The port is used to transfer goods to smaller ships going further up the Lena. The town is served by the

Kirensk Airport Kirensk Airport () is an airport in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia located 3 km west of Kirensk. It handles small transport aircraft. This airfield was part of the Yakutsk-Kirensk-Krasnoyarsk leg of the World War II Lend-Lease program Alaska-Sib ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, it was a staging point for American aircraft transferred to Russia via Alaska.

Climate

Kirensk has a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, ge ...

(

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, notabl ...

''Dfc''). Winters are severely cold with average temperatures from to in January, while summers are warm with average temperatures from to .

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 hail. ...

is quite low and is significantly higher in summer than at other times of the year.

Notable people from Kirensk

Daniel Broido Daniel Broido (17 May 1903, Kirensk-1990) was a Russian-British engineer who played a significant role in the development of computers. Daniel was the son of Mark Broido and Eva (née Lwowna) while they were political exiles in Kirensk, Siberia. T ...

(1903-1990), computer engineer

References

Notes

Sources

* * * *
Registry of the Administrative-Territorial Formations of Irkutsk Oblast
' {{Authority control Cities and towns in Irkutsk Oblast Irkutsk Governorate Populated places on the Lena River