Volkonsky House Museum

The wooden house rises two stories, and two five-sided bay windows project from the street façade. It first stood in Urik and served as a home for a family that ran a grain farm. Later, a courtyard staircase and gables were added to the log structure, giving the rural house an urban appearance. Today, the rooms contain an exhibition of the Museum of the Decembrists.

The house before you was moved to Irkutsk for the education of twelve-year-old Mikhail Volkonsky. His father, Sergey Volkonsky, was a general and a member of the secret Southern Society of the Decembrists, which sought the abolition of serfdom and autocracy. After the movement was crushed, he spent nine years in penal labor and then received an order to live in the village of Urik near Irkutsk.

While in settlement, Sergey Volkonsky established a farm, grew grain, and sold the harvest. In eighteen thirty-eight, he built a two-story wooden house in Urik for his wife and children. Mikhail was taught at home, but his mother, Maria Volkonskaya, wanted her son to receive an education at a gymnasium. In eighteen forty-four, she obtained permission to settle in Irkutsk with the children. At first, Sergey was only allowed to visit them, so the family lived in rented rooms while their own house remained in Urik.

Sergey arranged for it to be moved. Builders dismantled the log structure, transported the logs to a plot near the Church of the Transfiguration, and reassembled the house by the summer of eighteen forty-seven. During the reassembly, it was enlarged: a courtyard staircase was built, two five-sided bay windows were added, and gables were placed above them. Thus, the exiled man’s rural house acquired an urban façade.

The move achieved its purpose. Mikhail enrolled in the Irkutsk Gymnasium and graduated in eighteen forty-nine with a gold medal. At seventeen, he began service under the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia. In eighteen fifty-six, it was Mikhail who brought news of the Decembrists’ amnesty to this house. Sergey Volkonsky was allowed to leave Siberia, and his children had their princely title restored.

The house now contains an exhibition of the Irkutsk Museum of the Decembrists. In Mikhail’s former study, his parents’ memoirs prepared by him for publication are on display. The two bay windows on the street façade appeared during that very reassembly in Irkutsk that his mother arranged so that he could attend the gymnasium.