Kirensk
Description
Town in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia
Kirensk is a town and the administrative center of Kirensky District in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kirenga and Lena Rivers, 950 km north of Irkutsk, the administrative center of the oblast. Population: 12,640 (2010).
Geography
The town is located in the Lena-Angara Plateau.
History
It was founded in 1630 by the Cossacks under Vasily Bugor as a winter settlement called Nikolsky pogost. Along with Ust-Kut, it was one of the two main portages between the Yenisei and Lena basins. In the 1630s, Yerofey Khabarov 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. 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, 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.
Notable people from Kirensk
- Daniel Broido (1903-1990), computer engineer
