Ust-Ilimsk, Industrial city in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia
Ust-Ilimsk is an industrial town in Irkutsk Oblast, eastern Siberia, built along the banks of the Angara River and framed by dense coniferous forests. The layout follows the typical Soviet planning model, with residential blocks and factory buildings dating from the 1960s and 1970s spread across several districts.
The town was founded in 1966 during the construction of a large dam on the Angara, which submerged the original 17th-century settlement of Ilimsk. Wooden structures from the old site were dismantled before flooding and relocated to the open-air museum at Taltsy near Irkutsk.
The relocated Spasskaya Tower and Church of Our Lady of Kazan from old Ilimsk now reside in the Taltsy Museum near Irkutsk.
The town is accessible by a railway link to the Baikal-Amur Mainline, operational since 2001 and offering connections to the east and west. A tram line connects residential areas with the industrial zone and remains in use for local transport.
A narrow-gauge tram still hauls timber from surrounding forests to a large sawmill in the industrial quarter. The line was built by a timber company in 1985 and serves both freight and occasional passenger transport.
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