Three exhibitions in four months — about Russia before 14 December 1825, original documents of the exile and the 105 Decembrists sent to Irkutsk Governorate.
14 December 2025 marked 200 years since the uprising on Senate Square, and for Irkutsk, where the Volkonskys and Trubetskoys lived, the date was the occasion for a whole series of exhibitions.
Before the uprising
From 4 October 2025 the Volkonsky House hosted the exhibition “Nothing Is Decided Yet”, prepared with the Dahl Literary Museum: Russia in the 1810s–1820s, personal belongings of the Decembrists, insignia of the secret societies, memoirs of participants in the War of 1812.
Documents
On 8 December the exhibition “The Decembrists: Siberia as Destiny” opened at the state archive at 79 Baikalskaya Street. The first to arrive in Irkutsk, on 28 August 1826, were Sergei Volkonsky, Sergei Trubetskoy and Pyotr and Andrei Borisov. In 1826–1827, 105 Decembrists were sent to the governorate: 90 to penal labour and 11 to settlement.
The digital version
On 28 January 2026 a multimedia version of the project was shown at the Volkonsky House Museum, and the documents were put online.
Sources (in Russian): Glagol, 2 October 2025; Oblastnaya Gazeta, 8 December 2025; Oblastnaya Gazeta, 4 February 2026.
