Irkutsk is over 300 years old and owes much of its development to its location on the tradeways to Mongolia and China. At the end of the last century, the city began to take on the aspect of a ‘boom town’ when trade in gold, fur and diamonds suddenly created new wealth. It was to Irkutsk that many 19th-century revolutionaries, such as the Decembrists, were exiled. The University of Irkutsk was the first establishment of higher education in eastern Siberia. Today, as in former times, this important Siberian city is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of fur. The town lies on the banks of the Angara, the only outflowing river from Lake Baikal.