The name Irkutsk is familiar to a lot of people because it was on the map of the popular board game Risk, but most people don't know anything more about it, so I appreciate you sharing photos from there. -45 C makes Ontario feel warm! I don't think I've ever experienced lower than, say, -33 C.
I would love to visit Russian someday, but do you think it would be easy to travel there without knowing some of the language?