The monument to Alexander III was put up in honour of termination of the Trans-Siberian Railway building. This monument was first unveiled in Irkutsk on the 30th of August 1908. The sides of the monument were decorated with bronze sculptural portraits of historic figures that had left their mark in the history of Siberia such as conqueror of the region Ermak and governor-generals of Eastern Siberia Mikhail Speransky and Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky, as well as with the tsar’s edict of the Trans-Siberian Railway building, the arms of Siberia and of Irkutsk. In 1920, the statue was removed from the pedestal. The steeple “Monument to earliest explorers of Siberia” was installed on its place 43 years later. The monument to Alexander III was re-established in 2003 in for centenary of the Trans-Siberian Railway on the initiative of the East Siberian Railway.