Hi Myra,

After reading your message, just for curiosity I googled a few Russian
sources re Jews in Irkutsk. And surprisingly I found that >from 19th
century there appeared a kind of Jewish life in Siberia, with Irkutsk
being an economic center of the region.

In the Jewish Roots portal there is an interesting article on Jews in
Irkutsk before 1917, based on the book "Jews in Irkutsk" published in
1915 on the eve of the Russian revolution. All the text is in Russian
but you can easily translate it with Google translator.
http://j-roots.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=318:-1

A few more descriptional sources are (all in Russian)
http://forum.j-roots.info/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=380 - this one is based
on the same 1915 book.
http://www.archipelag.ru/ru_mir/rm-diaspor/hebrew/evrei_rkutska/
http://irkipedia.ru/content/evrei - this one contains a number of
interesting photos related to Jewish history in Irkutsk.

In addition, I found a few references to BORKOVSKY and BARKOVSKY in
the VGD forum (also in Russian). All those appear under the topic
Exiled Polish Jews in Siberia. Actually, I just saw that you already
placed there your post.

And also there is a person - Stanislav BORKOVSKY that appears in
Irkutsk Phone Directory. However, no one can guarantee that this is
your relative, because this surname is quite frequent in Russian
social networks.

Unfortunately there are no good English sources on Russia, end
especially on Siberia.

Good Luck with your challenging task.

BR,
Alex Girshovich
Jerusalem, Israel