They taught children mathematics, practised medicine in villages, brought culture to public places and even shared pineapple- growing skills like Volkonsky did. His wife, Princess Maria, started a musical salon in their home and to this day, Irkutsk is the Paris of Siberia.
On a pitch-perfect note, our sojourn in the manor ends with a mini concert that takes us back in time to her salon. In an intimate room with velvety chairs, candles are lit and we listen to professional singers and musicians, and sip champagne. One richly romantic duet is titled Do Not Tempt Me Without Any Reason.
And so in a style at once legendary and personal, my encounter with the Volkonskys has revealed Irkutsk, and Siberia itself, as a repository of dashed hopes that unfolds into a redemptive story.
Elsewhere in Irkutsk, our first Siberian city, I like the local market peddling pine-nut butter, salmon roe and other rustic delicacies; and the misty Angara River on a limpid- grey day when the autumn temperature hovers at 7 deg C.
There are also many glimpses of the mythical Babr, depicted on the city's coat of arms as a Siberian Tiger holding in its mouth a sable; its fur is so precious that Siberians call it "soft gold".
Travelling further west towards Moscow, I see another two storied Siberian cities that rise seemingly out of nowhere. Yekaterinburg and Kazan embody several contrasts: old and new Russia, for instance, and the European and Asian sides of the country.
IDEAL CITY
Yekaterinburg - elegant, jazzinfused and once named an Ideal City by Unesco - is famous as the place where Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, was clandestinely executed with his family and staff by Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1918.
We visit a replica of the sombre cellar where the death sentence was read to the tsar, now canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church.
On the site a gold-domed church now stands and I am struck by its fulsome name that captures some of the bloodiness and glory of a vanished era of Romanov emperors: The Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land. Its shorter name is Church of All Saints (34a Tolmachev Street, Yekaterinburg 620000; free admission).
Just outside Yekaterinburg is a more uplifting place. I am at the border between the European and Asian halves of Russia.
Our ebullient young guide Natalya Domracheva calls it a border that unites rather than divides. We clink champagne glasses and do touristy poses in front of a simple monument with a stylised "E" for Europe and "A" for Asia.
Along the way, Ms Domracheva tells stories that add texture to our visit. The late Russian president Boris Yeltsin, a son of Yekaterinburg and a sportsman, once coached the women's volleyball team of "stubborn Ural girls".
There is a whiff of Russia's days of propaganda when she recounts: "Till the 1980s, the Russians were told or taught that the rest of the world was starving and Russia was prosperous and the best."
But, she also recalls the cold reality: When she was a schoolgirl, her mother sometimes roused her sleeping children to pick up items being discarded by the supermarket.
CLINTON IN KAZAN
Facing similar troubles, and worse, was Kazan, the thousand-year-old capital of oil-rich Tatarstan, a republic in Russia. Ivan the Terrible, who reigned fiendishly from 1547 to 1584, subjected its Muslims to forced baptisms.
But the city is now an ideal of harmony. With a population of 1.2 million people, Kazan is composed of Tartars with Turkish roots (50 per cent), Orthodox Christian Russians (40 per cent) and a rainbow of 150 nationalities. Every fourth marriage is mixed. Kazan is a reminder that Russia itself is far from homogenous.
Inside the walled Kazan Kremlin (www.kazan-kremlin.ru), I notice, in the same glance, the contemporary Qolsarif Mosque and the five- century-old Annunciation Cathedral. They exude a spirit of amity that impressed former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her 2009 visit.
I love the sweeping skyline of Kazan from across the Volga River, where luxury apartments emerge and the Palace of Agriculture with its opulent bronze tree divides public opinion about the new Russian standards of beauty. The new palace makes me imagine a modern fairy tale starring oligarchs, but it does not offend me.
We wander in the Kremlin and also in an enclave of wooden 19th- century Tartar houses, on Kayuma Nasyri Street, with fanciful colour combinations such as a peach facade with bold green and blue trims.
We enjoy another private concert, by soulful gifted children. In a park, we chant "goika" to a passing couple in wedding finery to urge them to kiss.
Later, on my own for an hour in the city, I walk under an extraordinary twilight-blue sky that feels as endless as Siberia.
CAVORTING SEALS IN LAKE BAIKAL
The limitless sky, at Lake Baikal, meets the steely-blue water of the world's biggest and deepest lake, which amazingly holds 20 per cent of the Earth's fresh water. For half a day, our train slows down along its shore and I wonder about the unseen creatures unique to the lake.
I wish I can spy the world's only freshwater seals cavorting in the lake, like the pair I see swimming in a natural history museum in Listwjanka, near Irkutsk. The seals, looking like whimsical, spherical missiles, feast on bizarrely pink, scaleless golomyanka or "oil-fish". I think our planet will never run out of little lost worlds like Lake Baikal.
Along the lake, I get to stand on the outside of the locomotive which slows down for a spell. It is a sensation of autumn hues and crystal lake, chilly air and mile-high mountains in the distance - but I am also aware of the train as a powerful, roaring, hissing metal maniac that is classy inside.
There are few signs of human habitats till we stop at the hamlet of Palavinaya, amid sunset-tinged mountains, where the train crew set up a barbecue. Our silent train and a red foot-bridge form parallel lines of engineering in a softly contoured landscape.
A few brave souls step into the icy lake but, as accordion music plays, most of us start on the shashlik or grilled meats, piquant Russian salads and vodka under the most beautiful moon of the year. A Malaysian in our group, a baker's dozen of 13 fun-lovers from seven countries, remembers that it is the Mid-Autumn Festival.
On the train, the exploration does not stop for we have a vodka and caviar-tasting afternoon in the dining car. We learn clever toasts - "May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future" - and try to sing Russian songs.