The monument to writer Vyacheslav Shishkov was installed in Tomsk in 1953 in the square near the River Station. The inscription on the monument read:

To the Writer

Vyacheslav Yakovlevich

Shishkov

1873, 1945

from the river workers
West Siberian Shipping Company
1953

The monument disappeared in 2006.

Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov (1873, 1945) was a Russian Soviet writer and a posthumous recipient of the Stalin Prize of the first degree, awarded in 1946. He was born on September 21 (October 3) 1873 in Bezhetsk, now in Tver Oblast, in the family of a small shopkeeper.

Shishkov studied at a private boarding school, then at the Bezhetsk City 6-class school (1882, 1888), and in 1891 graduated from the Vyshnevolotsk School of Conductors of Transport Communications.

After a short practice in Novgorod and Vologda provinces, in 1894 he began working in Tomsk in the district of waterways. Here he was initially a technician, and after passing exams became a surveying engineer. He worked in Tomsk until 1916 and befriended G. N. Potanin.

Shishkov participated in geodetic expeditions and from 1903 led many of them. He explored the rivers Ob, Yenisei, Chulym, Charysh, Lena, Vitim, and others. The research of the Biya River and the route of the future Chuysky tract were particularly significant for him. For some time, he oversaw the construction of a state monopoly (alcohol) warehouse in Tomsk in 1902.

In 1916, Shishkov transferred to the Ministry of Transport Communications in Petrograd, where he completed the Chuysky tract project.

After the October Revolution, which he met with caution, Shishkov traveled across Russia, visiting Luga County, Smolensk, Kostroma, and Crimea. In Ostashkov, he began working on the novel "Gloomy River" (1918, 1932).

His first publication, a symbolic fairy tale "Cedar," appeared in 1908 in the newspaper "Siberian Life" in Tomsk. In the periodicals of 1908 and 1911, his travel essays and stories were published. Since 1911, Shishkov regularly attended Potanin's "Thursdays," where the creative and scientific intelligentsia of Tomsk gathered.

Shishkov began to write actively in 1913, releasing stories "Prayed," "Quick Judgment," "Kralya." In 1915, he moved to Petrograd and became close to Maxim Gorky. In 1916, with Gorky's assistance, his first collection of stories "Siberian Tale" was published.

After moving to Petersburg, Siberia and Altai remained important themes in his work. The pinnacle of his Siberian prose were the novels "The Gang" (1923) about the Civil War and "Gloomy River" (1933) about life in Siberia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The result of his work in Altai was the collection of travel essays "Along the Chuysky Tract" and stories "Chuyskie Tales." In 1928 and 1930, he worked on the novella "Wanderers" about homeless children.

Since 1927, Shishkov lived in Tsarskoye Selo. The last seven years of his life were devoted to the historical epic "Emelyan Pugachev" (three volumes).

In 1941, Shishkov was in besieged Leningrad until April 1, 1942, writing articles for front-line newspapers and publishing the first volume of "Emelyan Pugachev," which remained unfinished.

As a writer, Shishkov is perceived within the democratic direction of Russian realism. His achievements in depicting everyday life combine with the use of allegory and symbolism, while his ethnographic linguistic sensitivity evokes admiration from readers.

Shishkov was a talented realist storyteller, reflecting in his prose a deep knowledge of Siberia and an interest in the folk language.

Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov died on March 6, 1945, and was buried in Moscow at Novodevichy Cemetery.