In 1900, communities of nurses who cared for wounded soldiers were established in Irkutsk for the first time. These communities became the prototype of the modern Red Cross Service.

The Irkutsk Regional Branch of the RRC was officially founded in 1924. The Branch resources were drawn from membership fees, government allocations, and additional revenues generated by local exhibitions and donations, literature sales, concerts and theatrical performances, and so forth.
During the first years of its activity, the main projects of the Irkutsk Red Cross were:

• Fighting social diseases such as tuberculosis, trachoma, and syphilis. The Red Cross formed teams to fight those diseases and started medical services to help reconstruct the suburbs.
• Medical support after natural and other disasters.
• Fighting epidemics.
• Fighting child neglect and child homelessness.
• The collection of revenues to be used in the event of a natural disaster.

Gradually, the sphere of Irkutsk Red Cross activities has widened. It has assisted healthcare organizations with the distribution of medical knowledge and the establishment of sanitary and prophylactic measures to reduce health problems on agricultural farms.

The Irkutsk Red Cross has been training medical nurses for healthcare institutions (the Red Cross courses have been active since 1972), and has involved sanitary teams and medical nurses in the homecare of lonely and elderly people. Since this time, The Red Cross has been the only educational system for the training of nurses.
The Red Cross has been assisting and participating in the following: training public units (sanitary teams and posts), preventing childhood trauma, educating the public in first-aid measures, and building the donors’ movement.

In the early ’90s, with changes in the economic situation of the country, the Red Cross began to modify its activity. It has chosen those activities that are most relevant and required.

With the beginning of Perestroika, accompanied by the considerably worsened financial situation of the population, the Red Cross (along with support from the International Federation of The Red Cross and Red Crescent) has carried out a number of humanitarian programs for needy and multi-children families. It has also dispatched services in emergency situations. Humanitarian food programs have been carried out since 2002.

1999 – about 380 thousand people received humanitarian support (food and clothes) from the Red Cross in the amount of 5 millions rubles. Among those who benefited were: refugees and migrants, lonely elderly, and disabled people, multi children families, and families with one parent, orphans and homeless. More than 420 regional health care, educational, and social security organizations received about 5 thousand tons of food supplies.

2000-2001 – the program “Food for progress” was implemented in Irkutsk. As a result approximately 50 thousand tons of food were distributed among vulnerable population (multi children, and single-parent families, lonely elderly, and disabled people etc.), and regional institutions including orphanages, boarding schools, mental hospitals, nursing homes, homes for disabled people, TB and oncological hospitals, etc. (Program of Russian/American Red Cross).

2001-2002 – in a framework of the “Food for Progress” Program about 10130 tons of food were distributed among five regions of Siberia: Khakassiya, Krasnoyarsk region, Taymir, Irkutsk region (including Ust-Ordinskiy region) and Buryatiya.

2000-2002 – Irkutsk regional branch participated in the Program “Organizational development of the RRC societies in Eastern Siberia”. In its framework the material and technical base of the organization was improved, and the team of high-quality professional Managers were trained.

2003 – 2004 – more than 340 000 USD was collected by the RRC Irkutsk regional branch for the implementation of the programs on prophylactics of HIV/AIDS, and the support of people living with HIV/AIDS.