Eng| Rus| Bur
 Index 
 News 
 Sites catalog 
 BaikalInformCenter 
 Photogallery 

Главная / Home / Books catalog / Electronic library / Lake Baikal

Sections of the site

Запомнить меня на этом компьютере
  Забыли свой пароль?
  Регистрация








"Glorious sea, sacred Baikal..."

Source:  Lake Baikal: atlas. - Irkutsk, 2005. - P. 5.

"Glorious Sea, Sacred Baikal..." The words of this popular folksong have been known for more than a century. There are quite a number of seas in our country: The Black Sea, the White Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Caspian Sea. But none of them has ever been honoured with such poetic, tender words as "glorious sea". Only this, Baikal the Father, the Siberian Lake-Sea has.

Siberians do not like it to be just measured, for instance as "one fifth of the world's fresh water reserves". Lake Baikal is not a mere reservoir that contains H2O. First and foremost it is an ineffable miracle on a scale which amazes and defies compre­hension. And though all reference-books define it as a "lake", the word "sea" comes to mind when looking at Baikal. Its dimensions cannot but impress, and the figures are not sufficient enough to convey what one really feels on its shores.

Swiftly roaring down high ridges to the lake, many streams and rivers have cut through the mountains deep, narrow, dark canyons. In the places where the streams come across hard rock ledges they make up picturesque cascades.

On the steep slopes to the height of 600-800 m above the lake level the taiga rises. Up the slope, forests are replaced by sparse growth of trees and higher up stretches out the tundra.

The water of the lake is distinguished by its extraordinary clarity and cleanness. The colour of the water depends greatly on this clarity. The deepwater area of the Lake is indigo like that of deep seas, with the decrease of clarity the water gets bluish-greenish and in August-September at the time of plankton growth it becomes greenish-grey. The fishermen usually call such waters "white" or "grey", and transparent waters they would call "golomyannye" (as transparent as golomyanka fish, the endemic fish of Baikal).

Throughout the immense time of its existence Baikal, sheltering a unique community of life, has outlived many other natural phenomena. It does not cease to surprise explorers step by step revealing its mysteries and astonishing them with new riddles.

"We who live near Baikal cannot boast that we know it well, for it is impossible to know and understand it completely, Baikal being what it is." (V. Rasputin)

Назад в раздел