In the south of Eastern Siberia, where the Irkutsk region borders on the Buryat Republic, there is the deepest lake on Earth - Lake Baikal. Only the average depth of the reservoir is 744 meters, while the maximum is 1642! But this is far from his only dignity and remarkable feature.
Baikal is a unique phenomenon on the planet Earth. This is the largest natural storage of the purest fresh water, which makes up one fifth of all the world's reserves and nine tenths of Russia. The deepest lake on Earth in terms of water exceeds all North American Great Lakes taken together. It stores 23 thousand cubic meters of fresh water. If water suddenly disappeared from Baikal in an incomprehensible way, rivers from all over our planet would need a whole year to fill it again.
Baikal is transparent like glass, and a white disc with a diameter of 20 centimeters is visible at a depth of more than 50 meters! Three hundred rivers flow into the deepest lake on Earth, and only one flows out - the majestic Angara.
Mountain ranges edged the hollow in which Baikal is located. Primorsky and Baikalsky surround its northwestern part, Barguzinsky - northeastern, and from the southeast - the Khamar-Daban ridge. The lake is famous for its islands. The largest among them is Olkhon - the heart of Lake Baikal.
Not to see the deepest lake on Earth, whose age is about 25 million years, means not to let a miracle happen in life. Two-thirds of the flora and
fauna of Lake Baikal are endemic.
Nerpa, Baikal seal, you will not meet anywhere else! And there are more clear days on Lake Baikal than in the resort of Sochi. Beaches and lagoons, sand dunes and foggy swamps, taiga and steppes, endless meadows and snow-white mountain ranges - this coastal world is unique!
Peschanaya Bay has the warmest Baikal water. It is located on the western shore of the lake between the Kharginsky cape and the Middle Clamps. Only here you can see the majestic pines and larches on awesome “stilts”. Due to the fact that the sandy soil is constantly blown out from under the trees, their roots are exposed.
Baikal omul, whitefish, sturgeon, lenok, grayling, taimen ... The list of names of fish found in the sacred lake for fishermen sounds like music for musicians.
Baikal is beautiful at any time of the year. Winter gave him a unique range of northern colors. The sun's rays, reflecting off the ice surface and refracting, shimmer with a rainbow spectrum. The thickness of the ice shell that fetters the lake for the cold months reaches a meter or more, although it seems thin due to the pebbles visible at the bottom of Lake Baikal. But this is an illusion! The ice is very strong and can withstand the train. With the beginning of spring, ice breaks open and breaks with a roar, it bursts continuously, and closer to summer, wind and waves dump transparent blocks onto the shore, forming landscapes unsurpassed in beauty.
Here it is, the deepest lake on Earth! It is not surprising that UNESCO did not ignore Baikal. The lake is a World Heritage Site. More than three hundred thousand tourists, scientists and researchers from all over the world annually come to see and experience the extraordinary miracle created by nature - Baikal!