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   Baikal is not just a big lake, but a whole world apart. The world of wilderness, seclusion, tranquility and mysterious Buryat culture...
The blue plain of the Lake is cupped in richly wooded steep mountains topped by rocky peaks, which are clad in snow in autumn and late spring.
Baikal wildlife is literally "out-of-the way", for 75 percent of its biota is endemic. Only there you can see freshwater seals, omul and dracunculus. The more widespread residents of Baikal taiga are bears, wolverines, Siberian stags, sables, lynxes, ermines, foxes and elks. Baikal Area is the mixture of several ethnic cultures: Russian, Buryat, Evenk and Yakut. Shamanism is still alive there and Shaman Mountain is still sacred for many locals…  |
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"The Earth's largest and deepest (1637 m) reserve of fresh water, containing 20 percent of the world supply" is the proud phrase of all the guidebooks. Or: "it is so large that it would take all the rivers on earth a whole year to fill it". It is true of course, yet in the first and foremost place the Lake is one of the outstanding Nature’s wonders of great beauty. Seeing Lake Baikal for the first time, no one can escape an overwhelming feeling of uplift and inspiration, as if coming close to the magic secret of all existence. In the Buryat and Mongol languages Baikal is called Dalai-Nor, or "Sacred Sea" – no other sea in the country has ever been honoured with such a title.
Baikal in winter is a dream world – silver hills sweeping to the blue skies, still woods in their gorgeous white dress and spaces of black ice stretching to the opposite faraway shore, the spaces asking for a good wind, skis and kite (or a hovercraft for want of skis).
