Lake Baikal background - history with mystery
As well as being the world’s deepest freshwater lake, at 25 million-years-old southern Siberia’s Lake Baikal is also the world’s most ancient - for adventurous history buffs, surely a reason to visit Lake Baikal in itself. With its administrative centre in the city of Irkutsk, it’s roughly the size of Belgium, and holds one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. Interestingly, while the lake is fed by more than 300 rivers, it’s only drained by one, the Angara, with River Selenga - an important habitat for birds - forming a large delta on its eastern shoreline.
Alongside being blessed with staggering biodiversity (more on that below), Lake Baikal is also known as the Sacred Sea, with its voluminous crystalline waters sparking many myths. Among the lake’s local legends is that of a water beast named Lusud-Khan (Water Dragon Master) by the region’s indigenous Buryat people. Said to resemble a giant sturgeon, with a protruding snout and armour festooning its back, sightings have been reported for hundreds of years, with some suggesting this legendary lake monster is represented in the Stone Age petroglyphs located along the Baikal cliffs.
What’s so special about Lake Baikal? Reasons to visit
If being the world’s deepest and oldest lake wasn’t enough, Lake Baikal boasts plenty of attractions and activities to keep all kinds of travellers energised and entertained. And utterly awestruck, for that matter.
Watch wildlife wonders: with over 80 percent of its 3700+ species found nowhere else on Earth, it’s little wonder that Lake Baikal is often called “The Galapagos of Russia”. The most famous of these endemic species is the slinky silver-grey nerpa, the world’s only exclusively freshwater seal. Believed to have become trapped here when the last Ice Age retreated, nerpa are now a protected species. To spot them, your best bet is to visit Olkhon Island, the Svyatoy Nos Peninsula, and the remote northern shores of Lake Baikal.