Lake Baikal: Pearl among ‘Wonders of Russia’
Published 19 June, 2008, 18:25
Baikal, the world's oldest lake dubbed ‘The Pearl of Siberia’, is a photographer’s paradise. A group of Russian and French tourists have crisscrossed fifteen hundred kilometres of the Lake – an area bigger than some European countries – reaching some of its most interesting and inaccessible locations.
The group have taken hundreds of shots of breathtaking landscapes and rare fauna.
In 1996 Lake Baikal was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO for its biological diversity which boasts 2,500 plant and animal species, most of which are found nowhere else in the world.
A Baikal seal calf (photo from greenpeace.org)
It is home to the world's only fresh water seal – nerpa. The mystery of how they appeared in Baikal still puzzles scientists.
The Lake’s age is estimated at 25 million years.
It contains a fifth of the Earth's freshwater and is large enough to contain all the water from the American Great Lakes combined.
Baikal’s water is long famous among Siberians for its healing, mystic qualities – they call it ‘living water’.
Unlike all other deep lakes where the lower depths are dead, asphyxiated by hydrogen sulphide and other gases, Lake Baikal's deep waters are filled with fresh oxygen. It has only been in the past five years that scientists have discovered thermal springs beating up from the bottom of Baikal.
Baikal still remains a crossroads of cultures. Buryat, Evenk and Soyot people keep many of their old traditions alive, and the wilds of Siberia open a gateway to Mongolia with its amazing culture.
‘Seven Wonders of Russia’
Lake Baikal is among the 'Seven Wonders of Russia' that have been officially recognised at a ceremony in Moscow on Thursday. The list was compiled as part of a move to increase public awareness about the country's cultural and natural heritage.
It follows a nationwide contest in which more than 25 million people took part.
It also includes St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, the palaces of Peterhof in the Leningrad region, Geyser Valley in Kamchatka, Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus, the Stone Idols in the Republic of Komi and the Motherland Statue on the Tumulus of Mamai in Volgograd.
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