Beautiful nature of Siberia – world’s deepest lake Baikal

Blue Pearl of Russia. Beautiful nature of Siberia – world’s deepest lake Baikal

Beautiful nature of Siberia – world’s deepest lake Baikal

The nature has created Lake Baikal – magical beauty of Siberia, the deepest and the oldest lake in the world. Native Buryat people call the Baikal the ‘Holy Sea’. The Baikal holds 20% of the world’s freshwater, it is rich in biodiversity. Baikal’s 1,085 species of plants and animals, 80% of which are found nowhere else on the planet. Ukrainian photographer, physician, blogger and traveler Alexander Cheban let us make “a journey through the universe, Northern Lights, fragments of icebergs … and the rest is up to your imagination”. Baikal is oxygen-rich waters, Baikal is sparkling ice, Baikal is winter tale for true romantics. Let’s stroll through the incredibly beautiful pearl of Siberia – Lake Baikal.

World’s deepest lake Baikal

The size and magnitude of Lake Baikal is astounding. Containing one fifth of all fresh water on Earth, more than all five Great Lakes of North America combined, it is 400 miles long, with its greatest depth some 5,750 feet (1.1 miles). Below that, there are four additional miles of sediment, making the Great Baikal seven times as deep as the Grand Canyon. If all its 334 tributaries dried up, and its single outlet, the Angara River, were to drain it, it would take 400 years. All the rivers and streams on earth would need over a year to refill it.

Beautiful nature of Siberia-world deepest lake Baikal

The oldest lake in the world, dated about twenty-five million years

The second oldest lake in the world, Africa’s Lake Tanganyika, is a mere two million years old. Most lakes seldom get beyond 50 000 years.

Frozen lake Baikal

Much like Galapagos Islands, Baikal’s isolated ecosystem has evolved independently for millennia. Of some 2000 aquatic life forms, 1200 are endemic, including the Nerpa fresh water seal, the only example of its type on earth.

Siberian lake Baikal

The scourge of Baikal are its winds. It is one of the stormiest lakes in the world. Fierce gales build out of nowhere and race down canyons. The worst are given names; the Sarma, the Angara, the Verkhovik, the Barguzin. The wicked Sarma, or ‘Black Wind’ as it is known, is perhaps the most feared. A saying goes, “It is upon Baikal in autumn that a man learns to pray from his heart”.