If you like to travel and visit the most beautiful places of the world, lake Baikal is just the right place. Here you may shoot a lot of amazing photos and videos and admire amenities and wonders of this unique lake.
One of Baikal's wonders is its age.
Lakes, as a rule, live only 10 - 15 thousand years. By this age ordinary lakes change into swamps and gradually die.
Baikal is 25 million years old! Scientists, having calculated the yearly build-up of sediment, give it still many years of life.
The lake is situated in the center of Asia, 455.5 meters above sea level. Its major depth is 1,642 meters.
The dimension of lake Baikal surface is huge: the length is 636 kilometers, the width varies from 30 to 80 kilometers, the shore line length is 2,000 kilometers.
As a matter of fact, there is a theory that Baikal is the beginning of yet another, the fifth, ocean: its shores are separating, shifting away from each other from year to year.
Lake Baikal contains almost 24,000 cubic kilometers of water, which is 22 % of all the fresh water in the world.
Another wonder is Baikal's living waters.
Anyone coming to the shores of this glorious Siberian Sea is amazed by its transparency.
The waters of the lake are unusually clear. A white disk of 30 centimeters in diameter can be seen in Baikal at a depth of 43 metres. Up to the biggest depths the lake’s water is well saturated with oxygen, it contains very few mineral salts.
Even more astounding are the color metamorphoses of the lake's surface. The water taking into itself the smallest changes in the weather, the angle of the sun, moving clouds, or mists coming from the taiga, seasonal changes on the shores, soft greenary, the malachite radiance of summer and fire of autumn — change the shades from blue-white or silver-grey to a piercing blue or slate-black with white wave sprays. You can stand for hours on the shore and, riveted, watch this ever-changing sport of water and sky, taiga and cliffs. Even those who live here and see the lake-sea daily and hourly, cannot boast of ever having seen Baikal identical on any two occasions.
Yet another wonder is the vivid life of Baikal.
It contains 848 native species of animals unique to the lake and 133 species of likewise unique plants. Scientists call Baikal a unique natural laboratory, in which the enigmatic processes of creation are going on.
Fifty-two species of fish have been counted in the lake. One of the most popular is omul, whose catch has been the main of shore-dwellers for centuries.
But here is yet another mystery: in what way, in a fresh-water reservoir, hundreds of miles from sea and ocean, did seals appear?
The particular species of seal has adapted to such an extent to fresh water that there are years when scientists have counted up to sixty thousand in the lake.
It is thought that at one time, many thousands of years ago, the salt water of the Arctic Ocean stretched into the lower reaches of the Yenisey up to the mouth of the Angara; and, in search of food, the seals moved gradually deep into the mainland.
If, having drunk of the crystal waters, you return to your own hearths and homes and you suddenly feel that something is missing. If you suddenly sense in your soul something bright and elevated. If suddenly you feel you want to take your camera and get a ticket for a plane or train and once again set off on the road. You understand: this is mysterious and wonderful lake Baikal.
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Bwagner656
Nice article with amazing photos!