Lake Baikal, in southern Siberia, is the deepest lake on Earth and holds close to a fifth of the world’s unfrozen fresh water. Formed in a continental rift still slowly widening, it shelters more than a thousand species found nowhere else, including the world’s only exclusively freshwater seal, and each winter its surface freezes into ice so clear the lake bed is visible through it.
At a glance
Lake Baikal lies in southern Siberia, shared between Irkutsk Oblast and the Republic of Buryatia. Formed 25 to 30 million years ago, it is considered the oldest large lake on the planet and, at 1,637 metres, the deepest. Its basin holds an estimated 23,615 cubic kilometres of water, roughly a fifth of all the unfrozen fresh water on Earth’s surface, in a body of water some 636 kilometres long but only 79 kilometres wide.
The lake is also exceptional for its biology: more than 3,000 animal species live in it, over 1,500 of them found nowhere else, a level of endemism unmatched in any other freshwater lake.
Key facts
- Depth and age: 1,637 metres deep and 25-30 million years old, making it the world’s deepest and among its oldest lakes.
- Endemic life: around 1,579 of its roughly 3,122 recorded species exist only in Baikal, including the Baikal seal, the only seal species living exclusively in fresh water.
- Baikal omul: a salmonid fish found only in the lake, long the staple food of the Buryat and Evenk peoples and now heavily fished.
- Water clarity: visibility can reach up to 40 metres, maintained by Epishura baicalensis, a tiny endemic copepod that filters algae and bacteria from the water.
- Circum-Baikal Railway: a historic line along the southern shore, built between 1900 and 1905, with 39 tunnels and around 200 bridges over its 89-kilometre length.
- Heritage status: Lake Baikal was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.
History
Lake Baikal occupies a continental rift where two tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart, a process that continues today and that some geologists suggest could, over tens of millions of years, turn the rift into an ocean. The Buryat people have lived around its shores for millennia, developing a shamanic tradition still centred on the lake and its islands.
Russian Cossacks reached Baikal in 1643, bringing the region into the Russian state. In the twentieth century the lake suffered industrial pollution from the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill, which discharged waste into the water from 1966 until its closure in 2013. Lake Baikal was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.
What you see
The lake is visited in two very different seasons. In summer the shore warms and the surface water reaches a comfortable temperature for swimming, while in winter the entire lake freezes to a depth of one to two metres, forming a transparent ice sheet through which the bottom can sometimes be seen. The ice cracks under pressure, producing loud booming sounds and long straight fissures that run for kilometres, and locals drive vehicles across the frozen surface, while hovercraft are also used to cross it.
Olkhon Island, in the lake’s western waters, is regarded as the spiritual centre of Buryat shamanism and draws visitors interested in this living tradition as much as in the landscape itself.
Practical information
- Best times to visit: summer for the open water and shoreline, winter for the ice; conditions vary sharply between the two and travellers should check current advice before planning a trip.
- Reaching the shore: Irkutsk is the usual gateway, with a minibus connection on to the lakeside village of Listvyanka.
- Olkhon Island: reached by ferry from Sakhyurta, but only in the summer season.
- Official information: current access, transport and any restrictions are best confirmed through official regional and rail sources before travelling.
Getting there
Irkutsk, the regional hub, is reached by air or by the Trans-Siberian Railway, one of the longest railway routes in the world at 9,289 kilometres from Moscow. From Irkutsk, a minibus runs to Listvyanka on the lake’s southern shore, and a summer ferry connects the mainland to Olkhon Island.
Nearby
- Olkhon Island — reached by ferry from Sakhyurta; the spiritual heart of Buryat shamanism, with Shaman Rock as its sacred landmark and a rougher, more traditional style of travel.
- Circum-Baikal Railway — runs 89 kilometres along the southern shore from Irkutsk or Slyudyanka, with a slow tourist train through its many tunnels and bridges.
- Ulan-Ude and Buryatia — around 450 kilometres east of Irkutsk, the Buryat republic’s capital and home to the Ivolginsky Datsan, a major Buddhist monastery.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Lake Baikal
- Wikipedia, Baikal seal
- Wikipedia, Epishura baicalensis
- Wikipedia, Circum-Baikal Railway
- UNESCO, Lake Baikal, World Heritage Site reference 754
- Peter Matthiessen, Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia, Sierra Club Books, 1992
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