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The Lake Baikal. Photo gallery |
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Travel map Baikal Tourist map - Yenisei River Basin Shamanism on Lake Baikal Rock Shaman Baikal view. The group hiking to mountains Baikal shore Baikal gems Village Utulic Baikal shore view from the cruise ship Baikal water. So clean and so cold! The Olkhon Island The Pulp and Paper Mill Baikal shore length is 2100 km. The lake is completely surrounded by mountains and taiga (dense forest). It contains 27 islands. The largest, Olkhon, is 72 km long. Our days in a tourist camp included a lot of activities: hiking to mountains observing magnificent views from the above; hiking to taiga with mushrooms and berries picking up; songs with a guitar, bonfires and drinking local wines; tour to mysterious Olkhon island through a narrow strait by a ferry; cruise along Baikal shores by a ship admiring the beauty, passing by; the trip to Baykalsk with sad-known Pulp and Paper Mill; swimming in a lake with a temperature of about 12 degrees C. Lake Baikal is included into the Yenisei River basin through the Angara River. Basin Baikal is a home to Buryat tribes who reside on the eastern side of Lake Baikal. The Buryats, numbering approximately 500,000, are the aboriginal group concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia. The religious and mythological ideas of the Buryat people are based on the cult of nature (shamanism) This rock is a subject of many popular legends and myths about Baikal Lake and Angara river. It is also one of the main symbols of Baikal Lake. According to one legend furious Baikal threw this rock after his daughter to prevent her from running away without his permit to her beloved Enisey. According to ancient belief it was the residence of Angara river master - Ama Sagaan noyon. Most important rituals were held on Shaman rock, it was a place for taking an oath and praying. People used to bring criminal for a night here and leave him alone with cold icy river flow. If the next morning water doesn't take him and he doesn't die from fear and cold Baikal breath, he was given act of grace. You see a train of Trans-Siberian Railway going from Moscow to the Far East. It runs along the southern shore of Baikal Baikal shores have a lot of gems and minerals. We just picked them up or bought a lot very cheap in Irkutsk. I had artist's made braslets, rings, broches... We had a tour to mysterious Olkhon Island through a narrow strait by a ferry.The island is large enough (72 km long) It has its own lakes, combination of taiga, steppe and even a small desert. The population of the island is less than 1,500 In 1966, the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill was built on the southern end of the lake. The military and aerospace industry needed of high-quality bleached pulp for the production of tires for aircraft. The Mill polluted Baikal for more than 40 years. There had been a long standing public campaign against the mill because of pollution. On September 2013 polluting Baikal Paper Mill finally was shut down. Less than a half of the total workforce will get new jobs, but about 750 people will find themselves jobless
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