B A I K A L

Transcription

B A I K A L

This collection of study materials on Lake Baikal for use by school children was developed as a joint project
by Buryat State University, NGO "Baikal Information Centre “GRAN”, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Coca-Cola Company (TCCC).
The materials, entitled “Lake Baikal Box” (in Russian, “Baikalsky Sunduchok”), are published as part of the
“Every Drop Matters” project, which is being implemented jointly by the Coca-Cola Company and the
UNDP.
Lake Baikal Box has been recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Buryatia for use in schools as part of the standard educational programme and supplementary programmes.
UNDP
ISBN 978-5-9793-0510-3
All rights reserved. This publication must not be copied without written permission of the copyright holder
except for non-commercial and educational purposes and on condition that the source is cited.
Science Editor:
Professor Nina Zh. Dagbaeva
Authors and scientific consultants:
Associate professors: Vladimir Babikov, Rinchin Dylykova, Elvira Narkhinova, Zoya Paznikova,
Marina Portnyagina, Nadezhda Sodnomova, Zorigma Chimbeyeva, Anzhelika Kushnareva
Author and designer of the game “Above and Below the Water and on the Shores of Baikal”,
Associate professor Anzhelika Kushnareva
Scientific consultants:
Professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education,
Stepan Kalmikov (consultant-educator)
Professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Arnold Tulokhonov (consultant- geographer)
Professor Tsydyp Dorzhiev (consultant-zoologist)
Professor Svetlana Sandakova (consultan-ornithologist)
Associate Professor Tatiana Baskhaeva (consultant-biologist)
Texts of Assignments by:
School teachers of the Republic of Buryatia
Translators:
Elena Panteyeva
Larissa Sanzhiyeva
Lyudmila Sel’verova
Natalia Tsybikova
Art Director:
Associate Professor Zoya Paznikova, birds’ pictures – Dulmatsu Gumpilova
Photography:
Photo Archive of the “Gran” Baikal Informational Center, the Baikal Institute for Nature Management of
the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Department of Federal Service for Supervision of
Nature Resources of Republic of Buryatia.
W. Babikov T. Baskhaeva, O. Goroshko, Tz. Dorzhiev, E.Dremov, O. Kobzar, O. Korsun,
A. Kokhutka, W. Krasnopevzeva, I. Mavrin, G.Matveev, S. Sandakova, A. Suknev, E. Tkatschenko
Design:
Associate Professor Zoya Paznikova, Arkady Batomunkuev
Project Manager:
Natalia Olofinskaya, Head of the Department for Environmental Protection (UNDP)
Printed by:
ILF Advertising Agency LLC, 123056, Moscow, Bolshoy Kondratievskiy Lane 10, Bldg.1, Office 1
Special thanks to:
Managers and executors of the project thank everyone who assisted in its realization, supplied with photographs, gave advice and consultations.
CONTENTS
PART 1.
PART 2.
PART 3.
Baikal: a Miracle of Nature
9
Where is Baikal?
Baikal's Birthday
Why is our lake called Baikal?
The deepest lake…
The mountains around Baikal
The islands and headlands of Baikal
The Sacred Nose Peninsula
336 rivers flow into Baikal
The Angara is the only river flowing out of Baikal
Little lakes around Baikal
Proval Bay
Baikal's weather
The winds of Baikal
12
13
13
16
20
22
27
28
31
32
34
35
37
Think, Play, Experiment, Create together!
39
The Wonders of Baikal Water
47
Unique properties of Baikal water
Why does the colour of water in Baikal change?
Baikal waves
Baikal ice
The living water filters of Baikal. The Baikal Sponge
Venus amphipods and Bormashi
Baikal epischura
50
51
52
54
56
57
58
59
Above Water and Under Water
81
Birds of Baikal
84
Gulls of Baikal: Yellow-legged Gull, Common Tern
85
Are all waterfowl birds the same? Tufted Duck, Great-crested Grebe, Green-winged
Teal, Garganey, Mallard Duck, Ruddy Shelduck
86
The Great Cormorant
90
Shore Birds
“Every sandpiper praises its own bog”: Common Sandpiper, Little Stint,
Oyster Catcher The Grey Heron
The Wagtail
The Dipper
Routes of birds from Baikal to their wintering grounds
91
91
92
93
94
95
Fish of Baikal
Best-known Fish of Baikal: the Baikal Omul, the Baikal Sturgeon, the Whitefish,
the Black and the White Grayling
Fish Known to Everyone: the Siberian Roach, the Sazan, the Silver crucian
Who are those Fish-predators? The Perch, the Pike, the Taimen, the Burbot
Endemics of Baikal: the Baikal Sculpin, the Oil Fish
The Baikal Seal (Nerpa)
95
99
100
103
106
109
PART 4. Baikal’s Secret Trails
125
Under the protection of the State
126
Specially Protected Natural Areas
128
Nature Reserves: Barguzin Reserve, Dzherginsky Reserve, Baikalsky Reserve,
Baikal-Lensky Reserve
129
National Parks: Tunkinsky National Park, Trans-Baikal National Park
145
Wildlife Sanctuaries: Frolikhinsky Wildlife Sanctuary,
Enkhalooksky Wildlife Sanctuary
152
Natural Monuments: the Mysterious Ushkan Islands, the “Singing Sands” of Turali,
“The Stilted Trees”, the Ininsky Stone Garden
154
Peoples of Baikal: the Evenks, the Buryats, the Russians
157
Ecological Traditions and Customs of the Buryat Peoples
164
Ecological Problems of Baikal
167
Human activity on the shores of Lake Baikal:
A waste problem on the shores of Baikal
168
Water and air pollution
170
SOS! Fire!
172
Garbage on the shore of Baikal
173
PART 5.
174
It’s Interesting and Entertaining
187
The first reports of Baikal
European researchers of Baikal (18th and 19th centuries)
Native scientists
Chronology of Baikal research
MIR Submersibles on Baikal
Underwater ecosystem of Baikal
Baikal in figures
Topology of the Baikal coast
Baikal legends and fairy tales
Our love for Baikal: Poems about the Lake
190
192
197
199
201
203
210
214
217
227
Bibliography and recommended literature
302
Baikal belongs to children
Dear boys an
d g irls!
.
red with water
surface is cove
its
st
of
be
t
e
os
th
m
e
And
becaus
d also in lakes.
an
“Blue Planet”
e
rs
th
ve
d
ri
lle
in
ca
e,
metimes
d oceans, in ic
The Earth is so
ned in seas an
ai
nt
co
is
er
at
is Lake Baikal.
gs to enjoy:
The Earth's w
t lake on Earth
has many thin
es
u,
p
yo
ee
r
d
fo
d
ed
an
t
ar
prep
y, and a CD
known, oldes
at is fun to pla
which we have
s
th
re
e
m
su
ga
ea
tr
a
,
of
ke
the collection
map of the La
Young friend,
friends, a big
ur
yo
x.
d
an
bo
u
ul
r yo
autif
more. In
a text book fo
together in a be
to learn much
d
u
ke
yo
ac
lp
p
l
he
al
ill
l,
ka
ok w
you will
about Lake Bai
d classmates,
kal, but our bo
ai
an
B
s,
ke
nd
La
ie
t
fr
ou
r,
ab
it is and
teache
ow something
aikal, how old
ad with your
B
re
d
n
lle
ca
ca
u
is
yo
You already kn
it
ch
g than
why
the book, whi
more fascinatin
You will learn
.
be
d
ke
ul
La
co
at
t
re
ha
g
the first part of
.W
this
feed the Lake
g facts about
the rivers that
t
find interestin
ou
native land!
n
ab
n
ow
ar
ur
le
n
u will
art of yo
our lives. It ca
how big it is. Yo wonder of nature at the he
e of water in
nc
ta
er
is
or
at
p
th
W
t
.
im
ou
er
e
at
to learn ab
understand th
made up of w
will help you
man body is
ok
hu
ulates our
bo
e
g
e
th
re
th
of
so
t
of
al
t
os
it
ar
cause m
es, and
be
on
f,
l
el
fu
The second p
its
rm
e
ha
lif
y taste). Water
moves
that water is
ater has a salt
tances and re
aw
bs
se
su
truly be said
y
ul
nl
ef
(o
us
l
smel
ok why Baikal's
nism with
n from our bo
taste, colour or
ar
t
le
ou
feeds our orga
ill
ith
w
w
u
is
Yo
e.
ure. Water
air temperatur
body temperat
epending on
d
e
ic
it.
or
in
e
m
liv
ea
s
st
aters of
ture
can turn into
found in the w
be
interesting crea
t
to
ha
e
w
ar
d
ch
an
hi
e
ard of the
sh, w
water is so pur
u may have he
fish and shellfi
g
Yo
.
in
ke
az
La
am
e
e
th
th
The book
over
tell you about
imals they are.
t birds that fly
an
en
y
er
iff
nn
d
fu
d
us
Our book will
an
rio
er
d about the va
ies of what clev
Lake Baikal, an
and know stor
l,
ka
ai
B
in
e
wons.
at liv
where special
about the seal
nerpa seals th
it,
gs
in
nd
th
ou
w
ar
s
ne
y
ce
and
man
d pla
home to unique
will teach you
of the Lake an
e
ts
ar
ar
p
ey
th
to
e
ur
us
to
ca
a
protected, be
will take you on
s that must be
ce
la
Next, our book
p
e
ar
e
es
found. Th
le.
Baikal. Much of
ders are to be
ul facts about
nts, and peop
la
ef
p
us
s,
d
al
an
im
g
an
in
rest
l for yourself,
fascinating
gs about Baika
a wealth of inte
in
rs
th
fe
w
of
ne
ok
t
bo
ou
e
find
st part of th
if you want to
The fif th and la
teachers, but
ur
yo
r
fo
nt
tasks for
this part is mea
ts and creative
ec
oj
.
pr
,
ok
ts
lo
en
to
your free
perim
this is the place
e outdoors, in
n of various ex
ar
tio
u
ip
yo
cr
n
es
d
he
a
w
ith
and
and with
e book ends w
s, classmates
n do at school
nd
ca
ie
u
fr
yo
ur
gs
yo
in
Each part of th
th
ith
e
r life as
ts w
from. These ar
important to ou
on these projec
as
k
is
or
er
w
at
n
w
ca
you to choose
at
u
yo
this book is th
r classes. And
u will learn from
time and af te
yo
t
ha
w
l,
al
Shore
Above
er and on the
your parents.
at
W
e
th
er
e.
nd
th
w
U
brea
ve the Water,
use learning ne
the air that we
a game, “Abo
me time, beca
ns
sa
ai
e
nt
th
co
at
so
n
al
fu
sure Chest
learn and have
Our Little Trea
the chance to
u
yo
es
iv
g
ch
e.
of Baikal”, whi
n it is enjoyabl
om space.
es easier whe
onauts see it fr
tr
tim
as
n
te
as
is
st
ju
gs
l,
in
ka
th
to the various
shows you Bai
troduces you
g map, which
in
bi
d
a
an
is
,
e
ke
er
La
th
,
the
e depths
Finally
g the shores of
adventure to th
on
an
al
k
on
al
u
w
yo
a
s
r
to
ke
s you fo
s. From plants
there. It also ta
Our book take
live and grow
water creature
at
er
d
th
s
un
m
r
nt
la
co
he
p
ot
nt
d
animals an
s of fish and
be your consta
meet all kind
sure Chest will
ea
Tr
le
tt
l. We wish
Li
ur
of the Lake to
shellfish, O
at is Lake Baika
th
to
re
d
tu
an
h
na
fis
of
birdlife, to
great wonder
iscovery!
ning about the
loration and d
p
ex
of
y
ne
panion in lear
ur
jo
yment on this
you ever y enjo
How to use this tool kit
This toolkit of educational materials “Lake Baikal Box” has been developed as an aid for
primary and middle grade students, teachers, and parents. Our aim is to broaden knowledge and
understanding of one of the greatest natural treasures of Russia and of the world – Lake Baikal.
Our principal audience is children who will increase their awareness and become more informed
about Baikal and its environs thanks to this project. But these illustrated materials about Baikal's
flora and fauna, its geography, and the people who live around it are more than an interesting
source of information – they can also instill a feeling of love and pride towards our native region,
and nurture an aspiration to protect the pearl of planet Earth, which is Lake Baikal, because we
are ready to defend the things, which we love.
The Baikal toolkit for schoolchildren includes:
· a text book for students entitled, “Lake Baikal Box”;
· game cards on the theme, “Living World of Baikal”;
· a poster, “Above the Water and Under the Water”;
· a map of specially protected natural territories, “Following Baikal's Nature Trails”;
· a CD
The text book consists of five parts:
Part 1. Baikal: a Miracle of Nature
Part 2. The Wonders of Baikal's Waters
Part 3. Above the Water and Under the Water
Part 4. Following Baikal's Nature Trails
Part 5. It's interesting and entertaining
Each part provides both information and creative assignments for children aged between
8 and 14. Teachers can adapt this information to suit various age groups, and pupils in sixth
to eighth grades will be able to use the materials, and the Treasure Chest's “secret corners”,
independently. By studying the information that is presented in the relevant parts and sections of
the book, children will be able to carry out the assignments, which in turn will further strengthen
their knowledge. All parts of the toolkit have cross-curricular content and can therefore be used
for teaching various subjects, contributing to development of the general and special learning
capacities of primary and middle school students.
The creative assignments can be completed either individually, in pairs, in small groups,
and, in some cases, with adults. They are designed to encourage the students to communicate
interactively with their classmates and teachers, and to develop the subjective position of each
student, in the hope of swelling the ranks of young environmentalists! Some tasks can be a
basis for projects by the children. The toolkit can be adapted for different age groups depending
on their level of preparedness, needs and interest, and also depending on the capabilities and
experience of teachers. Materials can be used both in class and out of class in activities related
to different subjects of the school curriculum. Lake Baikal Box can also be used as the basis for
a separate optional course on the environmental problems of Baikal region, as well as a tool for
studies and activities by naturalist groups. Our approach in creating the toolkit ensures flexibility
in presenting and studying Baikal. Teachers are welcome to structure the materials depending on
their preferences and on the classes where they use them.
Parents and other adults who wish to use Lake Baikal Box as a means of home education can
discuss its illustrations with children, read parts and sections of the book that are of particular interest
to children together with them, and selectively work on assignments that are commensurate with
their children's abilities. All of the first four parts of the text book offer various riddles, games, role
plays, individual and group projects, experiments, and creative assignments in a section entitled,
“Think, Play, Experiment, Create Together!”, which follows the informational sections.
Living w
orld of B
rld
g wo
points
Livin
l
aika
of B
s
rou
ume
ost n
Baikal oilfi
the m
and ho I am.
sh
w
g fish
earin l. Guess
-b
e
a liv
y tail.
aika
m
h
I am f Lake B
roug
o
th
’t
h
n
k
s
o
o
fi
bo
eId
ad a .
caus
m
can re
h, be
You s who I a
le-fis all oil.
y
visib
Gues
an in y is nearl
e
m
y die
ll
y bod
le ca
. I ma m.
Peop scales. Mm.
rature who I a
mpe
s
have s who I a
ter te C. Gues
s
a
w
s
0
to
ound
Gue
itive
es +1
d
ure w
sens re reach
t to c ond Worl
very
tu
c
tmen
I am tempera
e oin g the Se
d
a
m
if the
durin
d to
s use icine and
il wa
d
My o etan me o I am.
h
in Tib Guess w
War.
aikal
The game cards, “Living World of Baikal”,
are intended to help students recognize the
main plants and creatures that live in and
around Lake Baikal. They are grouped into the
following categories:
· Plants
· Fish
· Birds
· Invertebrates
· Mammals
· Plants and animals of the Baikal shore
This intriguing game will help young
learners to consolidate their knowledge of Lake
Baikal flora and fauna. Rules of the game and
instructions for using the map of Baikal's nature
reserves “Above Water, Under Water and on
the Shore of Baikal ” are offered on the cards
themselves.
The Map of Baikal makes it possible to take
a brief tour of the greatest lake on the planet.
If you have never been to Baikal before, you
can use the map to decided where you will go
first. Most importantly, each time children use
the map they will be reminded that there are
specially protected nature reserves around Lake
Baikal and that the Lake needs our protection.
The Poster “Above the Water, Under the
Water and on the Shore of Baikal” can be
permanently exhibited in your classroom, to be
used for specific tasks and when playing the
card game.
The educational materials portal about
Baikal is a website, which will help both teachers
and students who use this toolkit. It can be
accessed at www.everydropmatters.ru
You can download samples of all materials
that are used in the toolkit from the website,
and the site will be of use even if you do not
have the kit. It will also be possible to play the
game “Above the Water and Under the Water”
online.
Teachers, who register on the website, will
receive a user ID and password. They can then
share descriptive materials and upload pictures
and videos of their assignments concerning
Baikal. Teachers can also develop new materials,
enabling us to fill the secret corners of Lake
Baikal Box together.
PART 2
PART 1
Parts of the
toolkit
Crossthematic character of
The toolkit “Lake Baikal Box”
General contents
Geographical position of Lake
Baikal. Its physical characteristics.
Mountains around Baikal. Rivers
flowing into and out of Baikal. Other
lakes around. Islands and headlands
of Baikal. Weather on the lake. Winds
of Baikal. Hidden winds. Entertaining
and educating tasks.
Unique characteristics of Baikal’s
water. Baikal ice. Baikal waves.
Living filters of Baikal water. Baikal
sponge. Venus amphipods and
Bormashi Baikal epischura
Experimants with Baikal water.
Different conditions of Baikal water
(snow, ice). Temperature influence on
the water. How much water a man
needs a day. Adventure of Water
Drop.
Thematic spheres
of the academic
year for the use
of the book’s
materials
Pedagogical
technologies
recommended for
use at study a part
of the toolkit
Educational
and special
competencies
formed in the
process of the
materials’ study
Topical tasks
Educational and
cognitive
Environment
Geography
Mathematics
Art and fine arts
Heuristic education
Research
Music
Environment
Chemistry
Biology
Physics
Zoology
Interactive
education
Methds of projects
Reseach
Educational and
cognitive
Art and fine arts
PART 3
Environment
Birds of Baikal. Gulls, ducks, Great
cormorant. Shore birds. Famous fish
of Baikal. Baikal endemics. Painting
on stones and cut-out collages.
Ecological tasks.
Chemistry
Creative tasks
Boilogy
Physics
Work in small
groups
Zoology
Role plays
Research
Informative
PART 5
PART 4
Art and fine arts
Specially Protected Natural Areas.
Reserves, National Parks, Wildlife
Sanctuaries. Natural Monuments.
Peoples of Baikal .
Ecological Traditions and Customs
of the Buryat Peoples. Ecological
Problems of Baikal and its coast.
Experiments with plastic. Project
with Baikal cedar.
The first reports of Baikal. European
researchers(18th-19th centuries).
Native researchers of Baikal.
Chronology of Baikal research.
“Mirs” on Baikal. Baikal in figures.
Topology of the Baikal coast. Baikal
legends and fairy tales. Our love for
Baikal: Poems about the Lake
Environment
Biology
Zoology
History
Informatics
Project technologies
Telecommunicational projects
Social and
ecological projects
Project
Social and working
Biology
Geography
History
Literature
Foreign languages
Music
Business plays
Discussions
Creative tasks
Communicative
Competencies
of personal
improvement
Dear Children
is unlike
out a lake that
ab
u
yo
ll
te
ill
w
t we
g book, which
f humanit y, bu
in
o
az
e
g
am
ta
ri
e
an
h
g
n
in
o
old
e comm
atia. We
You are now h
ake Baikal is th
d here in Bury
L
te
t.
e
ca
n
lo
la
p
is
r
it
u
o
nt
at
any other on
wildlife and pla
tfully proud th
h
g
ch
ri
ri
e
s
it
ar
s
d
re
an
o
s sh
Lake.
resources
who live on it
r protecting the
le fresh water
ib
fo
st
ty
au
ili
h
b
x
si
e
n
in
o
s
sp
banks of rivers
are proud of it
ear a special re
e
b
th
e
w
at
e,
th
m
re
ti
su
e
e sam
from
must make
kingdom. At th
ur forests safe
o
oble task. We
n
p
e
is
th
ke
st
to
u
te
m
u
ect the
clean. We
You can contrib
ly. We must resp
Baikal remain
ss
e
to
tl
r
h
e
g
u
at
o
w
th
ir
s
e
eadow
that bring th
flowers in our m
ck
lu
p
t
o
n
st
u
m
is
fires. We
l.
e authors of th
e around Baika
Th
liv
it.
h
ic
ct
h
te
w
ro
s,
p
al
anim
n how to
need to
u will also lear
ain things you
yo
m
l
e
ka
th
ai
u
B
yo
t
u
g
o
–
n
By learning ab
st importantly
gift for you, telli
o
l
m
u
rf
–
e
d
d
n
an
o
w
e,
a
g
d
ared
ur knowle
e.
book have prep
ing tests of yo
id
v
ro
p
care of our Lak
e,
ke
ak
ta
L
e
to
th
w
t
o
u
h
o
ts
ab
know
and paren
of the
d your friends
gical Institute
o
an
u
ag
d
yo
Pe
g
e
in
h
th
f
ac
te
“ for the
rofessors o
Centre “GR AN
n
ly thank the p
io
re
at
ce
n
rm
si
fo
In
to
l
n to
e
I would lik
as NGO "Baika
my appreciatio
ll
d
e
n
w
te
x
as
e
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PART
Baikal: a Miracle
of Nature
OUR LAKE BAIKAL
Between mountains and cliffs
Our Baikal glitters.
From northern lowlands
Strong Barguzin is blowing.
Its waves strike against the banks,
And around there is the taiga.
Powerful Khamar-Daban
Goes through the mist
Further - white like an aged man,
Snowy Munku-Sardyk.
Three hundred thirty three rivers
Rush down the mountains.
And right in the middle between cliffs
There is our Baikal.
Ivan Molchanov-Sibirsky
CONTENTS OF PART 1
Where is Baikal?
12
Baikal's Birthday
13
Why is our lake called Baikal?
13
The deepest lake…
16
20
Islands and headlands of Baikal
22
27
336 rivers flow into Baikal
28
The Angara is the only river flowing out of Baikal
31
Smaller lakes around Baikal
32
Proval Bay
34
Baikal’s weather
35
The winds of Baikal
37
39
• Check what you have learnt
• Solve the puzzle!
• What have I learnt about Baikal? Find 9 hidden words.
• Cross out the extra term: lakes, mountain ridges, winds, rivers of Lake Baikal
• What winds! Show the winds that blow on Baikal, write their names
and other details in the table
• Hidden winds (colouring game)
• Find My Name. Join the Island's name with its photograph
• A mysterious archipelago. Answer the questions
Where is Baikal?
Baikal is located in the centre of Asia, in the southern part of Eastern Siberia, between Irkutsk
Region and the Republic of Buryatia. The lake fills an ancient basin, which was created by a shift of
the Earth's crust. Baikal extends from southwest to northeast for a distance of 636 km.
Look carefully at the map of Russia and find where
the world's deepest lake is located.
In photos from space Baikal has the appearance of a huge crescent
moon or an enormous banana.
A few centuries ago, people had no concept of the outlines of Baikal.
The first attempts to map the Lake were made at the end of the 17th
and start of the 18th centuries, and the most accurate of them were by
the Russian cartographer, geographer and historian of Siberia, Simeon
Ulyanovich Remezov, in his Book of Maps of Siberia (1699–1701).
Compare the image of Lake Baikal in the 17th
century atlas with that on modern maps.
12
Baikal’s Birthday
The age of Lake Baikal is of great interest
to scientists, who now believe that the Lake is
about 20–25 million years old. It is a very ancient
lake. Other lakes live for about 15,000 years,
before they disappear, but Baikal is still young –
its area and its depth are still increasing, and the
opposite shorelines are moving apart at a rate of
2 cm per year.
The ecologists of Baikal region recently
decided that our Lake deserves a birthday:
every year since 1999, we celebrate Baikal Day
on September 1.
Why is our Lake called Baikal?
The shoreline of Lake Baikal has been occupied
by different peoples down the ages: Turkic tribes,
the Mongols, the Evenks, the Buryats and the
Yakuts. And each of them had their own name
for the Lake. The origin of the name by which we
know the Lake today – “Bajgal” or “Baikal” – is
still subject to discussion. Some scholars believe
that “Bajgal” is a Buryat word meaning “the natural
sea”. Others maintain that this name was first
given to the Lake by an ancient Turkic people, the
Kuryks.
Baj-Kul (Turkic) – “rich lake”
Lamu (Evenk) – “sea”
Tengis (Turkic) – “sea”
Bejhaj (Chinese) – “northern sea”
Bajgal-Dalaj (Mongolian) – “huge lake”
Bajgal (Buryat) – “natural”, “real”, “existing”,
Dalaj (Buryat) – “sea”
Secret Corners of Lake Baikal Box
The peoples who lived far from Baikal knew about the lake, too. In
ancient Chinese manuscripts Baikal is called as “Bejhaj” that means
“northern sea”.
13
Europe learnt of the existence of the Lake
from Marco Polo's reports of his journeys.
Other names for the Lake include the BuryatMongolian “Dalanor”, meaning “sacred lake”
and “Llama”, which is the Tungus word for “sea”.
Marco Polo (1254–1324) – the renowned
Italian traveller and merchant of the 13th
century, wrote the history of his 25 years
of travels across Asia.
The first Russian explorers of Siberia used
the Evenk word “Lamu” to refer to the Lake. But
in 1643 a group of 74 Cossacks led by Kurbat
Ivanov arrived on its shores and took up the
Buryat name, “Bajgal”. They Russianized the
word, replacing “g” by “k”, to make “Baikal”,
which is how the Lake is known today.
V.Surikov. The Cossacs.
A Sketch for the picture “Ermak’s conquest of Siberia”.
Kurbat Afanasevich Ivanov (?–1666) – a Cossack from Tobolsk, is considered to be the
the “discoverer” of Lake Baikal. He led an expedition from the Cossack settlement of
Verkholensky, which brought Russians to the shores of the Lake for the first time. Some
years after his expedition Ivanov created a map, which he called a “Drawing of Baikal and
of the rivers that flow into it”.
14
People have called Baikal a
“sea” since ancient times and
this is the term used by the Old
Believer, Avvakum, in his book
The Life of Avvakum, the first
literary work to mention the Lake,
where he writes: “We mended
the boat, set the sails, and went
across the sea…”.
Avvakum Petrovich Kondratyev (1620–1682) –
was a church writer and head of the Old Believers.
He crossed the Lake in July 1662, returning from
exile in Dauria (now the region of Transbaikaliye).
S. Miloradovich.
Avvakum’s way in Siberia. 1898.
In 1675 Nikola Milesku Spafary described the Lake as follows: “The Baikal sea remains unknown
to chroniclers of past and present ages because […] to journey around it is impossible […] and
its size, length, width and depth are great. And it can be called a lake because its water is fresh”.
Local people still call Baikal “the sea”.
Nikola (Nikolay Gavrilovich) Milesku Spafary (1636–1708) – was a Russian diplomat and
scholar of Romanian origins. He crossed Baikal on his way to China, where he headed a
Russian embassy. He gave the first detailed geographical description of Baikal.
So Baikal has been an object of study for many centuries. The achievement of the earliest
explorers was to discover the wonders of Baikal. Our task today is preserve these wonders for
future generations.
15
The deepest lake…
Baikal is the deepest lake in the world (1637 m). Its depth is explained by its geological origins.
There are only two other lakes in the world with depth greater than 1000 m: Lake Tanganyika in
Africa (1470 m) and the Caspian Sea in the south of Russia (1025 m).
Find Lake Baikal, Lake Tanganyika and the Caspian Sea on the map
of the world, and find out what continents they belong to.
Baikal is the second biggest lake in Russia
by the volume of water, which it contains: the
Caspian Sea is larger by this measure. However,
the waters of the Caspian are salty, while Baikal's
water is fresh. The waters of Baikal represent
80% of all the fresh water in Russia and 20% of
fresh water on the entire planet.
The world's biggest lakes by surface area
Name
Area (sq. km.)
Caspian Sea
371 000
Verkhneye
82 414
Victoria
69 485
Huron
59 500
Michigan
58 016
Tanganyika
32 893
Baikal
31 500
Bolshoye Medvejie
31 080
Niyasa
30 044
Aral Sea
13 900
Now look at the outlines of the Lake. In its
widest place Baikal is almost 80 km across,
and the distance from shore to shore at the
narrowest place is almost 27 km. If we measure
Baikal's surface area, we find that it is roughly
equal to that of some countries (Belgium, for
example). Baikal is one of the biggest lakes in
the world.
Look at the table. You can see that Baikal numbers among
the ten greatest lakes in the world by surface area.
16
The mysterious depths of Baikal
If we took all the water out of Baikal, you would find that the bottom of the Lake is a landscape
of mountains and valleys. All this is concealed beneath a mass of water that is nearly two kilometers
deep in places.
Sazhen – a Russian linear measure equal to 2.13m
Lot – ead weights with a thin rope or a cable
Pood – a Russian measure of weight equal to 16.3 kg
Since long ago people have aspired to knew more about Baikal. You have already learnt the
names of some of these travellers and scholars from different ages and countries. In particular,
people have wanted to know how deep the Lake is.
Fishermen were probably the first to gain an idea of the depth of Baikal. Milesku Spafary spoke
with local people and reports in his Travel Notes that “its depth is great because it has been
measured with lines of a hundred sazhens and more, without reaching the bottom”.
In the 18th century a German scientist, Peter Simon Pallas, make an
expedition to Baikal and tried several times to find the bottom of the
lake, but his 200m rope proved too short.
In 1837 one of the exiled Decembrists Wilhelm Karlovich
Kuechelbeker – a friend and a schoolfellow of Alexander Pushkin
– carried out deep-water soundings in one part of Lake Baikal (the
Barguzin Gulf).
In 1859 deep-water soundings of the Lake were conducted by the
Lieutenant Konstantin Kononov in preparation for the laying of a cable
line from Kazan to the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Kononov used a
rope one thousand sazhens long with an end-weight of one pood.
17
The scientific study of Siberia, including Baikal, began with the foundation of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg in 1725.
The first scientific measurements of the depths of Lake Baikal were by
the Polish scientists B.I. Dybovsky and V.A. Godlevsky, who did most
of their work in the winter time. The fathometer (depth measurement
instrument) which they invented is still used today with some
improvements. In 1870, the two scientists were awarded the gold
medal of the Russian Geographical Society for their research
on Lake Baikal.
Nowadays depth is often measured using a cable plummet or an echo-sounding device.
Cable plummet (used in 1959).
Measured depth of the lake = 1620 m
Echo-sounding device (used in1974).
Measured depth of the lake = 1637 m.
A specialized institute – the Limnological Institute – is located in the village of Listvyanka, by
the Lake, and is dedicated to studying all aspects of Baikal's ecosystem.
Limnological Institute СО RAN, in Irkutsk
The science, which studies lakes, is called Limnology.
18
The greatest depths of Lake Baikal
The waters of Lake Baikal fill a natural depression in the earth's crust. The depression is
divided into three large troughs – southern, middle and northern, – each of them separated by an
underwater ridge.
North
Middle
South
The ridge, which divides the northern from the middle trough is called the Akademicheskaya
(“Academic”) ridge. The middle and the southern troughs are separated by the SelenginoBuguldeisky elevation.
Which of these parts of Baikal do you think is the deepest?
• The deepest point in the southern trough of Lake Baikal, between the mouths of the rivers
Pereyemnaya and Mishikha, is 1432m beneath the surface.
• The water depth in the middle part of the Lake, near the eastern shore of Olkhon Island,
between Capes Izhimey and Khara-Hushun, is 1637m.
• The deepest point in the Lake's northern trough is off the coastal strip between Cape Elokhin
and Cape Pokoiniki, where the water depth is 890m.
So the deepest part of Lake Baikal is in its middle trough.
The shallowest offshore point in Lake Baikal
The shllowest depth of 34m was discovered by the scientist Gleb Yurievich Vereshchagin over
the Posolskaya shoal, which is almost in the middle of the lake.
19
Baikal is surrounded by the peaks and crests of mountains. We can find their names by studying
the map.
Try to find the Primorsky ridge on the map. It is located on the west side of Lake Baikal, and is
of modest height – very few peaks along the Primorsky ridge rise higher than 1000 m.
As you can see, the northern end of the Primorsky ridge rises to meet the Baikal ridge, which
has peaks higher than 2000 m.
The east coast of the Lake is girded by the Khamar-Daban mountain range, which is an offshoot
of the Sayany mountains.
Further to the north, beyond the river Selenga, you can see the low Ulan-Burgasy ridge, and
along its northern part the Barguzin ridge has peaks as high as 2300–2600 m.
Mountain systems around Baikal and their highest peaks
Primorsky ridge
Trekhgolovy Golets mountain
1746 m
Ulan-Burgasy
Khurkhan mountain
2049 m
Khamar-Daban
Khan-Khula mountain
2371 m
Baikalsky
Cherskogo mountain
2588 m
Barguzin
Baikal Peak
2840 m
20
In some places the mountain ridges descend straight to the water's edge, while in other places
they are at a distance of several dozen kilometers from the shoreline. The slopes on the eastern
side are gentle, but they are steep on the western side, with plentiful scree and pebble slides.
The Baikal shoreline is also marked by valleys between the mountain ridges, the biggest of
which are the Ust-Selenga, Ust-Barguzin and Upper-Angara valleys, containing the rivers which
feed the Lake – the Selenga, Barguzin, Upper Angara and others. These valleys have traditionally
been settled by people.
The valleys and ridges around Baikal stretch for a distance of 2500 km and form the Baikal
mountain region.
21
The islands and headlands of Lake Baikal
Baikal has many islands and headlands
(capes), but only one large peninsula, known as
Svyatoy Nos (“Sacred Nose”).
The largest of the islands on the Lake is
Olkhon Island, which is located in the central
part of the Lake and is considered to be its
heart. Olkhon covers an area of 722.4 km2, it
is 73 km long and 15 km wide. It coastline is
gently sloping on the western side, but tall and
steep on the eastern side.
The part of Lake Baikal between its western
shore and Olkhon Island is called the Small
Sea. The south-western end of the Island is
separated from the Baikal shoreline by a strait
known as the Olkhon Gate, which is viewed by
sailors as the most treacherous part of the Lake.
The highest point on Olkhon Island is Izhimey
mountain, the peak of which is located only 11
km from the Lake's deepest point – the 1637m
depth, which we described above.
The name of Olkhon Island is believed to come from the Buryat words
“khoi” or”«khon”, meaning forest, or from “olkhon”, which means
“dry”. Strong winds make it difficult for trees to take root on the Island,
so they tend to grow alone or in small clumps, and the western coast
is without any tree cover.
22
You might be interested to know what birds and animals live on the Island. You can see them
and count them by looking at the pictures.
Olkhon Island is home to various animals, including the lynx, fox, hare, squirrel, weasel, polecat
and others, as well as one endemic species, the olkhon vole, which is only to be found in the
steppes around Baikal. In winter time wolves sometimes cross the ice to the Island, but bears
never go there. Baikal seals can sometimes be seen along the Olkhon coastline.
Olkhon is the only island on Lake Baikal,
which has been settled by people. Human
habitation on Olkhon dates from the earliest
times: scientists have found evidence of human
presence (fragments of pottery and a crude
knife) at one part of the Island – Saraisky Bay
– dating from 13,000 years ago. About 1,500
people inhabit Olkhon today, and they live
mainly from fishing and cattle breeding.
23
Not far from Olkhon we find the four Ushkany Islands. The Island are famous for their seal
rookeries, and they have the curious names of “Big”, “Thin”, “Round” and “Long”. All of them are
peaks of the underwater Akademichesky ridge.
Why do you think the Ushkany Islands have these names? Can you imagine what they look
like? Why would an island be called “Long”?
Big Island rises out of the water in the form of a mountain 216 meters high, but the other three
islands are not more than 17-22m above the water level. Big island has three caves at the foot of
its limestone cliffs, in which archaeologists have found pottery fragments, other ancient remains,
and seal bones, probably left behind by ancient seal hunters.
Big Ushkany has huge 300 year-old larches and
pine trees growing on its slopes and its rocks are
entirely covered with brown moss. Big Ushkany is
also remarkable for its thousands of ant hills, which
are almost unique in Russia. Unfortunately, the ant
population has been reduced in recent years by
fires that have broken out on the Island.
The Ushkany Islands take their name from the
word “ushkan”, which is the Siberian word for
a hare. But, strangely, there are no hares on the
island. The name in fact comes from the north of
European Russia where people on the coast of the
White Sea call sea-seals “hares”, using the standard
Russian word for a hare, which is “zayats”. When
these people visited Baikal and saw seals on its
islands, they therefore called the islands “zayachi”
(this is the name used in Simeon Remezov's atlas
of 1701). The local people then substituted their
word for a hare, and the name “Ushkany” has
stuck to this day.
24
Yarki Island in the northern part of Lake
Baikal takes the form of a narrow sandy spit,
stretching for 15 km along the northern shore
of the Lake. The Island is covered with grass,
birch trees and cedar scrub.
Mountain pine
Great Baklany (Shimai) Island, situated in the Chivyrkuysky Gulf of Lake Baikal, is a small
rocky island, which used to be a nesting place for cormorants (“Baklany” in Russian) and is still
inhabited by grouse. Larch trees spread from the highest point on the Island down to the water's
edge, interspersed with glades. A sheer cliff rises from the Lake on the south-west of the Island.
Check what you have learnt !
1. What is the largest island of Lake Baikal? Why are there so few plants and
trees on this island?
2. The high points of the Akademichesky ridge form a chain of islands.
What are these islands called?
3. What is remarkable about Yarki Island?
25
Cape Shamanskiy Many of the capes and
headlands on the shoreline of Lake of Baikal take
their names from the rivers and streams that flow into
the lake. The names of some others have different
sources. The best-known of Baikal's capes are
Shamansky, Burkhan, Khoboy, and Kobylya Golova
(“Mare's Head”). In fact, there are two Shamansky
Capes on Lake Baikal, one of them in the northeast
part of the Lake and the other in the south. The
second Shamansky Cape deserves special mention,
because it is often considered to be the gate to Lake
Baikal. The Cape is near to the westernmost point of
Baikal and extends into the Lake for half a kilometer.
It is situated between the settlements of Kultuk and
Slyudyanka and divides the southwest end of the
lake into two parts, with Kultuk to the north and
Slyudyanka to the south. The top of the rocky cape
is covered with birch trees and resembles the whale
from the Russian fairy tale “The Hump-backed Horse”.
In the past the Buryats called this cape Aikha-Shulun
, which means “Awful Stone”, reflecting the legends
of shamans who carried out sacrifices and religious
rituals here. Later Russian merchants used to make
stopovers at the Cape, believing that by showing
respect to the shaman's spirit they would ensure the
success of their business affairs. Hence the name
“Shamansky”.
When you visit Baikal with your parents, take photographs
of the Lake at different times of day and in different seasons.
Collect the photos in an album and submit them for
competitions or organize a photo exhibition in class.
Cape Shamansky was the scene of an interesting scientific episode. In 1868
the scientists Benedict Dybovsky and Victor Godlevsky carried out
observations of water levels and marked the high water mark on the side
of the Cape. Their measurement proved significant because the water
level in 1868 was the highest for 100 years. Unfortunately, the mark has
not survived to the present (it was destroyed by explosives work during
production of building materials). However, the work of the two researchers
was continued by the scientist Ivan Chersky who made 16 water level
marks at various locations around the Lake. Chersky's marks remain
as a part of the history of scientific studies of Baikal.
26
View at the peninsula from the place Karga
Svyatoy Nos (“Sacred Nose”) is the biggest peninsula
on Baikal and has the shape of a huge nose. The Buryat
name, “Hilmen Khushun” means “face (nose) of a sturgeon
fish”. The peninsula is 53 km long, and about 20 km
across. Its western slopes are covered with dense taiga,
and the eastern side has a number of sheltered bays and
promontories. Find Svyatoy Nos Peninsula on the map (the
photo from space will help you to find it). What islands can
you see near the Peninsula?
Several thousand years ago Svyatoy Nos was an island
separated from the eastern shore of Baikal by a narrow
strait. Two rivers, the Maly Chivyrkuy and the Barguzin,
flowing into the Lake to the south of the island, gradually
filled the strait with sand and silt, helped by regular
storms on the Lake, until the island was connected to the
mainland by a sandy spit and the strait was transformed
into an inlet that we now call the Chivyrkuysky Gulf. There
are three settlements on the peninsula: Monakhovo, Katun
and Kurbulik.
Show on the map where Peninsula Svyatoy Nos is situated.
The photo made from space will help you in that. What
other peninsulas have you noticed near the peninsula?
In the place Monakhovo, in summer
Tangles on western hill
27
Peninsula’s landscape
336 rivers flow into the Lake
Baikal gathers waters from a huge territory and more than
336 rivers and streams flow into the Lake. The exact number
cannot be established, because some of them dry up in years
of low precipitation and reappear when the rains return. They
include large navigable rivers: the Selenga, Upper Angara
and Barguzin. Several more modest rivers the Kichera, Turka,
Snezhnaya and Goloustnaya as well as many other streams
that are shallow, and can be easily forded.
View on the Selenga from the mountain Omulevaya
The Selenga is the largest tributary of Lake Baikal, and
accounts for half of all the river water flowing into the lake.
The Selenga is 1024 km long and originates in Mongolia, from
where it crosses the border into Russia and flows for 415 km
across Buryatia to reach Baikal.
The Selenga delta is of special interest, since it has pushed
the waters of the Lake back some distance to the west. How
has this happened? Many small mountain rivers carry large
amounts of sand into the Selenga, some of which settle on the
river bed, while the rest is carried into the Lake and sinks to
the bottom. So a broad shallow area was created at the river
delta and a huge flat expanse of dry land – the delta plain
– was eventually formed. This new land is now occupied by
meadows, fields and the villages of Kabansky district. Many
of their inhabitants would find it hard to believe that the place
where they now live was once covered by the waters of Baikal.
The word “Selenga” is believed to derive from
the Evenk word “sele”, meaning “iron”.
28
The water of the Selenga is muddy all the
year round, especially during the summer. Why
do you think this is?
At the river's source, in the Mongolian
steppe, there is a severe continental climate,
almost no vegetation, and strong winds all the
year round. The winds gather up small grains of
sand, grind them to a powder and carry them
for huge distances. Rainfall captures the dust
and washes it into the tributaries of the Selenga.
The Selenga's delta. View from the space.
A delta is found at the mouth of the river, where it flows into a lake or sea, creating an
areas of shallows thanks to the river deposits that are carried into the lake or sea.
The Selenga's delta.
Despite the slow current, this dust does not settle on the riverbed but flows all the way to
Baikal. The muddiness of the Selenga is also explained by the fact that the river flows across a
friable rock, called clay loam.
A river bed is a deepening
of the ground, a channel,
along which a river flows.
29
The Upper Angara is the second full-flowing tributary of Lake Baikal.
At the beginning of 17th century Russian explorers called it simply the Angara. But as there
was another Angara (that flows out of Baikal), the river became known as the Upper Angara and
this name has been preserved to the present day.
The Upper Angara rises on the slopes of the Vitimsky Plateau and covers a distance of 452
km on its way to the Lake. Its mountain reaches are fast flowing with rapids, but the greater part
of the river flows quietly through the marshy Angarsk depression. A variety of fish – taimen,
grayling, burbot, ide, pike and perch – are found in its waters and the Arctic cisco uses the river
for spawning. The Baikal-Amur railway runs along the banks of the Upper Angara.
The word “anga” means
“open” or “disclosed” in
Buryat.
The name Barguzin comes from the
ancient tribe Barghouti, who lived in
Baikal region.
The Barguzin, the third largest tributary of Lake Baikal, is 400 km long, with turbulent upper
reaches and a gentler flow as it approaches Baikal. In the far distant past a large mountain lake
occupied the place of the lower reaches of the river . This ancient lake gradually diminished and
disappeared, and the tributaries, which once flowed into it, came together in the Barguzin river.
The villages of Barguzin district stand on what was once the bottom of the ancient lake.
Smaller rivers, none of them longer than 170 km, also flow into the Lake. Can you find their
names? Finally, a number of shallow, fast-flowing streams rise on the slopes of the ridges that form
a dense ring around Baikal, and tumble down to the Lake below.
30
The Angara is the only river
flowing out of Baikal
Only one river, the Angara, flows out
of Baikal. The Angara is 1 km wide and
4-6m deep at its start.
The so-called Shaman's Stone , which is never covered by water, stands in the middle of the
stream. This lone rock has been surrounded by legends since earliest times, and you can read
about one them later in our Book: according to this legend, furious Lake Baikal threw the rock after
his disobedient daughter, Angara, who had run away to her lover, Yenisei, without his permission.
The head of the river Angara never freezes, and a steam rises from it throughout the winter.
Why so? The waters that pour out from Baikal into the Angara do not come from the surface,
but from the depths of the Lake, where the water temperature is above 0°C, and the fast current
keeps the Angara headstream ice-free in even the coldest winters. This fact makes the head of the
Angara the only refuge in northern Asia for wildfowl during the winter: black and white garrots,
buff-breasted and common mergansers, and long-tailed ducks all winter here.
All of the rivers that flow into Baikal, and that we discussed above, play a prominent part in
the lives of the people who live around the Lake. Ancient culture instilled an attitude of respect
towards the rivers, and to pollute or befoul them is still viewed as a great sin.
Name the 10 tributaries of Lake Baikal.
Choose one of the smaller rivers, which flow into Baikal.
Find its course on the map and mark it on the contour map.
The construction of three hydroelectric power stations on the Angara in
the middle of the last century (Irkutsk, Bratsk and Ust-Ilimsk) has reduced
the size of the ice-free zone by three times, and the number of wintering
birds has reduced to 2000-3500. The birds start to arrive in November, by
the beginning of December there are 1200-1500 ducks, and by the end of
the month at least 2000 birds will have gathered.
31
Little lakes around Baikal
There are a lot of smaller lakes in the region around Baikal – near to the Lake itself, in the
surrounding mountains and at the feet of the mountains. Most of these lakes are under special
protection, since they are the nesting places of migratory birds, including several rare and
dwindling species.
Lake Frolikha is a glacial lake situated in the high
mountains of the Barguzin. It was formed during the last
great glaciation of Baikal region when two large glaciers,
which were moving down river valleys, collided and
formed a dam, hollowing out the crater which contains
the Lake we see today. Lake Frolikha is home to many fish
including the taimen, goldilock, pike, grayling, Siberian
roach, and darter. But it is most famous as the home of
the Frolikh char, which is a rare fish found nowhere else
in Siberia (except rarely in Baikal itself).
The fish is included in the Red
Book of Russia (1983) and
of Buryatia (1988).
The Russian word for the Frolikh char is “davatchan”,
which is the Buryat word for “salmon”. This fish was
once believed to be divine and any person who
harmed it could expect divine punishment.
Several of the plants around Lake Frolikha – the Baikal barotsenia, quillwort, alisma, and snowdon
rose – are also included in the Red Book of Buryatia.
Lake Guitara
Lake Sobolikha
Lake Vokinda
Arangatuy is a large lake situated on the neck
of the Svyatoy Nos Peninsula and linked by a
narrow channel to Baikal's Chivirkuysky Gulf.
Arangatuy is surrounded by a marsh where
birds gather in the spring and fill the air with
noise: swans, herons, divers and Eurasian
curlews all fly to Arangatuy to nest. The waters
of the Lake are rich in fish, including dace, orfe,
carp, pike and darter.
The name “Arangatuy” derives from the Buryat word
“aranga”, meaning a “platform” or “tower on posts”,
which was traditionally used by the Buryat;s when
hunting for wild animals or storing food in the forest.
32
Another large lake, Kotokel, is situated in
just 2 km from Baikal and connects with it via
the Kotochik river, but is outside the Baikal
nature reserve. The Lake is 14 km long and 5
km wide and includes Monastyrsky Island. An
environmental disaster, which occurred some
years ago, killed most of Kotokel's fish, seagulls
and ducks, as well as the Baikal otters living
along the Lake shore.
Island Monastirsky
The origin of the Lake's name is uncertain: “koto” in the Evenk language means a knife
or club, which is used to clear small trees and make a path. Another explanation is
associated with a type of footwear, “koti”, which Russians used for walking on marshy
ground during wet weather.
Lake Frolikha
озеро
Фролиха
Lake
Kotokel
озеро
Котокель
What lakes can you name? Find them on the map around Baikal
and fill in the blanks with their names. Mark their location.
33
Proval Bay
In the winter of 1862 a strong earthquake (10 points on the Richter scale) caused a large area
of land near the estuary of the Selenga river to slip beneath the waters of Baikal. The resulting
bay was called “Proval” (the Russian word can mean “fall” or “valley”). Human victims were few
in number, but many nomad encampments were flooded and 1300 people were left homeless
in the January cold, without their goods and livestock. The earthquake and subsidence was only
subjected to scientific analysis two years later and many details of what happened are still not
understood. The village of Oymur is located on the shoreline, close to Proval Bay.
34
Baikal's weather
We are always interested to hear the
weather forecast. So what is the weather like
on Lake Baikal? Weather forecasters tell us
whether to expect sunshine or rain, blizzards or
even hurricanes. But any weather pattern is a
combination of wind, precipitation, clouds and
temperature.
Meteorology (from Greek “meteoros” means a celestial and atmospheric phenomenon)
is the science of the structure and qualities of the earth's atmosphere and its physical
processes. It is also called the “physics of the atmosphere”, which gives a better idea of
its character nowadays. Meteorologists build models to help forecast the weather and
to carry out research into climate and the atmosphere using radar, satellites and other
modern equipment.
Average weather patterns are called climate, and different regions of the Earth have cold,
temperate and hot climates. Baikal is located in a temperate climate zone with a sharply
continental climate, which means that we have a cold winter and a short, hot summer, and that
large temperature swings often occur through the day. But the enormous water mass of Baikal
softens this continental climate, making it more like that of a region close to the sea. How does
this happen? All through the summer the waters of the Lake soak up and store warmth. Then,
in the late autumn and early winter, the Lake gives back this heat, tempering the harsh Siberian
frosts. As a result the early winter temperature around Baikal is warmer than in regions further
from the lake (until ice fully covers the Lake in January), but average temperatures near the Lake
in summer are relatively low.
Baikal has many sunny days (48 per year on average and 64 on Olkhon Island).
35
Precipitation over Baikal
In June and July, when there is not much wind, a fog
often settles over the Lake as warm land air spreads over
the cold water surface. Fogs also occur in autumn and
winter (from October–December until the Lake freezes
over) when the air temperature is below zero but the
water has a plus temperature.
The weather on Baikal is full of surprises. In summer
there may be heavy rainfall or drizzle that continues for
several days, and in winter snowdrifts may grow to a
height of several meters. A significant layer of snowfall
can occur even in June: local people always say that
June is not yet summer and July is no longer summer.
The average annual volume of precipitation (rain
and snow) over the vicinity of the Lake is 9.29 km3,
accounting for about 13% of all the water input to the
Lake. Most of the precipitation falls on the KhamarDaban coastline and in the mountains, while the Ushkany
Islands and Olkhon are the driest parts of Baikal.
People can enjoy pure blue skies over Baikal for most
part of the year, since clouds do not form above the lake.
This is because the water on the Lake's surface is too cold
to evaporate and form clouds, while air masses that bring
clouds from elsewhere towards Baikal take up warmth
and disperse as they pass over the coastal mountains.
36
The winds of Baikal
You know that air circulation over the Earth's surface is called wind. It can blow in any direction,
and with varying force and speed. There is nearly always a wind blowing on Baikal, and the locals
have more than thirty names for the different winds that occur on the Lake (in some cases, there
are several names for one and the same wind). We will tell you about some of Baikal's winds and
you can work out which of them are the most furious and dangerous.
See if you can work out
the meaning of the different
coloured arrows on the map.
The southern wind that blows from Kultuk Bay along the length of Baikal is called the
Kultuk (or “Nizovik”, which means “lower wind”). The Kultuk usually brings bad weather,
with clouds, rain or drizzle lasting for several days, and it is sometimes strong enough to
raise waves of up to 6m on the Lake. The Kultuk usually blows in autumn, and it is preceded
by a gathering of dark clouds in the south-western part of Baikal.
The wind that blows in the opposite direction, from the mouth of the Upper Angara river
at the northern end of Baikal, is called the Verkhovik (“upper wind”). The wind is usually
gentle and brings sunshine. The water along the shoreline remains calm when the Verkhovik
blows, but further from the shore the Lake becomes dark and its surface is covered with
white foam. A bright red horizon before sunrise is a sign that the Verkhovik can be expected.
A north-eastern wind, the Barguzin, sometimes blows from the Barguzin Valley in the
central part of the Lake. It blows evenly and gradually gains force, but is less powerful than
other winds on the Lake. The Barguzin brings sunny weather. It usually starts to blow in the
morning after sunrise and dies down towards sunset.
37
The most treacherous and blustery wind on Baikal is the Gornyak (“mountain wind”), a
storm wind that blows from the west and northwest. It is often preceded by cumulo-nimbus
clouds on the Lake's western shore. The Gornyak is most usual in the period from October
to November.
When the Gornyak blows very strongly, it is called the Sarma (after the name of the
river valley, from which it blows). The Sarma reaches speeds above 40 km/s, and it can
break the rooves of houses and overturn boats (even motor-launches). The appearance of
stratocumulus clouds over the peaks of the Primorsky ridge are a warning that the Sarma is on
its way. In the summer the Sarma begins and ends suddenly, but in the autumn it can blow all
day long. The wind often rises quickly and unexpectedly, making it particularly dangerous.
The Buguldeika is another variant of the Gornyak, which rises in the valley of the river
Buguldeika and can blow for days on end.
A warm south-east wind, the Shelonnik, sometimes blows onto the Lake. The Shelonnik
raises waves, but dies away before it reaches the other side, so that breakers sweep onto
the western shore in apparently windless weather. The Shelonnik is most usual in spring,
autumn and at the beginning of winter.
Does a calm every occur on Lake Baikal?
It often happens that several winds blow at the same time and cannot be easily distinguished.
On such days the wind direction can change unpredictably to its opposite.
Baikal is only free of wind in the middle of the summer. The time of least wind in 24-hour
periods is the two or three hours after sunrise and before sunset. A calm that lasts for a whole day
is a rare occurrence: local people call it a “Baikal sheen”.
In addition to the dominant winds, which we have described, there are light local winds that
blow on Baikal almost every day. These are breezes, similar to those which occur on sea coasts:
on hot summer days cold air from the sea is drawn into the valleys and lowlands on shore, while
at night the breeze is from the land onto the sea, which retains the day's warmth.
Calm – we say that the weather is “calm” when there is no wind, or very little
wind.
Breeze – changes its direction in any 24-hour period: at night it blows towards
the sea, and in the daytime towards the coast.
38
Check what you have learnt!
1. What does “Baikal” mean in translation from Turkic?
a) the big lake
b) the rich lake
c) the dead lake
2. How old is Baikal?
a) 20-25 million years
b) 10-20 million years
c) 100 million years
3. What is the greatest depth of Baikal?
a) 393 m
b) 1435 m
c) 1637 m
4. What is the length of Baikal?
a) 536 km
b) 636 km
c) 836 km
5. Match the names with the dates: who visited Baikal first and
when?
a) Nikola Milesku Spafary
1643
b) Protopriest Avvakum
1675
c) Kurbat Ivanov
1662
6. Which lake has the same shape as Baikal?
a) Victoria
b) Taganjika
c) Ladoga
7. How many rivers flow into Baikal?
a) 336
b) 486
c) 544
8. What is the largest river flowing into Baikal?
a) the Barguzin
b) the Selenga
c) the Turka
39
Find out the odd one out in the list of the Baikal's mountain ridges, rivers, and winds:
a) Ranges: Primorsky, Baikalsky, Kichersky, Khamar-Daban, Northern, Barguzinsky;
b) Inflowing rivers: the Selenga, the Barguzin, the Upper Angara, the Kichera, the Turka,
the Yenisei;
c) Winds: Kultuk, Verkhovik, Barguzin, Gornyak, Putnik, Shelonnik.
Solve the puzzle!
Use this rebus to find the word that means “the study of lakes”.
+ Logic + Y for I
1 2 [I for E] 3 5 4
Fillword. What have I learnt about Baikal?
Find 9 hidden words connected with Baikal.
The words run horizontally and vertically.
40
What winds!
Show the winds that blow on Lake Baikal by putting arrows on the map, then write their names
and other details in the table.
The wind name
Its direction
Weather features
41
I am a creator!
Hidden winds
Fill in the triangles with the same numbers using colour crayons and you
will learn where Baikal's winds blow: (insert from the yellow book)
1 – Angara
4 – Buguldeika
7 – Kultuk
2 – Gornyak
5 – Sarma
8 – Pokatukha
3 – Barguzin
6 – Verkhovik
9 – Shelonnik
42
Find my name
Join the Island's name with its photograph.
Yarki island
Great Baklany (Shimai) Island
Olkhon Island
The Ushkany Islands
43
A mysterious archipelago
Answer the questions:
· What are the names of the islands in the Ushkany archipelago?
· What is the other name for the Ushkany Islands?
· What animal is a symbol of the Ushkany Islands?
· What draws human visitors to the Ushkany Islands
Join up the dots to find Baikal’s islands.
44
Keys
P. 39
1. b) the rich lake
2. a) 20–25 mln
3. c) 1637 m
4. b) 636 km
5. a) Nikola Milesku Spafary
1675
b) Protopriest Avvakum
1662
c) Kurbat Ivanov
1643
6. b) Taganjika
7. a) 336
8. b) Selenga
P. 40
Find out the odd one out in the list of the Baikal's mountain ridges, rivers, and winds:
a) Ranges: Primorsky, Baikalsky, Kichersky, Khamar-Daban, Barguzinsky;
b) Flowing rivers: the Selenga, the Barguzin, the Upper Angara, the Kichera, the Turka;
с) Winds: Kultuk, Verkhovik, Barguzin, Gornyak, Shelonnik.
Guess the rebus: limnology.
Fillword: Sarma, Angara, limnology, Baikal, hummock, Selenga, Olkhon, Barguzin, Кultuk.
P. 44
Misteriuos archipelago:
Big, Thin, Round, Long;
Hare;
Seal;
Tourism.
Islands’ pictures:
Big Ushkany Island, Small Ushkany Islands – Long and Thin; Big Baklany, Nameless
45
PART
The Wonders
of Baikal Water
Green pure water in high shores,
And everywhere misty shores around.
The tops of mountains are seen in snow
They proudly tower above the water.
What freedom! What breadth!
And air is so fresh and so clear!
How lake is calm
And spring is so sleepless!
It’s so easy to breeze! How heart is beating fast!
Sacred sea is sleeping…
The water’s glassy is smooth,
Only ice is resting on waters,
A gaze can’t hug the view at once,
Expanse is lost in the blue sky.
Igor Severyanin
CONTENTS OF PART 2
50
Why does the colour of water in Baikal change?
51
Baikal waves
52
Baikal ice
54
The living water filters of Baikal. The Baikal Sponge
56
Venus amphipods and Bormashi
57
Baikal epischura
58
Think, Play, Experiment, Create!
59
• Check what you have learnt!
What do you remember about the miraculous qualities of Baikal water?
• What is living water?
• My observations. How much water do I need a day?
• Baikal's “cleaners”. Answer the questions
• Experiments with Baikal water
Experiment 1. Does an egg sink in water?
Experiment 2. Construct a density pyramid
Experiment 3. Why does a stopper fly out of a bottle?
Experiment 4. If you want to make invisible ink, here's how!
Experiment 5. How does yeast "behave" in water?
• Monitoring Baikal ice
Experiment 1. At what temperature does water freeze?
Experiment 2. Water, ice, snow
Experiment 3. Can you make coloured ice?
Experiment 4. Why does ice float?
Experiment 5. Gradual freezing
• Laboratory work. Properties of Baikal water
• Creative work. What are ice crystals like?
• How can a water drop get into a house?
• A pure river
• Creative work. Draw a snowflake
• Imagine your own “New Adventures of the Water Drop”.
Use a computer to help you
Young friends! You already know that Baikal
holds 20% of the world's fresh water. It is
sometimes called 'the planet's well'.
Let's dive deep into the waters of Baikal and
find out what wonders they contain.
Look at this photo. What adjectives would
you choose to describe Baikal water?
Baikal water is uniquely pure and transparent,
particularly in the spring after the ice melts.
It then becomes slightly murky as tiny water
organisms called plankton multiply and grow.
Secret Corners of Baikal’s
Little Treasure Chest
Water transparency is measured by a special device called
a 'Secchi disc', named after Angelo Secchi, an Italian astronomer, who
measured the transparency of sea water using the device as early in
1865. The white disc with 30 cm diameter is lowered face-down into
the water, using a rod, and the depth at which it becomes invisible
is recorded. That depth, expressed in meters, is the measure of
water transparency.
The table shows the water transparency in various seas and lakes. You can see that water
transparency in Baikal is more than 40 meters.
Water transparency in seas and lakes (meters)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
The Sargasso Sea
Lake Baikal
Lake Issyk Kul
The Baltic Sea
50
Lake Ladoga
Lake Ilmen
The water in Baikal is rich in oxygen, which, as you know, is vital for the survival of all living
organisms. The main sources of oxygen are water weed. But the surface layer of Baikal water also
receives oxygen from the air, and oxygen is supplied at greater depths thanks to water transfer
driven by wind and currents.
Baikal water has a unique chemical composition, containing about 40 elements: calcium,
oxygen, magnesium, sodium, potassium, silica, sulphur, chloride, nitrogen, iron, phosphorus,
iodine, and many others.
Baikal water is fresh, containing little salt. It has a soft and pleasant taste, without smell, and is
exceptionally safe and healthy.
Over 2 billion liters of bottled water are collected from Lake Baikal each
year, so there is no need to visit the Lake in order to appreciate the taste
and quality of its water. Water is collected from a point 1007m from the
shoreline and 500m below the surface. Why was it necessary to go to
such a depth? It was found that water in this zone had a high level of
purity. The water is bottled at special centers on the southern shore
of Baikal, in the village of Listvyanka and the town of Sludyanka.
So transparency, saturation with oxygen and
chemical elements, purity, absence of smell,
softness and taste quality are the main features
of Baikal water. Do you think that the water of
Baikal has any colour?
Why does the colour
of water in Baikal change?
The water of Baikal may be light blue, emerald green and even black. The water in the middle
of the Lake is dark blue, but the water close to the mouth of the Selenga river can be grayish
green, reddish and brownish black.
The water colour in Baikal is influenced by the weather: the amount of sunshine that penetrates
the depths; whether the sky is cloudy and whether the wind is blowing. In sunny weather during
the summer the water turns green and blue, but if the weather is stormy the Lake appears almost
black.
The temperature of Baikal water
Depth (m)
Temperature
Upper layer
+ 9-10° С
200 m
up to – 5-6° С
900 m
up to – 3-4° С
1600 m
up to – 3° С
Using the table data, draw the layers of water
in Baikal, write their temperature, and try to
think of their make them the right colour.
51
Baikal waves
How are waves made? They are created by the influence
of wind, tides, earthquakes, vessels moving on the water, and
other external factors.
The waves on Baikal can be up to 4m high, depending on
the wind speed, duration of its action, and the distance over
which the wind drives the waves.
Waves on Baikal are caused by the various winds, which
blow across the Lake.
When the wind blows at
a speed of less than 1m
per second, the waves that
emerge on the still surface
of are no more than ripples.
If the wind blows at 4–5 m
per second the waves grow
larger and more visible.
52
Large waves with foaming
tops are called breakers.
If wind speed reaches 7–8 m
white horses appear on the
wave crests: these are air bubbles formed when the wave
crests roll over.
Waves on Baikal are not of long duration. If they are caused by winds such as the Kultuk or
Barguzin, the disturbance comes and goes in the course of one day, and if the waves are caused
by a local breeze, they last no longer than 2–3 hours after the breeze dies down.
Look carefully at the waves. They seem to come one after the another,
moving forward. But this appearance is false. You can prove that by
an experiment: drop a float into the water when you are on the Lake
shore. Now watch carefully. You will see that the waves seem to move
towards the shore, but the float only makes circular movements. This
shows that the particles of water, that make the waves, are also
moving in circles.
53
Baikal ice
Every year Baikal freezes over gradually from north to south. The first to be covered are shallow
creeks, and deepwater sections of the Lake freeze last. Baikal remains ice-covered for several
months, except in one ice-free zone extending for 15-20 km where the Angara river rises.
Average thickness of the ice is 1m, but this varies depending on snow cover: the thicker the
snow, the thinner the ice. Frequent storm winds cause uneven snow cover in different parts of the
Lake.
Ice formation depends on air temperature and weather. When the weather is calm and air
temperature is below -20°С as much as 4-5 cm of ice can form in 24 hours.
There are many local words to describe the ice in Baikal, depending on where it is and how it
forms: “sokui”, “osenets”, “salo”, “shuga”, “shorokh”, “kolobovnik”, “torosi”.
2
What do you think is the difference between ice
thickness on opposite shores of Baikal if the ice
on the western shoreline is free of snow, but the
eastern side has snow cover of 80–100 cm?
1
The photos show different kinds of Baikal
ice. Look at them and try to guess which
names are used.
54
A thin ice cover that appears on rocks and stones due to water splashes is called “sokui” (1),
and it is the first sign that the Lake is about to freeze. More water splashes freeze and form new
layers , so the ice becomes thicker and has a wave-like surface structure. Sokui can be seen along
the shore, reaching heights of 10m above the water level.
As the temperature drops drift ice appears. At first it moves from one place to another across
the water, driven by the wind, but it gradually freezes fast and binds the Lake under a thick layer.
Floating ice has been given the name “osenets” by the local people (2). It is characterized by an
opaque whitish colour and uneven surface.
Locals have given the name “salo” (“lard”) (3) to another ice variety, consisting of thin, flat
crystals of ice that have not frozen together into a solid ice layer. They appear on the still surface
of the water and are a sign that the water temperature has fallen below 0° С. Whether or not salo
appears depends on how warm the Lake became during the summer. In shallow parts of the Lake
the water cools down earlier than in others parts, so this kind of ice appears there first.
At night, in calm weather, the crystals of salo freeze together and develop thin crusts. The
crusts are then broken into pieces by currents and waves, forming crumbly whitish pieces of ice,
called “shuga” (4).
Later, grains of ice called “shorokh” appear in the water (5). The crystals of this ice are either
needle-shaped or round.
Waves and wind break off the edges of ice masses. Those broken pieces, with a round shape
and murky coluor, are called “kolobovnik” (6).
Closer to the middle of winter cracks appear in the ice layer of Baikal. The cracks can be as
long as 30 km, with width of 2–3 m. The crack formation is accompanied by a noise and rumbling
comparable to guns shooting or blasts of thunder.
When the temperature rises and the cracks become thinner, the ice is squeezed upwards and
creates a “toros” (7), which can be as high as 10–12 m. The ice on Baikal breaks up between April
and June. Large pieces of floating ice can still be seen even at the beginning of the summer in the
northern part of the Lake. The highest water temperatures, of +26° С, can be reached at the end
of the summer, particularly in the Chivyrkuysky Gulf.
3
6
5
4
7
55
The living water filters of Baikal
Baikal's water is kept clean by living organisms which are called “biofiltrators”. Let's find out
more about them.
The Baikal Sponge
Baikal sponges are animals in appearance very similar to plants. Their structure is close to that
of coral and they live on stony sections of the Lake bottom, and on underwater rocks. They can
be found at depths up to 100m.
Sponges are very important for Baikal, since even a small organism (5–7 cm across) can filter
10–12 liters of water every 24 hours. The underwater forests formed by sponges are also home to
fish larvae and fry, water worms and molluscs. Local residents have found an original application
of sponges in housekeeping: their rigid lime skeleton can be used to do the washing-up.
There are 19 kinds of Baikal sponges, including 14 endemics (found only in Baikal). The endemic
varieties include Baikalospongia, Lyubomirskaya, Svarchevskaya and Rezinkovaya. The names are
unusual, but try to remember them.
Endemics (from the Greek word meaning "local")
are animals and plants, which are only found in
specific and limited territories.
The most widespread sponge is the Lyubomirskaya.
These sponges live in places where light penetrates and they stand out by their emerald-green
colouring, caused by the mono-cellular green water weed, which covers the body of the sponge.
The deeper the water, the lighter the sponge.
The Lyubomirskaya sponge may be branched or flat and can grow as high as 1m. It grows very
slowly (by 0.5 to 1 cm per year on average). Branched sponges form underwater forests at depths
of 5–20m.
Its feeding mechanism defines the sponge as a filtration organism or biological filter. All
sponges are characterized by an unusually acrid and unpleasant smell. Sponges are also important
for the circulation of chemical substances in the Lake. The sponge uses silica compounds that are
dissolved in the water to create its own skeleton.
56
Venus Amphipods and Bormashi
Amphipods are a type of crustacean living
in Lake Baikal. Their Russian name (“bokoplavy”
= “side swimmers”) reflects the way they move
through the water. Amphipods are the commonest types of Baikal fauna and can be found
all around the Lake. They can burrow into sand
and silt, and also move through open water.
Amphipods have a special place Baikal's
food chain, being eaten by various fish (omul,
Baikal oilfish, grayling, bullheads) and even by
seals. These crustaceans are omnivorous, eating plants and small animals. Some of them
feed on dead organisms, helping to keep the
Lake water clean.
Venus amphipod
The largest kind of amphipod is the Venus
amphipod. It lives in deep water and can grow
to 6-9 cm, which is unusually large for these
creatures.
Smaller amphipods (from 3-6 up to 14-30
mm) live permanently in open water and are
called “yur” by the locals. At night billions of
them rise up to the water surface, retreating
back downwards to depths of more than 200m
when the dawn comes. Amphipods move at
an estimated speed of 1m per minute, tracing
spiral paths in the water.
Small amphipod types are known as
“bormashi” (“amphipod shrimps”), and
they live along the shoreline of Baikal as well
as in rivers and small lakes. They vary in size
and colouring and are the main source of food
for fish, particularly the Baikal omul, so that
fishermen often use them for bait and to attract
the fish. They are also used for ice fishing.
“Amphipod” is a term from Greek meaning “with different legs”. The 13 pairs
of extremities on an amphipod carry out different jobs: some are used to
capture food, others for walking, others for swimming, while others operate
as wheels, supporting the body and guiding it in a certain direction. The
colouring of amphipods is diverse, but they are usually brightly coloured
(orange, red, violet, crimson, and green). Deep-water amphipods develop
long antennae, which they use to orient themselves in space, detect
smells, and perceive the slightest movements of the water.
57
The Baikal epischurа
The Baikal epischurа is a related to the amphipods. For the greater part of the year most
of them are found in the top layer of water, where there may be between 3000 and 45,000 of
them per cubic meter. In the cold season, epischura account for more than 90% of all plankton
creatures.
The Baikal epischurа is exceptionally small (no larger than a semolina grain). But it is the most
hardworking animal in Baikal. It is hard to imagine, but the creature's mouth allows it to eat tiny
pieces of water weed and bacteria as it filters water and returns it pure into the Lake through its
gills. During one year the armada of epischurаs can clean the entire top layer of the Lake to a
depth of 50 m three times over. The creature therefore deserves it name – “the miracle of Baikal”.
The epischurа is particularly sensitive to water temperature, being unable to live at temperatures
above 15° C. It consumes a great amount of Baikal's water weed and it is an important source of
food for Baikal oilfish, omul, bullheads and other fishes.
Dear children, you know that Baikal is the purest natural storehouse of fresh drinking water on
Earth. Now you also know that the exceptional purity and other properties of the Lake water are
the result of action by its animals and flora. In the next part of this Book, you will learn about the
species that live above the water and under the water of Baikal.
Plankton are microorganisms that live deep underwater.
The term was first used by a German scientist, Victor Genzen,
at the end of the 19th century.
58
What do you remember about the miraculous qualities of
Baikal water?
1. Why is Baikal water called unique?
2. How can the transparency of water be measured?
3. What determines the colour of Baikal water?
4. What waves can be seen on Baikal?
5. What crustacean is considered to be a miracle of Baikal and why?
6. Tell the class about a sponge, which bears a name of a well-known researcher of Baikal's
fauna (see Part 5 of Lake Baikal Box)
7. See if you can find the name of the ice, described below:
– it is the first sign of Baikal's cooling below 0оС;
– it consists of thin flat crystals of ice, which have not frozen together in a continuous crust.
What is living water?
1. Do you remember why the waters of Baikal are called “living waters”?
Dead water
Living water
2. You can see frozen crystals of water in the picture, as shown by a Japanese scientist
Masaru Emoto.
3. What do you think is the difference between living water and dead water?
4. Think of Russian fairy tales. What do they say about living water and dead water?
5. What is your understanding of the Russian saying “Don't spit in a well”?
6. What do you know about holy water? Can it be called “living”?
59
I am a researcher!
My observations.
How much water do I need a day?
Conduct your own investigation: how much water do you use every day and what do you use
it for.
Answer the questions:
1. What for does a man need water?
2. Think over and answer, where and how much a man uses water.
Find out how much is used by one person in one day in a house with running water, drains,
bathrooms and centralized hot water supply. Then find out what the norm is for houses that do not
have these facilities.
Do we really use that much water?
Washing-up usually requires 10-20 liters of water a day, we use 2-50 liters for washing our
hands, and a bath takes 150-180 liters, while a shower needs only 30-50 liters. So daily water use
per person, including a shower but not a bath, will be under 200 liters. Based on that, work out
how much water your family uses on average.
Think of rules for saving water in your household.
60
Baikal's “cleaners”
Read the text and answer the questions. If there are any words you don't now, find them in a
dictionary. Answer the questions:
1. Who do we call the guardians of purity and transparency of Baikal's water?
2. Why is the epischura called the “cleaner” of Baikal?
The main “cleaners” after purity and transparency of water are amphipods. There are more than
350 kinds, that is 1/3 of all known amphipods in Baikal. About 90% of all amphipods make two
kinds: epischura and copepods. They are met only in Baikal and they keep the purity of the water
together with Baikal’s ecosystem originality well.
Epichura can be easily callled “a yard-keeper” of Baikal. Its length is about 1,5 mm, but under
every square meter of the water more than 3 mln of epichura can be met. Every epichura clears
15 cubic meters of water. The cleaner the water, the more amphipods. Epichura appeared in Baikal
about 20 mln years ago, and all generation ate only natural compouds. And if epichura dies, then
Baikal will loose its unique purity.
Copepod – is a colourless and hardly observable amphipod, but it’s more solid – up to 3 cm. It
works as a “night man”. Everything that stops moving, or dies or drowns is its food.
Main “cleaners” after Baikal’s water purity
3. What other crustaceans living in Lake Baikal do you know?
Find out some interesting facts about underwater
inhabitants and “cleaners” of lakes and seas in other books.
61
1. How are the inspectors of cleanliness and transparency of water of Baikal called?
2. Why is the epishura called the “cleaners” of Baikal?
3. Who are freshwater shrimps and why are they so unique?
What crustaceans are shown in the photos? Write down their names.
62
Let's be creative!
Draw from memory one of
Baikal's cleaners or guardians.
63
Let's do some experiments!
I. Experiments with Baikal water
Experiment 1. Does an egg sink in water?
You will need:
– a raw egg;
– water;
– a glass;
– a few tablespoons of salt.
Do the following:
1. Put the raw egg in a glass with pure water.
2. What do you observe?
Write it down
3. Take the egg out of the glass and dissolve some
spoons of salt in the water.
4. Put the egg in the glass with salty water.
5. What do you observe?
Write it down
How do you explain the result?
Try the same experiment with other objects: take a
sheet of paper (smooth and crumpled), a piece of clay
(make a ball from it and then a boat).
How do you explain the results?
Let's ask a scientist: An egg is more dense than fresh water, but less dense than salty
water. So the egg sinks in fresh and floats in salty water.
The saltier the water, the less it sinks. In the Dead Sea in Israel the water is so salty that a
person can lie motionless on its surface without sinking.
64
Experiment 2. Construct a density pyramid
You will need:
– A tall, narrow glass vessel;
– 1/4 glasses (65 ml) of corn syrup or honey;
– food dye of any colour;
– 1/4 glass of Baikal water;
– 1/4 glass of vegetable oil;
– 1/4 glass of medical spirit;
– various small objects, such as a cork, a grape, a nut, a slice of dry spaghetti,
a ping-pong ball, a cherry tomato , a small rubber toy, a metal screw.
Do as follows:
1. Pour the honey into the vessel so that it occupies 1/4 of its volume.
* Remember that any liquid should be poured down the wall of the vessel.
* When pouring a new liquid, pour it very carefully so that it does not to mix
with the liquids already in the vessel.
2. Dissolve drops of the food dye in water then pour it into the vessel containing
the honey until it is half-full.
3. Slowly pour in the same quantity of vegetable oil.
4. Pour the spirit into the vessel.
5. Carefully put the small objects into the vessel one by one.
6. What is the position of the objects in the vessel?
7. How do you explain this?
8. Draw how the liquids and the objects are distributed in the vessel.
9. Think why the honey has taken the lowest position in the vessel.
10. Write down your observations.
Draw your own density pyramid.
rubber ball
tomato
spirit
vegetable oil
macaroni
water
screw
honey
Let's ask a scientist:
This experiment is based on the ability
of various substances to sink or float
depending on their density. Substances
with lower density float on the surface of
substances with higher density.
65
Experiment 3. Why does a stopper fly out of a bottle?
You will need:
– a glass bottle;
– Baikal water;
– a cork bottle stopper;
– 3 tablespoonfuls of lemon juice;
– coloured paper;
– 1teaspoon of baking soda;
– PVA glue;
– a paper napkin.
Prepare for the experiment:
1. Cut out a rectangular shape from the coloured paper (as in the picture №1).
2. Glue strips of paper to both sides of the cork so that it has the appearance of
a rocket (look at picture №2).
3. Measure the stopper in the bottle. The stopper should enter the neck of
the bottle without being forced.
1
3
2
Do as follows:
1. Pour some water into the bottle and mix it with lemon juice.
2. Wrap baking soda in a piece of the napkin, and bind it with threads (look at picture №3).
3. Put the soda packet into the bottle and seal it with the stopper-rocket, but not too tightly.
1 the bottle on the table and
2 retreat to a safe distance.3Don't put it under a ceiling
4. Put
light!
5. The “rocket” will fly upwards with a loud pop.
1
2
1
3
2
3
Let’s ask a scientist: Lemon juice is acid. When it mixes with with soda carbon gas
is formed. The build-up of gas in the bottle causes the stopper to fly out.
66
Experiment 4. If you want to make invisible ink, here's how!
You will need:
– a lemon;
– a match or a toothpick;
– cotton wool;
– a cup of water.
– a sheet of paper;
Do as follows:
1. Squeeze the lemon juice into a cup.
2. Add the same quantity of water. This is your invisible ink.
3. Dip the match or a toothpick with cotton wool on the end into the lemon juice and
water solution.
4. Write something on a paper with the match. Leave the paper overnight so that
the ink dries.
5. Heat the paper over a table lamp. The written words, which had been invisible,
will start to appear.
Let’s ask a scientist: Sugar, acids and other chemical substances in the lemon
juice darken when they are warmed, but paper does not. So your secret message
written with lemon juice will show up on the white sheet.
67
Experiment 5. How does yeast "behave" in water?
You will need:
– sugar;
– a pack of dry yeast;
– warm water;
– a balloon;
– a one-liter plastic bottle;
– a funnel;
– a tablespoon.
yeast
Do as follows:
1. Insert the funnel into the one-liter plastic bottle.
2. Pour the yeast, the tablespoon of sugar and a mug of warm water through
the funnel.
3. Fit the balloon over the bottle.
4. Make sure that the balloon adheres tightly to the bottle.
5. Shake the bottle for 30 seconds.
6. Leave the bottle at rest for 15-30 minutes.
7. Put your ear to the bottle. What can you hear?
Why is there a hissing sound in the bottle? How do you explain it?
Let’s ask a scientist: Yeast is a living organism and it eats sugar. When poured into a
sugar solution the yeast starts to produce carbon gas and to multiply. Pressure of the
gas in the bottle inflates the balloon.
The foam which you see on the liquid surface consists of tiny bubbles of carbon gas
produced by the yeast as its uses up the sugar. The hissing sound you hear when you
put your ear to the bottle is the generation of carbon gas as the yeast “eats” the sugar.
68
II. Monitoring Baikal ice
Let's remember the properties of Baikal water. We can carry out a few experiments.
Experiment 1. At what temperature does water freeze?
You will need:
– two thin plastic glasses;
– boiled water;
– water that has not been boiled.
Prepare for the experiment:
Carefully wash the glasses. Do not wipe them dry but let them dry naturally, turn
them upside down so they do not accumulate dust.
Do as follows:
1. Wait until the air temperature is equal to 0°С.
2. Put the glasses with boiled and unboiled water outside the window.
3. Cover the glasses with pieces of glass to prevent dust entering.
4. Make sure that the glasses are not exposed to direct rays of the sun.
5. Check the content of the glasses after school.
6. Draw your conclusions and write them down.
Unboiled water
Boiled water
7. Do the same experiment when the air temperature is below 0°С.
8. What are your conclusions?
Write down:
Unboiled water freezes at a temperature of
Boiled water freezes at a temperature of
9. Think why unboiled water freezes first?
10. What does this experiment show? Write down the results of the experiment.
69
Experiment 2. Can you make coloured ice?
You will need:
– a plastic glass;
– water;
– colour gouache.
Do as follows:
1. Pour some water into the glass.
2. Add a little gouache and mix it. What do you see? Draw it.
3. Wrap some cloth around the glass.
4. Put it outside on the snow.
5. Do you have coloured ice?
6. What have you in fact got? Draw the answer.
BEFORE
freezing
AFTER
freezing
7. Write down what you see.
8. Complete the sentences:
At the place where the water started freezing, the ice
The top part of the ice
___________________________________________________________.
Choose the right answer:
– intensity of colouring of the top part is stronger than that of the initial solution;
– weaker than the initial solution;
– similar to the initial solution.
70
Experiment 3. Water, ice, snow
Cool a glass of boiled water to 0°С.
Then throw a small lump of ice or snow into the glass.
What do you observe? Write down what you see.
Experiment 4. Why does ice float?
Take a bowl with water. Put a piece of ice from the refrigerator into the bowl.
What do you see?
Think why the ice floats? Write down the answer.
Explain why rivers and lakes do not freeze right to the bottom?
Experiment 5. Gradual freezing
Fill one third of a thin plastic glass with water and put it in a cold place.
When the water in the glass freezes, add a little more water. Incline the glass at a
slight angle, being careful not to spill the water, and then freeze it.
Do this experiment changing the position (shape) of the glass and the quantity of
water added. Describe the results.
So what are the properties of ice? Write down your conclusions.
71
Let's do some experiments!
Laboratory work.
Properties of Baikal water.
1. Pour Baikal water into one flask, tap water into another
flask, and water from a local source into a third flask.
Number the flasks.
2. Compare the properties of the liquids for transparency,
colour, presence of suspensions and smell.
3. Write down the data in the table.
Properties of water
Flask number
Transparency
Colour
Smell
Presence of
suspensions
a) Transparency of the water.
Take a glass with a wide bottom, pour water of each type into it by turn (each time 100 ml),
hold it over a page of printed text at a height of 10 cm and try to read the text. Characterize
the transparency of each water type.
b) Colour of the water
This analysis should show the colour of the water: transparent, murky, with a specific colour
shade.
The colour can be defined by means of a clean sheet of paper. In daylight the sheet should
be put behind the flask, before looking carefully at the water colour.
c) Smell of the water (whether it has or does not have a smell)
d) Presence of suspended particles.
Presence or absence of suspended particles, flakes, etc. in the water can be established by
observing whether or not a deposit is formed. The analysis is in two stages:
– Shake the flasks, compare them and see whether any flakes, particles and other deposits
are visible, floating in the water;
– Filter the water and look at the filters to see whether there are any significant
deposits in them.
4. Compare the results and draw conclusions.
72
Let's be creative!
Creative work 1.
What are ice crystals like?
Look at the picture. This is a crystal lattice of ice.
The black balls are distributed so that each of them has four
“neighbours”.
The task. Make a model of a crystal lattice of ice like that in the picture
using salty dough or coloured plasticine. Connect the crystal balls
with a toothpick.
You can paint a model made from salty dough using gouache.
You should keep the crystal lattice of ice made from plasticine
away from any source of heat.
Creative work 2.
How can a water drop get into a house?
Imagine that you are drop of water.
Think and write how you would get into a house.
73
I am a researcher!
A pure river
Plan a route for an imaginary small river from your house to Lake Baikal.
Do the work in groups. Try to follow particular rules within your group.
Make a small river route.
Describe who and what it will meet on its way to Baikal.
Try to predict the consequences of pollution.
You might begin like in:
“More than 10 small rivers flow down from the east slopes of Hamar-Daban and give rise
to the river Gilbira. First it flows through cedar and fir wood, then through mixed wood.
The Gilbira flows from north to south and merges with a small river, the Orongoy, which
flows into the Selenga as its carries its water to Baikal. The Gilbira is part of the Baikal's
river basin and it has an impact on the state of Baikal's ecosystem, because the Lake's
water depends on the rivers flowing into it, and 50% of its water comes from the Selenga
river. The small river becomes polluted...”
Think how your story ends.
74
Let's be creative!
Draw a snowflake
Look, how beautiful snowflakes are! They are very different! You can make sure in this yourself
looking at them on your palm in winter. Try to remember thier shapes.
Firstly, fulfill this exercise: draw the snowflakes according to the sheme. And now think over
and draw you own snowflake.
Put together a sheet of paper a few times, and then with the help of scissors you can cut out
an amazingly beautiful snowflake.
To cut a snowflake out put together a
sheet of paper according to this scheme.
75
“The Adventures of a Water Drop.”
name
Hi! My r Drop.
is Wate oating high
ts
I love fllouds! I have lo
in the c ds here!
…
of frien , a light breeze whole
The sun t a view of the
I can ge om above!
world fr
d?
pene
t hap un
Wha is the s arm?
Whyonger w
no l
Oo
into ps! I'm
Wh Snow turnin
hap y is tha flake! g
pen
ing? t
Brrr,
it's so
cold!
loud!
u big c
Oh, yoming down!
I'm co na touch the
I wan !
ground
Afte
bad t r all, it's
I've o be Sno not too
new met quite wflake.
all s friends! a few
prett o differe We are
y and nt,
fancy
!
rave
There's bke down on
Snowfla nd – so white,
the grou, and so fluffy!
so pure
One sno
two sno wflake,
there co wflakes –
a snowmmes
an!
Oops!
in her I'm stuck
I poss e! How can
get ou ibly
t?
Wow, now I'm
Water Drop
Or am I onlyagain!
dreaming? W
happened to hat
me?
l help
ake, I'l n,
Snowflut! Come o
you o n to my
hold o nd!
ray-ha
e!
owflak
Hey, Snare you?
re
e
Wh
pity!
What a ake is gone, ll
fl
w
o
ater a
n
S
ere is w
now th !
around
Ouch!
s
Somebody' up!
pulling me
76
Drop,
Water e afraid! een?
b
't
ou b
don
have y
Where ed you so!
We ne
Yay! It's so cool to
float up in the clouds
with my friends!
Water Drop,
we need you!
Come here!
I'm
fall! gonna
Ouc !!
h!!!
Whoa
landed! Now I've
! Or w
atered
?!
w I'mop!
! No
r
Wow-Water D get?!
Bird re will I
e
Wh
Water Dro
your help p, we need
We have !
to do and so much
we are so
few!
Sure! with us, ow
Come ou will kn
and y ach of us
that e rs!
matte
Every
drop
matters
!
Can
I hel
p yo
u?
77
Let's be creative!
“New Adventures of the Water Drop”
Make up a story about new adventures of Water Drop. Probably it will be a story about how
Water Drop helps a man, or how Water Drop tells about water saving. You can also tell how
Water Drop found our house or how she flew to another planet a met aliens. Maybe you will get
a glimpse into the future, and we will know what is awaiting for Water Drop in a hundred years ....
New adventures of Water Drop are in your hands! We want your story to be very interesting
and teaching. Mind it!
Retell your fantastic plot in pictures-comics. Here are some pieces of advice which will help
you to make up comics:
1. Define main moments of Water Drop's adventures:
– where does the action take place;
– whom did Water Drop meet on her way;
– what trials do they have to cope with;
– what do the comics' characters talk about;
– what does the story end with;
– what did Water Drop learn to do or what can she teach a reader to?
2. Think over a new image of Water Drop and other characters of your comics:
– what do they look like;
– what traits of character do they they have;
– transfer their mood: joy, surprise, grief, etc.
Changing form and shape of eyebrows, eyes, mouth you can add the characters different
expression (laugh, sadness, etc.). Look, how it can be done.
78
3. Comics, as you know is a row of pictures. They are quite different, and they can be placed in
different ways. A sheet of paper takes up different positions either vertical or horizontal. You can
paint pictures of the same size and form, but it is not necessary. Some artists surround a picture
with a wavy or a dotted line. But usually it is a black straight line.
4. In order to “hear” the comics' characters, you need to draw clouds, those which fly out of
their mouth when they speak. Professional comics' painters call them “balloons” or “bubbles”.
They can be of different shape. In an oval or a rectangular bubble they right what a character syas
in his usual voice. A short tail is connected with the character's mouth. The character's thoughts
are written in a bubble which really reminds a cloud, and then little circles are connected with the
character's head. If a character is crying out, his words are written in a shape with sharp corners.
Such “stars” painters draw when an explosion takes place.
5. If you make up comics together with your friends, then you can draw up its plots on separate
cards and them connect them in a united series.
6. To create comics, use abilities of your computer.
It is much better to make up comics about Little Drop together with your friends. When you
draw them in the pictures and then join all sheets of paper, you will get a comics-magazine about
Droplet’s adventures. The main rule is: “Making up easily, drawing nicely, playing merrily!”
79
PART
Above Water
and Under Water
As soon as Mother left the house, at any weather
Seal pup got into Baikal’s water,
And on the ice-floe – what can we expect from the fidget –
He secretly went to walk barefooted.
He swam in Mom’s hat with large fields,
And he didn’t listen to his father –
he made friends with omuls.
Once a naughty omul fell into a net,
But our sea-pup helped him to get out of it.
Mark Sergeev
a passage from the poem «A drink of ocean»
CONTENTS OF PART 3
Birds of Baikal
84
Gulls of Baikal: Yellow-legged Gull, Common Tern
85
Are all waterfowl birds the same? Tufted Duck, Great-crested Grebe, Green-winged Teal,
Garganey, Mallard Duck, Ruddy Shelduck
86
The Great Cormorant
90
Shore Birds
91
“Every sandpiper praises its own bog”: Common Sandpiper, Little Stint, Oyster Catcher
91
The Gray Heron
92
The Wagtail
93
The Dipper
94
Routes of birds from Baikal to their wintering grounds
95
Fish of Baikal
Best-known Fish of Baikal: the Baikal Omul, the Baikal Sturgeon, the Whitefish,
the Black and the White Grayling
95
Fish Known to Everyone: the Siberian Roach, the Sazan, the Silver crucian
99
Who are those Fish-predators? The Perch, the Pike, the Taimen, the Burbot
100
Endemics of Baikal: the Baikal Sculpin, the Oil Fish
103
The Baikal Seal (Nerpa)
106
109
• Check what you have learnt! Guess the riddles
• Solve some ecological tasks
• I am a researcher! I know everything about the seal!
• I'm a creator! A creative task. Free the stones of Baikal from an evil spell
• Cut-out collage with Baikal fish
• Cut-out collage with Baikal birds
• Solve the crossword
Birds of Baikal
We will start our story of the creatures that
live above the waters of Lake Baikal with the
birds, which crowd the Lake's shores.
Have you ever been on a river, lake or
sea? Do you remember what birds live by the
water? And do you know what birds you can
meet on the shores of Lake Baikal?
Dear friends, watch the birds that you see every
day. Photograph or draw them and make a story
about one of the birds based on your observations.
Ornithologists divide all of Baikal's birds
into water and waterside birds, shore birds
and forest birds.
Ornithologists are biologists who study birds.
If you are lucky enough to take a boat across Lake Baikal, you are sure to come across large
flocks of ducks. A great numbers of gulls perch on the rocky islands of the Lake, and when you are
far from land you will see cormorants. Bird thrive in the delta of the Selenga river and in shallow
bays. Whooper swans are occasionally to be found on the shores of Lake Baikal, and on the banks
of rivers around the Lake you might see a gray heron, a dipper, a wagtail and several species of
curlew. In total there are 392 species of birds inhabiting the Lake region, of which 200 live on the
shores of Lake Baikal itself.
How can we find our way in all this diversity? How can we recognize the bird that flies past us
as one we already know or spot a bird of a rare species? This is what we will discuss in the third
part of our Book.
84
Gulls on Lake Baikal
You know who this is, of course – it is the Yellowlegged Gull, one of the largest gulls on Lake Baikal, and
one that stands out from the others: you can recognize
it by its white plumage, gray back and the black tips on
its wings. Its beak and legs are yellow. Its cry sounds like
a loud laughing, which explains the Russian name “the
cackler” (“khokhotunya”). Gulls find their food in water and rest on water. Yellow-legged Gulls are
good swimmers, but they don't dive. They can use air streams to hover in the air for long periods.
They move easily along the ground and are good runners. They live in large colonies. Gulls are
the commonest water birds. They build their nests on islands, dry sandy hills along creeks, and
on the shores of lakes where there is good grass cover. The nest usually has 2-3 eggs, which are
brownish green or yellowish olive with dark spots.
Gulls come to Lake Baikal in mid-April, when the lake is still covered
with ice, and stay until October. They eat fish, which they spot from the
air, as well as large insects, mollusks, worms, and sometimes the eggs
or nestlings of other bird species. Gulls are often called “water cleaners"
because they eat carrion, food scraps, and weak and sick fish.
A close relative to gulls is the Common Tern. It's a bird of starling-size.
One can know her due to its gaunt body, long and narrow beak, and tail
of fork-shape. Its back and belly are warm grey; there is a black hat on
the head; its beak is red and black, its legs are red. While hunting the bird
hangs in the mid-air above the water flapping, and then it it falls down
the water like a stone.
Look at the pictures of gulls. See what features set them apart from other birds.
How many years does the Yellow-legged Gull live? Where does it hibernate? Find the
answers to these questions and add the new information to Lake Baikal Box.
85
Are all waterfowl birds the same?
Of course not. They differ in size, color of
plumage, how they nest and how they feed.
There are believed to be several dozen different
species of duck in Buryatia, and about 20 of
them live on the shores of Lake Baikal.
Recognizing a waterfowl bird is quite easy,
because they all have flat beaks and webbed
feet, which help them to swim so well. They
don't like walking on land. Nearly all of them
fly away to warmer climes for the winter – they
are migratory birds. But the different species of
waterfowl birds have some unusual features.
This, for example, is a tufted duck. There are various Russian
names for it: a “grass-eater”, a “white-side”, and several others . It
finds its food in clean water and can dive to a depth of 4-5m. Its
colouring sets it apart from other ducks: its belly and sides are white,
the breast is black, it has a short tail and a tuft on its black head.
The tufted duck is often to be seen at the northern end of Baikal
in the valleys of large rivers such as the Barguzin, the Kichera, the
Upper Angara and the Svyatoy Nos peninsula. It is also to be seen in
the Selenga delta and on the small lakes of Baikal's terrace.
The birds arrive in April and fly away to winter grounds in
September or October. We have already seen that some birds stay
for the winter, which they spend on the ice-free waters at the source
of the Angara river, but such wintering is often an ordeal and many
of the ducks perish before the spring.
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And do you know, children, which bird loses its plumage in winter? It is the great crested
grebe (“chomga”), also known in Russian as the “bolshaya poganka”. The great crested grebe can
be recognized from its peculiar appearance: it has a thin neck, long straight beak, a brownish-red
back, and its neck and head are white. In spring, two dark clusters of feathers grow on its head,
having the appearance of ears or horns, and a red collar grows round the neck. All of this extra
plumage is lost in winter.
The great crested grebe lives in the Selenga delta, the Chivyrkuysky Gulf and the Upper
Angara. The birds arrive in April or the beginning of May, and fly away in September. Young
couples build new nests in the nesting areas, but old couples return to their usual spots and are
highly protective of their own territory. The great crested grebe winters in Europe, on the Caspian
and Black seas. A great crested grebe, which had been ringed on the shore of Lake Baikal, was
once found in Germany.
The great crested grebe is a skilful swimmer and diver – it can dive to a depth of 7m and stay
underwater for more than a minute, and can also swim underwater at high speed (60m in 30
seconds). It feeds mainly on fish. While building their nest the birds fetch pieces of water weed
from the bottom of lakes and rivers, and give them to each other as gifts. The great crested grebe
builds its nest of reeds or cane on the surface of the water, creating a floating island.
The chicks, covered in down, hatch about 25 days after mating and are
almost immediately placed on the back of an adult bird. They stay out
of the water for nearly two weeks, riding on the back of one or other of
their parents. The great crested grebe has one other interesting feature: it
will allow a person to come close to it, but it cannot be caught because it
will dive deep into the water at the last moment. The grebe was hunted
close to extinction in many European countries in the 19th century,
because its extravagant plumage was popular as a decoration for
women's clothing. Populations are now recovering thanks to
protective measures in European and Asian countries.
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What is the difference between a teal-whistler (Green-winged Teal) and a teal-cracker
(“Garganey”)?
Teal-whistler
Teal-cracker
Compare the ducks in the pictures. What are their similarities and differences? You will
learn the exact answers below.
Green-winged Teal is among the most numerous species on Baikal. It is the smallest duck
on the Lake and flies in small groups. It arrives
in the southern part of Baikal in mid-April and
in the northern part of the Lake in May, when
the rivers thaw out. The Eurasian teal nests on
water where there are willow thickets or large
old trees.
These ducks are very energetic – they like
to fly over shallow water, making steep curves
and turns. Their distinctive call explains why
they are called “whistlers”: the males, particularly, produce a low, abrupt and loud whistling
sound, while the females produce a shrill, highpitched quack. The sounds make an interesting
mixture when the birds are calling each other.
The Teal cracker (Garganey) is a little bigger
than a Green-winged Teal, it has a brown head
and a white stripe from the eye to the nape of
its neck, and a light-grey pattern on its sides. It
arrives on Baikal at the same time as the Greenwinged Teal, and settles in the Selenga delta,
the Chivyrkuysky Gulf, the Upper Angara, and
on the banks of small rivers. Unlike the Greenwinged Teal the teal cracker does not make its
nest on water surrounded by trees. Instead, the
female makes a hole in dry ground, lines it with
dry grass, then, after laying eggs, the nest is
completed and covered with belly down.
The crackly voice of the teal cracker, much
heard both on the water and in the air, comes
from the male, who is always found together
with his mate. The Russian name, “treskunok”
(from the word for “crack”), reflects the distinctive sound of the bird's call.
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All ducks quack, but in Russian only one is
called the “quacker” (“kryakva”). This is the
Mallard, which is the most common of all the
ducks found in Buryatia. It can be recognize from
its voice and appearance: the head and neck of
the male is green, the breast is brownish-fulvous,
and the back and belly are grey with spots. The
female is brown and the spots on its grey belly
have a darker hue. Both male and female have a
mirror-like blue-violet spot on their wings.
Mallards arrive on Baikal in early to mid-April, and depart en masse at the
end of September or start of October. Flocks of several hundred birds can
be seen during the migration periods. In some years small flocks even
remain to winter in ice-holes. The mallard lives on the banks of shallow
water, feeding on water plants and small insects. It nests in thick grass
and in bushes, and, very occasionally, uses the tree nests of magpies.
Mallards lay 7-10 white eggs with a greenish hue.
Task: Try drawing or making a wild duck from plasticine based
on the description in our book. The photograph of the bird will be
helpful too.
The Ruddy shelduck, or red duck, is the most common
and well-recognized bird in Buryatia. The ruddy shelduck is
a land duck, which nests in the fissures and hollows of steep
rocky mountain slopes, in stone ravines, in the burrows of
large animals and in tree hollows.
In September they migrate to warmer climes, but return
to Baikal early, at the end of March or start of April. The
ruddy shelduck is a large dark-red bird; its head is white,
there is a black stripe on the neck, and it has black feathers
with a white “mirror” spot on the wings. The male has a dark
stripe on its neck.
It is interesting that the female ruddy shelduck makes sure that its nest is
no further than 3 kilometers from water, so that the ducklings can reach
the water by themselves.
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How can you recognize a cormorant?
The adult cormorant has black plumage with a metallic greenishviolet shine. There is a black tuft on the head, a yellow mark from the
beak along the head, and a greenish-brown ring around the eyes. The
cormorant has webbed black feet, a long neck, and a curved brownishblack beak. In terms of size the cormorant is comparable with a goose.
It weighs about three kilograms. There are many nesting species for
cormorants on Baikal, and three islands in the Chivyrkuysky Gulf are
even named after the bird: Cormorant Island and two outcrops, both of
which are called “Cormorant Stone”.
Cormorants feed only on fish and they hunt in groups. Their hunts are a
noisy affair: they clap their wings together, cry, dive, and splash in the
water, as they hurry to keep pace with shoals of fish. When the hunt is over
cormorants sit on the shore with their wings spread, drying their plumage.
It is interesting that people in south-eastern Asian countries, where
cormorants fly for the winter, use the birds as “living fishing rods”: fishermen
make the cormorants dive for fish and then take the fish for themselves.
In the second half of the 19th century there were thousands of cormorants in the
Selenga delta and the Barguzin river. Fishermen were worried about the impact
on their livelihoods and began to hunt the cormorants, which were
almost extinct by the mid-20th century (they were even registered
in the Red Book of Buryatia). Nowadays ornithologists
report that flocks of cormorants are increasing, and
they have been removed from the Red Book.
Choose one picture of the bird which particularly strikes you.
Use it to make up a story with the help of additional resources.
Pintail
Shoveler
Avocet
Wigeon
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Shore Birds
What birds do you know that inhabit the shores of Baikal? Ornithologists call them “waterside
birds” because they cannot live for more than a day away from water. They get their food from
water, and build nests on the shore. There is a Russian proverb, “Every sandpiper praises its own
bog” (the meaning is close to “there is no place like home”). But the sandpipers in Baikal are not
praising a bog, but the most wonderful lake in the world, on the shores of which they rest and
feed on their journey from the south to the far northern tundra. Sandpipers inhabit shallow waters
close to the shore, where they spend the day (and sometimes part of the night) running along the
water's edge, gathering insects, larvae, mollusks and other food.
There are several species of sandpipers, of which the little stint, the common sandpiper and the
Eurasian oystercatcher can all be found on Baikal. Their names give us an idea of their sizes, and
they also differ in colour: the little stint is rusty-red with brown spots, changing to grayish-brown
in winter; the common sandpiper is white-black with a distinctive white spot under the eye; and
the Eurasian oystercatcher is grayish-brown. All of the sandpipers have a long, thin beak.
The Common Sandpiper can be frequently met on the shores
of Baikal and nearby waters. Its call sounds to Russian ears like
“Perevezi! Perevezi!” (“Carry me across! Carry me across!”), whence
the Russian name for the bird – the “carrier”. Local people interpret
the stooping gesture of the bird when its hunts for food along the
shore as a respectful bow to Father-Baikal, to whose shores it returns
every spring from warmer southern climes.
The Little stint and the Eurasian Oystercatcher are rare transit birds, which
use Baikal as a stop-over on their journey
from wintering places, but do not nest on
the Lake. Their Russian names (“sparrow
sandpiper” and “magpie sandpiper”) reflect their similarity to these other birds.
The Common Snipe – is not a large bird with a long straight and
pointed beak. It is widely spread in Europe and northern parts of Asia,
also it can be met in the southern part of Baikal. The snipe is good
not only at flying, but it can run well even in the grass. It is not easy
to see it: it is a very reticent bird. In its free time at noon, it stands
hiding behind hummocks and drowing its head into its shoulders. It
flies up quacking, and it flies as if it waddles. Besides, the snipe-cock
cries out its “taku-taku” or “tyok” on the land, on stumps, on trees. To Baikal snipes come in May.
Their autumn flight lasts up to October, sometimes the birds winter on the Baikal's shores not far
from non-freezing streams.
The Asian Dowitcher – is a bird of dove-size. It has a motley
back and wings, its belly is rusty-red, and the tail is striped. The bird
has long legs and a long beak. It can be met on Baikal, on lake Big
Yeravnoye, on lake Orongoy, on the lakes not far from the town of
Kyakhta. In the valley of the Selenga river more than 300 couples of
asian dowitcher nest starting from May. They build their nests in moist
places putting dry leaves, stalks and grass into a hole. Usually there
are 2 eggs in the laying, the parents brood them in turn. It's a rare
bird; it isn't studied much. It's registered in the Red Book. They winter
in India and Birma, on their way there they stop in China and Japan.
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Grey heron
What bird can stand still in one place for hours,
sometimes on one leg, with the other leg tucked
under its body? Of course, it is the grey heron,
a large bird, weighing up to two kilograms and
easily distinguishable from other herons.
Its back is grey, the belly is white, and it has
feathered wings, a stripe above the eye, a black
tuft and a black stripe on the neck. The head is
narrow with a long, straight, yellowish beak, squeezed in at the sides. The legs are long and of
a yellowish colour. The grey heron has large, wide wings and a short tail. It flies smoothly, at
a gentle pace, with slow flaps of its wings. In flight the heron produces a distinctive, instantly
recognizable cry: loud and sharp, as if it was shouting “kryank!”.
It is very interesting to watch a heron. When hunting for food, herons
stand still for long periods in shallow water or near the hole of a vole
or of a gopher, waiting for their prey. If something bothers a heron it
stretches its neck, but otherwise remains motionless. However, it can fly
away instantly if it needs to. Herons sometimes walk slowly and silently
through water, with their head down, looking for prey in the water. The
strike is quick and sudden, seizing the fish or other small animal in the
herons beak.
Herons nest in large colonies on tall pines and there may be several
nests on one tree. The male gathers building materials, while the female
stays most of the time in the nest, putting the twigs into place. Grey
Herons lay eggs once a year or, very rarely, twice. Both parents sit on
the eggs. Newly hatched nestlings are covered with grayish down and
their plumage appears on the seventh day. Both parents feed and nurse
the nestlings, and one or other adult bird remains in the nest at all times
protecting the young from sun and rain with their wings. Nestlings
knock on the parent's beak when they are hungry and the adult bird
eructates food directly into the nestling's beak. Young herons
start to fly when they are about 55 days old.
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The Wagtail and Dipper
The Wagtail is another shorebird, like the
sandpiper and heron. The white wagtail is found
on Lake Baikal and has a distinctive appearance
and plumage, which make is easy to recognize.
You may well have seen this nimble bird.
The wagtail has a long tail, small head, and
its colouring is grey, white and black. The birds
runs quickly along the shore looking for bugs,
small crayfish, young fishes, and other types of
food.
Wagtails migrate to the banks of rivers and
rivulets near Baikal at the beginning of April and
leave for warmer climes (Vietnam, Thailand) in
the second half of September.
Wagtail
What you see here is a Dipper – a nonmigratory bird that nests in Buryatia. It lives on
the banks of fast-flowing rivers and streams that
carry their waters to Baikal.
In winter the dipper moves to ice-free streams
and springs. The dipper is sometimes called
a “water-sparrow” because it can easily run
underwater. It feds feeds on water invertebrates
but sometimes also catches young fish.
Dipper
93
It has thick, dark-brown plumage, which is
water resistant. Dippers build their nests on stones
and in rock fissures. The nests usually contain 4–6
white eggs, and the bird will often bring a whole
fish, which it has caught, into the nest.
Trace on the map the route taken by birds when they migrate from Baikal to their wintering grounds.
Try to calculate how many kilometers birds have to cover in one direction.
Scale: 1 : 20000000 (1 cm : 200 km)
Dear friends, you now know a lot about the various
species of birds, which live by Lake Baikal. You can learn
about other bird species – forest birds – by reading the
chapter about protected natural areas around Baikal.
94
Fish of Baikal
Baikal's water is fresh, clean and clear. What kinds of fish live in Baikal's water, and which are
them are only to be found in Baikal?
Ichthyologists subdivide Baikal fish into two main species: Soroviye (because they live in
Baikal's bays and shallow waters, which are usually called 'sor') and Baikal fish, which live in the
open waters of the Lake. The Soroviye include the Baikal omul, the whitefish, umber, sturgeon,
roach, bream, perch, pike and burbot.
Ichthyologists are biologists who study
fish and marine animals.
Best-Known Fish of Baikal
Baikal's best-known fish is Baikal omul. Nearly
every Russian thinks immediately of the “omul
barrel” from the popular song “Glorious Sea – Holy
Baikal!” (even if he or she has never been to Baikal
and has never eaten omul).
But what else do we know about the omul?
This is a fish that likes to travel. The omul is found
in Baikal and the basin of the Arctic Ocean. Though
many ichthyologists consider the omul to be
endemic to Baikal, there is a closely related fish, the
Penzhinskiy omul, which is found in the Penzhinskiy
Lakes in the north of Russia.
The omul feeds mainly on small crustaceans
living in the Lake water, invertebrates at the Lake
bottom and the young of goby fish. The omul enters
rivers to spawn from the end of August or beginning
of September up to the end of November. The time
of spawning depends on water temperature (the
omul will not spawn until the water is cold enough).
It is also of interest that the omul will only spawn
upstream in rivers.
“Omul” in Latin means
“wandering white-fish”.
A real riddle is how the omul got into Baikal in glacial period or postglacial period from the rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean. Does it mean
that the omul might be a mammoth’s contemporary or, for instance, a
herbivorous dinosaur of the Age of Reptiles? One bone of such a dinosaur
was found not far from Gusinoye Lake. Now it is kept in Baikal museum of
the settlement of Listvyanka.
95
One spawning shoal of omul may consist of between 1.5 million and 6 million fish. At this time
the water in Baikal's rivers seems to seethe and glitter from the huge number of fish that it contains. Omul release spawn on sand-and-pebble areas of the river bottom. Fertilized eggs develop
for 170-200 days and the young fish appear in April or May. They are carried down into Baikal's
bays (“sory”) and then into the open water of the Lake.
The omul, which fishermen catch, are usually up to 19 years old and 38 centimeters long,
though some fish may live to 25 years of age and be up to 51 centimeters long. The large variety
in length of life is one more mystery of the omul!
In summer, omul swims near the surface of the water at certain places in the Lake, which are
known to fishermen, gathering near the Lake shore at a depth of about 5m. The fish hibernate at
depths of 200-300m, close to the areas where they will feed in the summer time.
Omul are artificially bred at a fish nursery not far from Baikal on the Bolshaya Rechka river, and
half of the fish are released into the Lake. There is a similar nursery in Koma village in the Pribaikalsky District of the Republic of Buryatia.
Numbers of omul were on the increase in the last years of the 20th
century, thanks to these efforts to support populations.
96
Are there differences between the omul living in different parts of Baikal?
The omul has adapted well to the conditions of Baikal, where it has acquired some specific
biological features. There are four sub-populations of omul in the Lake: North Baikal, Chivyrkuysky,
Selenga and Posolsk. The North Baikal and Barguzin omul prefer shallow water, while Posolsk and
Chivyrkuysky omul live in the depths of the Lake. The small and fat omul, which are caught in
the Maloye Morye (the Little Sea) near Olkhon Island are called Malomorsky, and are close to the
North Baikal and Chivyrkuysky groups.
What other differences are there between these sub-populations of omul?
24-32 сm
0100 m
20 -
22-24 сm
the Selenga omul
120 m
32-38 cm
the North Baikal omul
180 200 m
the Posolsk omul
Look at the illustration of different features of omul subpopulations (size, depth and locality)subpopulations
The Selenga omul is the most numerous sub-population. It spawns
mainly in the Selenga river and in other rivers flowing into Baikal.
It lives in the southern trough of the Lake and the southern part of
the middle trough.
The Chivyrkuysky Omul is the most useful sub-population
for fisheries, as it grows very fast, gains mass and can be
artificially spawned.
The North Baikal group is notable for its small size. It swims up the
Upper Angara river to spawn and is therefore sometimes referred
to as the Angarskaya omul. It also spawns in the Kichera river and
other mountain rivers, as well as in the Chivyrkuysky Gulf.
The Posolsk omul is the largest species, and specimens
have been found with weight of 5 kilograms and length up
to 50 centimeters.
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Subpopulation
Size (cm)
Depth (m)
Pelagian (Selenga)
24-32
The southern trough of Baikal,
the Selenga delta
Coastal (North Baikal)
22–24
Chivyrkuysky Gulf, the
mouth of the Kichera river,
the Upper Angara, etc
Bottom-dwellers (Posolsk)
32-38
180–200
Locality
Posolsky Sor region
Fill in the missing information in the table
about various sub-populations of omul.
You might try tasting some omul. The fisherman who eats it with you will
tell you of an ancient superstition: if a fisherman falls ill, you must prepare
a fish soup of Omul, pass the tail of the fish over the fisherman's lips and
feed him the soup. This will surely cure him! Such was people's belief in the
marvelous qualities of the omul. The fish is very useful for healthy people
too, because it contains much fish fat and vitamins (A,D,E), as well as
protein, all of which are good for health and for vision, strengthening
bone tissue and raising vitality.
98
Which Baikal fish is called the “Tsar fish”?
The Baikal sturgeon – is the largest and
most ancient fish in Baikal. Its length sometimes
reaches 1.5-1.8 m, and its weight – 100-130 kg.
Because of its size this fish got the name «tsar
fish». A sturgeon is the only fish that belongs to
the group of cartilaginous. Along its body it has
outgrowth in the form of plates. It looks like a
giant in armours.
In Baikall basin basic localities of sturgeon
are the delta of the Selenga, the mouths of
some rivers and the bays with the depth of
20-50 m. In autumn, sturgeons come to the
depth of 150 m, wintering in deep holes in the
mouths of big rivers. In April they usually travel
to spawn to the Selenga, the Upper Angara and
the Barguzin. In the Maloe Sea and in Slyudyanka sturgeons are very uncommon. Sturgeons grow
very slowly, by 10 years of age they are 70-75 cm in length and 1,5-2 kg in weight, by 20 years its
length can be 125 cm, its weight – 12,5 kg. The male fish mature by the age of 15 and the female
fish in 18–20 years.
The Cisco or Whitefish closely resembles the
omul, but can be easily recognized by its jutting upper
jaw. It has small round black spots on its head and
dorsal fin. Its head is extended with a more or less
cuspidal shape. It can be found only in Lake Baikal and
the Baunt Lakes.
Baikal cisco are of two kinds: lake and lakeriver. Large numbers of lake cisco are found in the
Barguzin and Chivyrkuysky Gulfs, and in the Selenga
delta shallows. There are three sorts of Baikal cisco,
classified according to their locality: Chivyrkuysky, Barguzin and Maloye Morye. Adult cisco feed
on mollusks, plankton, larvae, worms and young goby fish. Numbers
of cisco are limited, due to intensive poaching. The ban on omul
fishing helped to support populations of Baikal cisco, which are
often found in fishermen's catches today.
Secret Corners of
Lake Baikal Box
The total number of fish is not big as this kind
of fish was poachered a lot. The ban on omul
fishing helped to save the Baikal sturgeon.
Nowadays it is often met in fishermen's catch.
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Another well-known lake-river fish in Baikal
is the grayling, which is represented by a Baikal
sub-species of the Siberian grayling, occurring
in two forms – the black and the white grayling.
The Black grayling has bright dense scales,
high bright fins. It can be 60 cm long with a
weight of 1,5 kg. Graylings are found in all
the rivers flowing into Lake Baikal and in the
Angara River. In summer, the grayling lives at a
depth of 10-20m, and in winter it is found at depths of 3-12m. It diet consists of larvae and adult
insects, small crustaceans, and fish roe. The grayling swims for hundreds of meters up mountain
rivers with stony beds in order to spawn. When hunting for flying insects, it can leap out of the
water to a height of 0.5 m.
The White grayling is larger than the black (it
grows faster and reaches a weight of 3.0-3.5 kg),
and it has less dense scales with red spots on silver
gray sides and shorter fins. It usually lives close to
the Baikal shoreline at depths of 50 m. Both the black
and white grayling live for 10-12 years.
Fish Known to Everyone
The roach lives in natural water basins all
over Russia, but the biggest roach are to be
found in Baikal. Local people call the roach a
“soroga”, and there are two types of “soroga”
in the Lake: a small “sor” fish and a bigger
open-water fish. The roach has dense scales
and distinctive red fins, and it is the second
most numerous fish in catches made by Baikal
fishermen. An adult roach of 5-7 years may be
13-15 cm in length, and it can grow to 30 cm
when it reaches the age of 11-17.
The Sazan is a beautiful fish with golden
and yellow scales, dark back and fair belly. It
lives only in basins with fresh water. In warm
water it feeds actively and it grows quickly. Its
maximum weight can reach more than 20 kg.
In cold seasons it lies down to winter and
stops eating. Every fisherman dreams to catch
a sazan, but it requires not only good luck, but
good skills, as well. This omnivorous fish became a food fish. It's grown up in ponds almost
everywhere. A domesticated sazan is a carp.
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The best-known fish in Buryatia is the Silver
Carp. Its shape the bright silver of its scales
give it the appearance of a large coin. The silver
carp is numerous in shallow lakes (no more than
3m deep). It is a calm and lazy fish, preferring
to stay in quiet spots where there is plenty of
slime and no shortage of food. Interestingly, it
can live in places where other species die due
to lack of oxygen: overgrown basins, drying
lakes, and stagnant ponds near Baikal. The carp
does not usually grow to more than 30 cm in
length, and the specimens found in most lakes
are 11-13 cm.
Who are those fish-predators?
The main predatory fish of freshwater basins
is the Pike, and it is also to be found in Baikal.
The Pike has a spotty colouring, light bands
along and across its sides, with a dark back,
and whitish belly with grey specks. Its fins are
slightly brown with black spots, and its thoracic
and abdominal fins are yellowish-red. The pike
is a fairly large fish, up to 80 cm in length, and
its grows very fast: by 5 years it weights up
to 1 kg, by 12 years it reaches 6 kg, and the
fish have been known to grow to 20 kg. The
pike has a very long life – 70 years on average.
In Baikal a young pike is called “travyanka”
(“grass dweller”) because it hides in shallow
water where grass grows watching for prey. All
fishermen dream of catching a pike.
The Taimen – is a large fish of the salmon
family. It grows up to 1,5 m long and up to
60 kg. The taimen has a peculiar coloration in
different time of its life and in different seasons
of the year: more often it is dark, almost black
with dark spots on its fair belly. In spawning it
covers with crimson spots, and its tail becomes
dark red.
It swims quite fast; it dashes to its catch very
swiftly. Usually its catch is fish, small animals
and birds. The taimen is a raptorial fish; it feeds
all year round except in the time of spawning. It lives in pure mountain rivers flowing into Baikal,
but its number is not high. It is registered in the Red Book. To meet the taimen is a big luck!
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Its colouring and habits have earned the
Perch the nickname of “sea tiger”. It is a
predatory fish with a dark green back, yellowish
sides with dark diametrical bands, bright red
fins, yellow thoracic fins, and orange eyes.
Perch are commonly found in all the basins of
Buryatia except those, which are closed and
shallow. Perch aged 17 years and more than
40 cm in length are occasionally caught. The
biggest perch are found in Baikal.
The Burbot is another sor fish. It is most
commonly found in Baikal and the main rivers
that flow into the Lake, as well as in other
basins of Buryatia. It is has black-brown spots
and bands all over its body, and its belly and
neck are of a grey colour. There are two kinds
of burbot in Baikal: one that lives in lakes and
rivers, and one that lives in lakes only.
Ichthyologists note that lake burbots differ
from those that also inhabit rivers by their
faster rate of growth, high levels of fat on their
body a lighter colouring. The lake and river
burbot spawns in rivers, while lake burbots are
believed to spawn in Baikal, though it is not
known exactly where. The burbots lay eggs in the very severe frosts of December and January,
sometimes till March and even till May. Its size can be up to 2 m and 30 kg. Its coloring is
yellowish-grey with spots but sometimes depending on water it can be dark grey with spots.
Usually it is peat brown waters that make burbot have such a coloring. The fish has two dorsal fins
and a little barbel on its mandible.
The burbot likes the cold but it spends most of its life in waters with the
temperature of 10–12 degrees. In hot summers they are usually passive. They
go to hibernation in Baikal at the depth of 100 meters. At the end of summer
both kinds of the baikal burbot begin to shoal and go into the depth of 10-15 m
intensively feeding on gobies from the bottom. In September burbots approach
the shores. During the last years along the southern shore of Baikal burbots have
almost disappeared. This fact was probably caused by the work of the Baikal pulp
and paper mill and other industrial companies. Fishermen named the burbot a
hermit because it doesn't like a sunlight hiding from it at the bottom. Also
they don't shoal.
102
Endemics of Baikal
Fish that are found only in Baikal include the
Goby (both bottom-dwelling goby and another
variety, which lives a medium depths) and the
oil. The goby family is the most numerous of
Baikal's endemic fishes.
Bullheads, a variety of goby, are mostly
bottom-dwelling. They are small fish and poor
swimmers, and their body shape is adapted to
life among stones on the bottom of the Lake,
where they find refuge. Their dark-colouring is
also adapted to this life, since it helps them to
blend in with their environment. Fishermen also
call bullheads “shirokolobka” (“broad head”)
due to the shape of their heads. Some bullhead
species can be found along the shoreline, at
shallow depths. Different species inhabit areas
of water with a stony bottom and areas where
the bottom is sandy.
Another bullhead type, the Baikal sculpin,
form coastal shoals, which are a source of
food for omul and various other fish. However,
young sculpin escape the predators thanks
to an instinctive reaction to the smell, which
predatory fish emit.
The long-finned Baikal sculpin grows as
long as 22 cm. It feeds on plankton, gliding
alongside it through the middle depths, helped
by its fins and light weight – this manner
of movement have earned it the nickname
“samoletik” (“little aeroplane”).
Fish that live close to the bottom of a water basin are called “bottom-dwelling”.
103
The Oil fish is the most interesting of
Baikal's other endemic fish species. It grows
to no more than 20 cm and its pinkish body
is almost translucent, consisting mostly of fat,
so that you can even read a newspaper or
a book through its body. The oil fish is very
attractive: its surface reflects all the colours of
the rainbow, its eye borders are bright orange,
and its thoracic fins, which cover half of the
body, are almost translucent. Its mouth opens
to a width, which is half as great again as the
length of its body.
There are two kinds of oil fish living in Baikal: the Great oil fish and the Dybowski oil fish (the
latter named after the scientist-ichthyologist who first discovered it). Both are found at various
depths, but the first is more often close to the bottom of the Lake. Both types can also be kept
in aquariums. The oil fish is highly sensitive to temperature: when the temperature drops to 8
degrees centigrade, it is unable to move and becomes numb. Interestingly, the oil fish does not
spawn, but puts out live young – the female fish produces up to 3000 grubs, which develop into
young fish in spring and summer. Adult oil fish are cannibalistic, feeding on the young of the same
species. The species reaches maturity at 2–3 years, so it may live to be 10–15 years old, but no
oil fish of such advanced age has ever been recorded. Their main diet are epischuras (up to one
million tonnes per year in Baikal).
104
The Lesser oil fish is a sub-species, also endemic to Baikal, living in the open waters of the
Lake at depths of up to 1600m. Lesser oil fish
feed on epischuras, macrohectopus, and the
young of the greater oil fish and of its own kind.
It breeds at the age of 2–3 years, bearing grubs
that grow inside the fish's body for 90–100 days.
There are reckoned to be about 100,000 tons
of lesser oil fish in Baikal, and it is an important
part of the diet of omuls and of seals.
The oil fish family is very peculiar – so much so that ichthyologists had
trouble establishing what group of fish it belongs to. It was at first believed
to be a kind of mackerel, then it was related to the codfish family, and
only at the start of the 20th century was it established that the oil fish is
close to the sculpin.
105
Baikal seal (nerpa)
Why do you think the Baikal Seal deserves a special section in our
Book? Are there any other names for the Baikal Seal?
The nerpa is a large mammal: adults
are over 150 cm long and can weigh up
to 110 kg. It is endemic to Baikal and
is the only mammal living in the Lake.
The nerpa is a member of the true seals
family (Phocidae) and a part of the Pusa
genus. The back of an adult nerpa is
silver-gray and its belly is light with a
yellowish hue.
The female nerpa can live for 56
years and males may live 52 years,
and child-bearing age for the female is
from 4-7 to 40 years, in which period
she can produce over 20 offspring.
One pregnancy lasts for 11 months and
produces one seal pup.
Baikal seals eat fish, particularly
gobies, and are also partial to the most
numerous fish in Baikal – the oil fish.
The creatures can be seen in all parts
of the Lake but they are most frequently
found in its northern and central parts.
In summer the coastal regions along
Baikal's shores and its main bays serve
as seal rookeries. The biggest seal
rookeries are in the Ushkany Islands.
Nerpa numbers vary between 50,000
and 70,000.
106
Locals have several names for
the nerpa: “ushkan” (“young hare”),
“kumutkan”, and “hubunok”. A new
born baby seal is called a “belyok”, and
it has become one of the best-known
symbols of Lake Baikal.
In winter, seals live under the ice
surface and breathe through airholes,
which they make themselves at the
beginning of winter and keep open until
the spring. Pregnant seals build holes
and burrows in the snow layer where
they bear their pups. At the end of the
winter and the beginning of spring seals
come out onto the ice to bask in the
sun..
At this time seals are vulnerable to
poachers: the fur of young seals has a
high value on domestic and international
markets (it is used for making hats
and coats) and nerpa fat is used in the
tanning industry and for soap. Seal meat
is also edible.
Scientists believe that the Baikal seal has a common ancestor with the
well-known northern seal, and that the animals reached Lake Baikal by
travelling from the Arctic Ocean along the Yenisei and Angara rivers. This
must have happened during the Ice Age, when the rivers were locked in
ice from the north. Other scientists believe that the nerpa came to Baikal
via the Lena river, which was linked with the Lake before the Ice Age.
107
A seal – is a very cautious and timid
animal. To see it in nature is very difficult.
In order to watch it and to study this
unique mammal, a lot of house-houses
were organized on Baikal. There are
three of them: in Irkutsk, in Listvyanka
and a summer seal-house in the
settlement of Sakhyurt. The biggest one
is situated in Listvyanka, it was opened
in summer, 2009.
There one can see trained seals
which can sing, dance, paint, play with
a ball. Animal-trainers say that it is quite
difficult to work with seals, because they
are very independent animals.
The most important task of creating
seal-houses is study and preservation
of this Baikal endemic, one of the three
species of freshwater seals.
In natural conditions the main enemy
of the seal is a man. Seal-hunting is still
allowed, though the number of these
unique animals according to some data
doesn’t exceed 100 thousand specimen.
In seal-houses scientists study
their ration and way of life, watch seal
pups born in artificial conditions, plan
ecological actions on protection of the
Baikal seal.
108
Guess the riddles
It lives close to
the bottom,
It's very hard
to catch.
It's on the list
of rare fish,
And had been
saved from
disappearance
.
(sturgeon)
What fish is it?
It's very little!
Smaller than yo
ur cuff.
Pinkish in colo
r and sensitive
It must have co
ld water.
It melts in sum
mer,
Spills its fat.
It's enedemic.
Can you name
it?...
Swims in lake
,
Walks in bays.
Its silver scale
s
Have pinkish
flame.
Epishuras,
Golomyankas,
Little gobies
Are its food.
But this fish
Is very tast y.
Tr y to taste itIt's so good!
(oil fish)
In snow y lair th
ey are born.
They are not af
raid of storm.
They will grow
and start divin
g,
Changing thei
r white fur.
If they are luck
y enough –
They will live
for too long e
nough.
What an anim
al with whiske
rs?
You think and
guess quicker,
quicker!
(Omul)
Its origin is ve
ry old,
People call it “a
great sea”,
Sea waves spla
sh in it,
How will we ca
ll it?
(Baikal seal)
(Baikal)
109
Try to solve these ecological tasks:
Problem 1
We need 10 kg of zooplankton or epischuras for 1 kg of omul, and 1 kg of
epischuras in turn need 10 kg of plankton bacteria and algae.
So how much algae do we need to grow 28 kg of young omul?
Problem 2
The nerpa's daily diet consists of 4 kg of fish and 2 percent of the diet is omul.
How many omul does a seal eat each day? What weight of fish does a seal
eat in 30 days?
Problem 3
The seal swims at 10km/h, so how far can it travel in 2.15 hours.?
Problem 4
The oil fish is the fattiest fish in Baikal: up to 43 percent of its body weight is
fat. Two great oil fish females weighing 80 grams have the same fat content
as an omul weighing 340 grams or a 500 gram grayling.
What is the fat content in an omul and in a grayling?
Problem 5
What is the length of these fish in metres?
A Baikal sturgeon – 1m 6 dm
An omul
– 37 cm
A grayling
– 350 mm
An oil fish
– 2 dm
110
“I know everything about the seal!”
1. What do we call a seal pup?
· Hubunok
· Malyok
· Kumutkan
2. What does a seal pup feed on?
· fish
· milk
· algae
3. The Baikal seal is
· a fish
· a mammal
· waterfowl
4. What food does a seal not eat:
· gobies
· omul
· capelin
5. How do seals breathe under the ice?
· they collect oxygen for the winter;
· through airholes;
· they keep air in pillows.
6. You can find the average length of an adult seal
with the help of our magic square.
1) Choose the biggest number from the first line.
2) Choose the smallest number from the second line.
3) Choose the middle-sized number from the third line.
4) Find the sum of these numbers.
27
65
31
78
67
55
45
56
36
111
We are playing!
Solve the crossword!
Baikal is rich in fish. There are more than 58 species in the Lake today.
Fill in the words using the pictures.
B
A
I
K
A
L
112
I am a creator!
A creative task
My funny seal pup
Look attentively at the articles in the pictures. Do you like them?
Mould a seal out of salty batter. Paint the article and give to your friend.
Tell what interesting you have learnt about seals?
113
I am a creator!
A cut-out collage with Baikal fish
Now we are going to dive in a submarine into the underwater kingdom of Baikal.
How wonderful to see with our own eyes who lives in this crystal tower! We will write down
everything we see in our exercise books and create a cut-out collage using photos.
The depth – 150 m
On the starboard side there are rocky walls. The omul likes to spend its time at such a depth.
It can grow as long as 50 cm, weighs up to 5 kg, and can live for up to 25 years. But only
one of about one hundred roe will survive to become a fish. The number of roe who survive
depends on the purity of water.
The depth – 200 m
A sturgeon swims by – the Tsar Fish of Baikal. Sturgeons live for 50-60 years or more and
sometimes weigh as much as 100-130 kg. They grow very slowly. Over-fishing has reduced
Baikal's stocks of sturgeon and the fish has been included in the Red Book.
The depth – 380 m
Here he is – the famous oil fish! He is light pink in colour. The females do now spawn eggs,
but eject 2000 or 3000 tiny fish into the water. The body of the oil fish is translucent, so
you can read letters on white paper looking through its tail. Fishermen do not take oil fish,
because they melt at a temperature higher than 8 degrees above zero. They spend most of
their lives very deep underwater.
The depth – 500 m
Through the porthole you can see silver oil fish and planariidae. It is a beautiful sight. We are
recording them with a colour cinema camera.
114
Now let's put all the sea creatures we have just seen on these pictures.
115
I am a creator!
A cut-out collage with Baikal birds
Put the cut-out pictures of various birds on the photographs of Baikal, matching the birds to the
scenes that are shown. We have a Yellow-legged Gull, a Mallard, a cormorant, a sandpiper, a
heron, a wagtail and a dipper.
116
117
I am a creator!
A creative task
Free the stones of Baikal from an evil spell
You will learn:
· see something wonderful around you;
· dream and share your dreams in the process of painting;
· make up souvenirs with your own hands.
These will be necessary for you:
stones from Baikal, acrylic or tempera paints, brushes, pencils (lead or wax),
transparent nail polish, some water and several napkins.
For the first time we advise you to use the help of your teacher or adults!
The work order is as follows:
First of all, read a fairy-tale.
A long time ago all the shore of Baikal was covered with cliffs. Then winds
and rains broke the cliffs down into stones. Now imagine a kingdom of
stones under an enchantment, and imagine that our stones are the citizens
of this magic country. They used to be people, living in peace and friendship,
never quarreling (just like you and your classmates!). But one day a wicked
wizard whose name was Envy learned about that country. He called Greed,
Indifference and Hatred to his aid and they decided to cast an evil spell on
the magic kingdom.
The wicked magicians turned the citizens of the magic country into grey
soulless stones. They would have been left lying on the shore if a kind fairy
called Rainbow and her little rainbows has not appeared. You can help our
little rainbows, using brushes as magic wands to bring to life and remove
the enchantment from the citizens of this wonderful country.
118
Before you start you should learn some magic spells. Otherwise
the magic won't work.
Repeat after us:
· We are little rainbows!
· We are not afraid of brushes and paints!
· We are ready to help the citizens of a magic country!
On your stones you can draw birds, animals, fish, flowers, berries, waves, Baikal shore, mountains. Let this easy rule help
you: “The person who wants to succeed succeeds, and the person who succeeds can do everything!” You can put yourself in
a creative mood by turning on your favourite music! Have you
chosen what you will paint on the stones?
Let your teacher or another adult help you when you first start!
Do the following:
1. Take a good look at the stones (you can find them on any
walk along the shores of Baikal)
2. Now dry it with a wet napkin.
The stone is ready to be painted!
So, dear rainbows, let's start creating magic! Let's apply the image onto the stone in a lead pencil.
Now let's start to paint it.
3. Let's protect the stone from rains (cover it with polish). Leave
you stone for 2-3 minutes. Don't touch it for 2-3 minutes in order to make it dry.
4. Admire the images on the stone. Well, yes, they look like
alive! The magic works!
5. Think who you can give your souvenirs to?
6. Invite your friends to paint other stones. You can make an
exhibition of your works in a class or at school.
So, children, not only have you removed the spell from the
fairy-tale – you have also learned to dream and convey your
fancies through drawing. But the most important thing is that
you have made beautiful objects with your own hands.
119
I am a creator!
Let's paint a seal pup
120
I am a creator!
Make up puzzles
Cut out the puzzles on this page.
When you put them together you will get the answer to this riddle:
Not a fish nor a whale,
Catches fish, keeping silent.
121
PART
Baikal’s
Secret Trails
To save Baikal - is a good deed
Why are you so sad, dear Baikal,
What is your surf thinking about?
Does somebody cruel sneer at you?
And Baikal sighed to me out:
«I’ve lived in the world
for thousands years...
And nobody else offended me,
On the contrary, they respected me…
But for the last half a century
I don’t recognize a man!..
As if he wouldn’t need at all
My pure water after all.»
Baikal in he only one on the planet,
There are no other sacred lakes…
We are all, Baikal, your children,
And we are to live with you!
People, don’t offend the sea!
Because Baikal wants to live further:
To play with its waves,
To argue with winds,
To save Baikal - is a good deed
Its destiny is in our hands!
The nature itself asked us
So as Baikal will live forever!
And I believe: Russia's fame
Will grow up owing to Baikal!
And our children will remember
To give Baikal's due.
Mikhail Mitukov
CONTENTS OF PART 4
Under the protection of the state
126
128
Nature Reserves:
Barguzin Reserve, Dzherginsky Reserve, Baikalsky Reserve, Baikal-Lensky Reserve
129
National Parks: Tunkinsky National Park, Zabaikalsky National Park
145
Wildlife Sanctuaries: Frolikhinsky Wildlife Sanctuary, Enkhalooksky Wildlife Sanctuary
152
Natural Monuments: the Mysterious Ushkan Islands, the “Singing Sands” of Turali,
“The Stilted Trees”, the Ininsky Stone Garden
154
Peoples of Baikal: the Evenks, the Buryats, the Russians
157
Ecological Traditions and Customs of the Buryat Peoples
164
Ecological Problems of Baikal
167
Human activity on the shores of Lake Baikal:
A waste problem on the shores of Baikal
168
170
SOS! Fire!
172
173
I am an ecologist! The garbage problem
Experiment №1. “The impact of heat on plastic”
Experiment №2. “Does plastic decompose?”
Project: Pines and Needles
Stage 1 of the project: Multi-coloured reading
Stage 2 of the project: Growing cedar trees
Stage 3 of the project: Measuring air pollution by the state of pine needles
Quiz: Who is the best Baikal eco-expert
174
Under the protection of the state
Dear friends! Now we are going on a fascinating journey along the secret paths of the region
around Baikal. You will learn many interesting things from Lake Baikal Box, which will help you
choose your own route, find out more about the unique natural environment round Lake Baikal,
and – most importantly – to understand why Baikal needs our love and protection.
It is common practice nowadays all over the world to set up specially protected natural territories – nature reserves – to protect unique wildlife and landscapes.
The purpose of a nature reserve is to protect endemic and rare species of plants and animals,
many of which have been registered in the Red Books of plants and animals of Russia and the
Republic of Buryatia. Red means danger – like a traffic light – because these plants and animals are
in danger of dying out. There are four types of nature reserves: protected areas, national parks,
nature sanctuaries, and so-called “natural monuments”.
Specially protected natural territories – are places,
where any human activity is either limited or prohibited.
Children, do you know which are the most famous
wildlife areas and national parks in the world?
Yellowstone (USA) is the world’s first national park, created in 1872.
The Great Smoky Mountains national park has the world's longest continuous foot path, which
make its particularly popular with hikers.
126
The Great Barrier Reef is a national sea park off the coast of Australia and is also a UNESCO
World Natural Heritage site. This great underwater ridge consists of nearly 3000 coral reefs and
islands, and is one of the world's natural miracles.
The unique Askania-Nova protected area in the Kherson Region of Ukraine was created in the
late 19th century by Fridrikh Falts-Fein, a large landowner in Tavrichesky Province who loved and
knew a great deal about nature. It remains the only piece of steppe landscape in Europe, which
has never been ploughed up.
There are very strict rules as to what you can and can't do in a nature reserve. Hunting, fishing,
gathering medicinal herbs, large-scale tourism, building of hotels, rest zones, and asphalt roads
are all forbidden inside protected areas.
UNESCO is the United Nations organization that
deals with educational, scientific and cultural issues.
The Red Book is a list of rare animals, plants and
fungi that are in danger of disappearance.
127
Nature reserves have also been created round Lake Baikal: our Lake has 4 protected areas, 3
national parks, and 22 nature sanctuaries. They include the Baikal-Lensky protected area and the
Pribaikalsky national park (both in Irkutsk Region) and a number of territories in the Republic of
Buryatia. You can find some of them on the map.
128
Nature reserves
We will start our journey from the Barguzin Reserve
– the first and oldest nature reserve in Russia. It is bestknown for the Barguzin sables, which live here. Sables were
driven close to extinction by intensive hunting at the end
of the 19th century, and a strict hunting ban was needed to
save them. This was the purpose of the Barguzin Reserve.
In 1996 the reserve was included in UNESCOs list of world
cultural and natural heritage sites (representing Lake Baikal)
A protected natural area is a natural
territory where shooting of wild animals
and gathering of plants are prohibited –
they are places where you can experience
nature untouched by man.
Siberian hunters called the sable "askyr", the Mongols "bologan", the Evenks
"dynka", and the Yakuts gave it the short but expressive name, "kis".
In ancient times the sable was considered to be "a diamond",
or “soft gold” because it was used as a means
of payment instead of money.
Suvinsk rocks
Baikal lake coast
In the Evenk language “Suvoya” or “Suvi” means "whirlwind". The Buryats believed
that the land of the Barguzin reserve belonged to two mythical characters,
Suvo Tumurshi –noion and his wife Tudugish–hatan, in honor of whom a wooden shine
had been built here.
What is special about
the Barguzin Reserve?
The reserve includes several natural
belts: tundra, Alpine meadows, and taiga. There
are also a number of hot springs in the reserve,
and 17 rivers rise on its territory and flow into
Lake Baikal.
129
What grows in the Barguzin Reserve?
An amazing variety of plant species grow in the Barguzinsky Reserve – about 900 in all – and
they include several rare species that are in need of protection: the butterfly orchid, a particular
kind of tussock grass, ladies' slipper, Snowdon rose, and many others. What strange names plants
have! Children, why do you think we give them such names?
Ladies' slipper is also known as “Venus's
shoe”. According to the legend, the Goddess
of Love, Venus, wore unusual footwear – shoes
made of flower petals. Whether or not that is
true, the flower certainly looks like a shoe, and
hence the name. There exist about 50 species
of this plant. Ladies' slipper is found in South
and North America, in Europe and Asia, and
from the forest-tundra to the tropics. It doesn't
bloom until it is 18 years old! Its flowers are
very large, up to 8 cm across, violet-red with
a network of crimson veins. The flower "hides"
under the leaf when it rains, so it never fills with
water, even during heavy rain, but always contains a few drops of dew.
Snowdon rose is a well-known perennial medicinal plant. It has fleshy oblong leaves and
small yellow flowers, grows slowly and loves moisture. Its folk name is “golden root” and it is also
called “Siberian ginseng”. The root is used for medicinal purposes and takes 8-10 years to reach
maturity. It is called “golden” not only because of its colour, but also because it helps to restore a
person's energy, eyesight and hearing, and was therefore considered to be of great value. According to ancient beliefs, a person who finds the golden root will live a long, lucky and healthy life.
The Ghost orchid (in Russian, the “Over-chin”) is a rare
perennial species. It has no green leaves, and its stalks are
fragile, coloured a hollow light yellow with red strips. There
are from two to eight flowers on the stalk, which is 30 cm in
height. These gentle flowers attract insects by the light smell,
similar to banana, which they give off. Its coral-like rhizome is
mass of fungal threads, which the plant used to find nutrients.
The ghost orchid grows in shady coniferous and mixed forests.
It blossoms plentifully in rainy weather with thunder-storms.
Botanists gave the plant its unusual Russian name due to the
arrangement of its petals, which looks like lips over a beard.
130
Barguzin Reserve fauna
The Barguzin Reserve has a rich and unusual fauna:
39 species of mammals, 243 bird species, 4 species of reptiles, 2 types of amphibians, about 30
species of fish and a great number of invertebrates.
The best-known inhabitant of the reserve is
the Barguzin sable, which lives in taiga solitude amid cedar thickets from which it extracts
its favorite delicacy – nuts. It also hunts for
fish, squirrels and other small animals (ermine,
rodents and birds). The sable can also be vegetarian, eating cowberry, bilberry and mountain
ash berries.
The most interesting thing about the sable
is that the colour of its fur depends on where
it lives: the further north and the higher the
mountains, the darker its fur. The Barguzin sable
is the darkest and its fur is valued most highly.
Sables with light fur live in various places from
the Urals to the Yenisei river.
The Chernoshapochny (“black hat”)
groundhog lives only around Baikal. It takes
its name from its colouring, since it is brown
all over except for a darker stain on the head,
which looks like a black hat. The black-hat is
the smallest sub-species of groundhog (22,400
individuals), and they live in separate families,
each with its own wintering hole. The families
usually live on dry, southern slopes of mountains and hills with light snow cover. Groundhog holes are not deep (from 20 to 70 cm) and
have many exits. In cold autumns and winters
the groundhogs stop up the holes with dry
grass to keep more heat.
And this small animal was called the
Northern creeper because of a whistling
sound. The creeper produces whistle as if it
'talks', or warns about some danger. It looks
like a hare with a short tail and the rounded-off
ears, it has smooth fur of brown or grayish and
yellow color. This small animal is a vegetarian,
it eats grassy plants and branches of bushes.
All creepers are remarkable mowers. They bite
grass with their sharp teeth, drag it to the holes
and display so that it gets dried. Therefore the
creeper has the second name – «senostavka».
What's more hunters guess about weather
judging by their behavior: if there is no grass
brought by creepers on stones, it'll rain.
131
The Musk deer is the smallest representative of the deer family. It can be met in Buryatia in almos every mountain and taiga regions.
Its body's length is 80-100 cm, height in wither
is up to 80 cm, its weight is about 15-20 kg.
Neither females (cows) nor males (bucks) have
horns. Mature bucks have fangs with the length
up to 10 cm, which stick out of the upper lip.
Also they have a musky small bag on the inner
side of the hip. About 40–50 g of musk can be
gathered in the bag. It is well-known as «a musk
deer's stream». The musk is valued in perfumery industry as a holder of smells. Also it was
widely used in medicine.
In summer the deer eats woody or ground
lichens, thin branches, sprouts, needles and
plants. In winter it eats woody lichens and
bark, branches. It eats at night and in twilights.
It spends a day liing near rocks, among stone
placers.
A musk deer is a very cautious animal. It
moves jumping, climb different rocks well, thus escaping from enemies. Escaping from pursuers a musk deer fouls the trails. It is sometimes difficult to grasp in them. A she-musk deer is a
self-sacrificing mother. At any signs of alarm she, risking her life fearlessly, rush onto the enemy,
while little deers hide in safe places. A musk deer is a unique animal; it's a decoration of our taiga.
Barguzin's rare bird species
Barguzin's rare bird species include the
sea eagle, golden eagle, black stork, and osprey, and the gray crane can be seen nesting
on bogs. Let's find out more about the birds we
can meet along Baikal's secret paths.
There are seven species of eagles around
Baial: the steppe eagle, golden eagle, imperial
eagle, great spotted eagle, dwarf eagle, whitetailed sea eagle, and long-tailed sea eagle.
Eagles are treated with great respect by the Buryats, and there are many
legends associated with the bird in the area around Baikal. A fearsome
spirit is believed to inhabit Olkhon Island and to assume the shape of a
white-headed eagle. The Buryats still believe that a person who kills or
wounds an eagle will soon die himself. This reverence for the birds is
one reason why they continue to flourish on Baikal, while in other
parts of the world eagles have become endangered.
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The Steppe eagle is large and beautiful. It weighs
from 2 to 5 kg, has wingspan up to 2m, and its head
is dark-brown in colour. Young eagles stand out from
old birds by well-defined strips on the underside of
their wings, longitudinal motley specks on the belly,
and brighter plumage. They grow the final feather in
their “dress” in the fifth year of life. The steppe eagle has a very unusual way of hunting. It watches
for and catches rodents at the exits from their holes.
The eagle can lay motionless on the ground for hours
with its head close to a hole until the gopher or vole
emerges, to be struck with a powerful blow from the
eagle's beak or claws.
The White-tailed sea eagle is the largest predator nesting in Baikal Region. It stands out by its long
"rectangular" wings, a wide, short, wedge-shaped tail,
and a small head which is much lighter than the rest
of the plumage. The sea eagle has a large and powerful beak of light yellow color. Unlike the golden eagle,
its feet are not covered with feathers. The sea eagle
reaches its adult appearance aged five, after which its
tail becomes white.
The sea eagle seldom catches strongly swimming
fish, but usually picks up sleepy or dead fish from
the water surface, as well as fish thrown ashore by a
storm.
The Black stork is another rare Baikal species.
These birds fly to the lake in early May, having already
found a mate, and feed on fish, frogs, tadpoles, and
crustaceans in shallow rivers. They build their large
nests (1-1.5m) on the open banks of rivers and lakes,
or in the remote taiga and lay two or four eggs of a
grayish-white color. Both male and female birds sit on
the eggs for more than a month. These graceful birds
fly away in September in family groups of three, four
or five birds.
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The Dzherginsky Nature Reserve
The Dzherginsky nature reserve is located in Kurumkansky District of the Republic of Buryatia, in a unique position
to the north-east of Baikal where three large mountains –
Barguzinsky, Ikatsky and Southern Muysky – meet. This is a
high-mountainous place with a distinctive natural environment where the stony tundra mixes with Alpine meadows,
thickets of cedar shrubs and dwarf birches. More than 650
species of flowering plants are to be found here.
The most ancient inhabitants of these places, the Tungus, called the
territory where the reserve is now located “yarga”, which in
their language meant “sacred” or “happy”. The present-day
name, “Dzherginsky” derives from that word.
Types of plants at the Dzherginsky reserve divide
into forest-steppe, taiga and high-mountainous.
The Daurskaya larch is dominant in the forest
zone, having soft and fragrant needles, which fall
every autumn, like the birch. The tree is much loved
in Siberia for its beauty, aroma of fresh needles, the
intense heat it gives when burnt and (most of all) its
quality as a building material – it is very dense and
doesn't decay in water thanks to the large amounts
of resin that it contains. The Italian city on water,
Venice, which is more than 1000 years old, was
build on Siberian larch. The larch can live for 500600 years.
Herbs also grow in abundance, including
Camel's tail, which has anti-inflammatory properties and is registered in the Red Books of Buryatia
and Irkutsk Region. Camel's tail is a peculiar, highmountain plant that grows to a height between one
and five meters, with thick branches having four to
six pairs of leaves. Its flowers contain oils, ascorbic
and other organic acids, sugar and pitch. The upper
part of the plant is used in medicine.
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The Dzherginsky reserve has diverse and very interesting fauna: 43 species of mammals, 145
bird species (including 118 nesting types), 3 amphibians, 4 species of reptiles, 6 fish species, 839
species of insects, 164 species of spiders, and 39 species of protozoa.
Mammals include the white hare, squirrel, wolf, fox, brown bear, sable, glutton, ermine, weasel, river otter, lynx, wild boar, roe, elk and reindeer.
Local amphibians include the Siberian frog and a Far Eastern tree frog. Main reptiles are the
viviparous lizard and copper-head snake. Water spaces at the reserve contain graylings, burbot,
river minnow, greenling and taimen.
Bird inhabitants include the black-throated loon, black stork, whooping swan, swallow, tealcracker, mountain duck, partridge, black grouse, stone wood-grouse, hawk (teterevyatnik), buzzard, imperial eagle, a golden eagle, white-tailed sea eagle, gyrfalcon, owl, and eagle owl.
Of the reserve's bird inhabitants, the black stork, black crane, and whooper swan are under
special protection.
The white-winged Whooper-swan is a
proud and handsome bird, and the hero of
many Baikal fairy tales and legends. It has a
long neck, magnificent, snow-white plumage,
a yellow beak, black feet and a loud, trumpetlike voice. The swan moves with effort on the
ground and takes off with a long run-up. It is
both a carnivore and herbivore, and finds forage in water by immersing its long neck. Its
preferred nesting place is on the Chivyrkuysky
Gulf. The birds arrive at nesting places in pairs
in late April or early May
It is known that couples mate for life (hence the folk expression,
“faithful as a swan”). According to ancient legends, several Buryat
tribes – the khori and hongodory – originated from swans.
The Black-necked grebe is a small bird of
black colour with red sides, a white paunch and
a dark gray beak. In spring the bird produces a
loud whistle, which then turns into a trill. The
birds nest together in flocks, and feed on water
insects, larvae, crustaceans and mollusks.
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What are the main types of fauna at the Dzherginsky Reserve?
The Lynx is the fearsome master of the taiga
– a dangerous predator of about 19 kg, whose
main weapon is a sudden attack and who hunts
only at night. It is a tree-climbing member of the
cat family with strong hearing and sight, which
uses its whiskers as tactile organs. The lynx has
reddish-gray, dense and soft fur.
The Wapiti stands out from other deer by
the bright reddish colouring of its wool in the
summer and darker colouring in the winter. The
animal lives in the mountains and mountain
river valleys, and is a good swimmer. Its winter
forage is dead grass, and plants, which it extracts from under the snow, and in summer it
eats leaves and the shoots of trees and bushes.
Children, which do you think is
bigger, a wolf or a dog?
Usually a male wolf weighs about 50 kg,
and a she-wolf weighs about 5 kg less. Their
height to the shoulders is about 75 cm, and
their length from nose to the tip of the tail is
1.5-2m. Wolves are created by nature for hunting. In winter wolves leave a neat path through
the snow, putting their back leg precisely in line
with the front leg. This gait enables the wolf to
run even on deep snow. the wolf's weapon are
its teeth: it has 42 teeth, of which four points
outwards – two 5 cm curved canines above
and two below. Wolves hunt almost silently,
thanks to their gait. Their keen sense of smell
means that that they can pursue prey over long
distances.
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The Baikalsky Reserve
The Baikalsky National Biosphere Reserve
spreads over parts of three districts in the Republic of Buryatia (Kabansky, Selenginsky and
Dzhidinsky Districts) and is bounded by the
Khamar-Daban ridge and the southern coast of
Lake Baikal. The Baikal Reserve was set up in
1969, covers about 165,000 hectares and has a
perimeter of 200 km.
The Baikalsky Reserve is 30% Alpine highlands and 70% taiga and has 160 lakes in its confines,
thanks to which it is of international importance as a wildfowl habitat. Its major purpose is to support biological diversity.
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787 species of plants grow in the reserve, including 180 herbs, and 50 species are included in the
Red Books of Russia and Buryatia.
What plants do you recognize in these pictures?
Rare species include an endemic tree, the Baikal swertia, which grows only in Khamar-Daban.
It has wide roundish leaves, dark-violet flowers shaped like stars, and a poplar fragrance. The
Swertia grows to a height of 30m, and its trunk is about 1.5m in diameter.
The Blue spruce is another tree of much interest, remarkable for the gray-blue colouring of its
needles, cone-shaped crown, and horizontally growing branches. The tree is frost-resistant, and
unfussy about its soil, capable of growing even in an urban environment, and can live for 400-600
years. The tree's ancestral home is in North America.
Baikal swertia
Sweet poplar
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Blue spruce
The Wild rosemary. It's a well spread bush with its height up to 2 m, of the heather family. A
wild rosemary grows in Eastern Siberia, it often makes tangles in piny and larch forests. The leaves
blossom out after florescence. Flowers are of elliptical form, individual, pink.
In Greek the name means «a pink tree».
A wild rosemary is a harbinger of Baikal
spring. Florescence of a big amount of
pink flowers, especially when greenery
hasn't appeared yet, makes a feeling of
blooming garden on the coast of Baikal.
These amazing flowers start blooming
in May–June. Sprouts and leaves give a
strong aroma which causes guidiness.
All the parts of the bush are poisonous,
and they cause nausea.
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Fauna at the Baikalsky Reserve include very rare species such as the osprey, golden eagle,
sea eagle, black stork, and eagle owl, which feature in the Red Books of Russia and of Buryatia.
Birds worthy of mention at the Reserve include owls and taiga flycatchers.
The Owl is a non-migratory but wandering bird and very large: 63-66 cm long and
with wingspan of 130-140 cm. It weighs 1 kg
on average, eats rodents, and hunts during
daylight hours. The owl rarely builds its own
nest (at the tops of broken trees, high from
the ground) generally preferring old nests of
other birds. The owl is a symbol of wisdom.
The Taiga flycatcher is a red breasted bird,
which attracts attention by its unusual violin-like
song, which sometimes turns into a sound like
the crack of a dry tree. The flycatcher arrives in
May and flies away in September, living in high
trees of the mountain woods. It builds nests on
branches by the tree trunk, and lays 4-8 olivegreen eggs with red-brown spots. As the name
suggests, flycatchers feed on various flying insects.
Other protected species at the reserve include the River otter, a dexterous and flexible
animal with short, roundish ears with valves
which keep out water when the otter dives.
Its legs are short, with membranes between
the claws, and its front paws are shorter than
its back paws, which helps it to swim well. The
animal has a long brawny tail. The otter's fur is
waterproof, which helps it to keep warm.
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The Chipmunk. This small animal with an
elongate body and a long tail can be found in
the whole forest zone of Buryatia, The body's
length is 13–16 cm, the tail's length is 8–10 cm.
The color of the body is red with dark lengthwise stripes. It lives in coniferous and mixed
forest, in bushes on the coasts of rivers and low
forest. It climbs trees, lives in holes or fallen
tree holes. The chipmunk leads a daylight way
of life. It eats seeds of coniferous trees, berries,
grass, mushrooms mainly. Also it eats insects,
worms, birds egges. By autumn time it already
has rich stores, sometimes about 5 kg of cedar
nuts which it eats in the early spring. A shechipmunk can have 4–5 cubs. In a month they
start walking out of the hole, and in two-monthold age they lead an independent way of life.
In September-November the chipmunk falls
into hibernation. It wakes up in April–May. The
chipmunk is not afraid of a man; it gets used to
a man quite quickly and can live not far from
his dwelling
You know the Brown bear from fairy tales,
legends and poems, and it was also the symbol of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.
The bear looks clumsy and slow – to call someone “as clumsy as a bear” is proverbial. But this
is a false impression: in fact, the brown bear is
dexterous, fast, a good swimmer and capable
or swarming easily up trees.
Its claws are long (about 10 cm), sharp and
of a black color. It can easily break an elk's spine
with one blow, and it stalks its prey silently despite is huge weight. The bear is also skillful
fisherman, and has a sweet tooth that makes
its partial to honey. The bear sleeps in its den
for nearly half a year, and lives for more than
45 years. Hunting brown bear hunting is strictly
limited.
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The Baikal-Lensky Nature Reserve
This reserve, which was created in 1986,
takes its name from Lake Baikal and the Lena
river, one of Russia's greatest rivers, which rises
here and flows northwards to the Arctic Ocean.
It is the largest of the reserves around Lake
Baikal, covering an area of 659,000 hectares in
two districts of Irkutsk Region. The reserve was
set up to ensure protection of the environment
during construction of the Baikal-Amur railway,
which was accompanied by widespread tree
felling and a number of forest fires.
The Baikal-Lensky Reserve is home to 47
plant and animal that are endemic to Siberia, and
31 protected species of flowering plants, 11 of
which have been included in the Red Book of Russia. Two types of bulb plants are of particular
interest, as are various rare species of mushrooms and lichens. This is the only part of the Baikal
mountain ridges where one can find such endemics as the Baikal sulla, sharp-leafed oxytrope,
cotoneaster tjuliniae, and Popov's poppy.
Turchaninov's tussock grass is a Baikal endemic, registered in the Red Book of Russia, which
grows on sands and stony slopes. It is 20–60 cm high with narrow leaves and is also found at the
Barguzin reserve.
The Altai onion is a perennial grassy bulb
plant of the herb family, which flowers in early
June. It is used in traditional medicine as an antimicrobic and a tonic to improve digestion.
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The Siberian globeflower, more known as a “flameflower” is called in honor of its brightlyorange color. It is a grassy perennial plant, an early blossoming decorative plant. It grows in coniferous and mixed forests, on forest clearings, meadows. The flowers are large up to 5 cm in the
diameter.
In the past the flowers were used for painting fabric into a yellow color. The Siberian globeflower is a quickly blossoming plant; it blooms for about 20 days (from the beginning of June). The
seeds are spread from the second decade of July.
The Siberian globeflower is a medical plant. It has an antibacterial action. In the Tibetan medicine it is used for treating eye-sight weakening; in Mongolian medicine for treating diseases of
gastrointestinal disturbance and as a tonic. The melliferous flower is registered into the Red Book
of Buryatia.
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The Baikal-Lensky reserve has a great variety of fauna, including 261 bird species, of which
18 types are registered in the Red Book of Russia, and 6 are in the Red Book of the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (the white-tailed sea eagle, bustard, imperial eagle, Baikal
teal, osprey and greater spotted eagle).
Many native animals of the taiga are
also to be found here: squirrels, sables,
elks, chipmunks, and red-gray voles,
and birds such as the nutcracker, wood
grouse and hazel grouse. Animals that
can be found in the high-mountain tundra
include wild reindeer, white and tundra
partridges, and the black-hat groundhog.
Steppe fauna include the long-tailed gopher, daurian jackdaw and ruddy shelduck. The symbol of the Baikalo-Lensky
reserve is the brown bear, which lives
here in large numbers, and the Lake
shoreline of the reserve is even known as
the “brown bear coast”: in the early summer six or seven bears can be seen on the beach at once
time, absorbed in hunting for caddis flies, bullhead fish and fish spawn.
There are about 15 species of fish living in water spaces at the reserve. The Lena river is inhabited by a Siberian grayling, common cisco, lenok, whitefish and burbot. Pike and perch are found
only in the Northern Lake on the Pokoiny cape. Taimen used to live here before the reserve was
established and there are plans to re-introduce them. Dwarf forms of the grayling and the Siberian
loach are found in mountain lakes, and minnows swim in the local rivers.
Moor frogs and Siberian wood frogs are to be found
at the reserve, particular in the Lena river valley, as well
as the Siberian salamander. This amphibian is particularly fond of taiga river valleys, the shores of lakes, bogs
with high grass, and damp meadows. The salamander
grows to about 16 cm, half of which is its tail. It has a
wide head, which is slightly flat, and four short legs.
The top part of its body is brown, its stomach is lightcoloured, and it has dark patches all over.
Siberian salamanders migrate to shallow, well-warmed water spaces in order to breed. They
spawn in May-June, attaching the spawn to water plants or stones. The larvae develop for about a
month, and young salamanders take to the land in July-August, where they feed on
spiders, flies, land mollusks, and grasshoppers. They go into hibernation in the second half of
September or October. Salamander populations have declined due to the destruction of habitats
and pollution of water spaces.
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National parks
Unlike reserves, the purpose of national parks is not only to protect unique flora and fauna, but
also to enable people to admire it. There may specially reserved zones in national parks where
rare plants and animals are found, as well as human settlements that still observe a traditional way
of life. National parks are protected by strict rules, in the same way as nature reserves.
National parks are extensive natural territories with remarkable landscape features,
where various outdoor tourist activities and educational tourism are encouraged, provided that the natural environment is carefully protected.
National parks are open to visitors, but groups and individual visitors
must be registered by the park administration and show the route plan for
their visit as well as the estimated time of their return, thus ensuring protection of the environment and the safety of the visitors themselves.
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The Tunkinsky National Park
The Tunkinsky national park was established in 1991 on an area of 11,836 square
kilometers and is among the largest national
parks in Russia.
The distinctive feature of the park is the
combination of nature protection with active
economic activity (agriculture, wood industry).The park combines protection of nature
with various economic activities (agriculture
and forestry), as well as popular tourist resorts
(Arshan and Nilova Pustyn), and hot and cold
springs with curative properties. The park occupies the whole of the Tunkinskaya valley, the
Khamar-Daban and the East Sayan Mountains, including the peak of Munku-Sardyk (3491 m).
Some 68 plants species at the park are registered in the Red Books of Buryatia and Russia, including the Tangut aconite, which is now threatened with disappearance, and the Sayan buttercup, which grows in the Alpine belt on damp meadows, near springs, on the edges of streams,
and along the upper reaches of the Ekhe-Ugun river.
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The Megadeniya Bardunova is a mediumsized plant of the cruciferous family, named after a distinguished botanist and biologist, Leonid Vladimirovich Bardunov, who discovered it
as recently as 1953, when he was a student at
Irkutsk University. Only very few samples of the
plant have been found. It is an annual, stemless
plant with rounded, heart-shaped leaves having small, white flowers, which grow close to
the root on very short peduncles.
Many plants that grow in the Tunkinsky park
have medicinal qualities. They include the Juniper, an evergreen coniferous bush that grows
to 1-3m. It is found in mountainous habitats
and is used in traditional medicine as an antiinflammatory and disinfectant. Infusions and
broths made out of juniper fruits are useful in
treating diseases of the respiratory organs. Juniper oil is used as a balm for rheumatism, gout,
etc. The juniper has a pleasant smell. The Buryats have a very high regard for the juniper and
use it as a means of purification: juniper smoke
is believed to lift evil influences from houses,
objects and people.
Secret Corners of
Lake Baikal Box
The larch-unikum is found around the Arshan
tourist resort. This tree has diameter of 1.2
meters, grows to a height of over 30m and
can live for more than 500 years.
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A number of rare animal and bird species, which figure in the Red Book of Russia, are also to
be found in the Tunkinsky national park: reindeer, Siberian mountain goat, red wolf, snow leopard
(irbis), beaver, golden eagle, eagle-owl, and black stork.
The Reindeer is another “athlete” of the national park.
The animals weigh 150 kg, are more than 2m long and
about 1.2m high to the shoulders. Reindeer are stocky, with
large hooves and roundish, short ears. Both male and female animals have horns, which are arch-shaped and usually directed forward. Colouring in the winter-time is gray
(close to white) and in summer the hide takes on a brown
shade. Reindeer that live wild have less distinct colouring
compared with those, which are herded by the local inhabitants Wild reindeer feed mainly on lichens. In the summer
they eat grassy forage, mushrooms, and cowberry leaves.
The Siberian mountain goat is a large animal with big,
sabre-like, back-curved horns, which continue to grow
throughout the anima's life. The beard is dense and long,
and the animal's hooves are perfectly adapted to swarming
up stones and rocks. The goat eats cereals, beans, grass,
and onions. The female gives birth to 1-3 young.
The Khamar-Daban deer population is remarkable for having a small share of
calves – 8.2 %, so the number of animals is decreasing year by year. This
effect and shinkaage of the areas over which the animals roam has been
caused by human activity (hunting, fires, wood cutting). The deer are
also preyed on by wolves, wolverines and bears. The animals are
not shy of humans, so they can easily fall victim to hunters.
They are relatively safe only in virgin landscapes, where
they seldom come into contact with humans.
The Eagle owl differs from other types of owls by its
large size (it is nearly as large as a domestic goose), its colouring, and black, feathery ears. It has a strong, low-pitched
call (sounding like "u-hu-huuu"). Its colouring is usually red or
ocher, and the male and female birds both look the same.
The birds have yellow eyes. One-year old baby birds are already similar to their parents. The adult eagle owl weighs
2–3 kg and lives for about 20 years. The most interesting
feature of the eagle owl is its ability to turn its neck by 270
degrees. The bird has bewitching eyes, which can see in
the dark. Its diet is highly various, including voles, mice, gophers, groundhogs and chipmunks, which it catches at distances up to 7–10 km from the nest. The eagle owl begins
its hunting at the end of the day. The birds mate for life and
are highly territorial.
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The Zabaikalsky National Park
Visitors to Lake Baikal are always keen spend time
in the Zabaikalsky national park. You could be their
guide. Here is some information that will help you:
the park was founded in 1986, it covers an area of
267 000 hectares, and contains 17 outstanding natural landmarks, many of which were tourist attractions
since before the park's creation – the Ushkany islands,
the Chivyrkuysky Gulf (the most beautiful bay on
Baikal), the Svayatoy Nos peninsula, and Lake Arangatuy. Remind guests that they must keep to the paths
and only make halts at specially designated places.
You are already familiar with the Svyatoy Nos peninsula. You probably remember that there
are three settlements on the peninsula. But do you remember the main occupations of their inhabitants?
The most attractive and most visited place in the national park is the Chivyrkuysky Gulf. Its
extends for 25 km and has water depth between 5m and 10-15m (in the central part). There are
7 islands in the Gulf (access to visitors is limited).
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You have already met several of the plants, which
are to be found in the Trans-Baikal national park, including the Snowdon rose. In total there are about 1000
species of flowering plants in the park, of which 19 are
endemics.
A relic is a type of a plant or an animal
having preserved since the most ancient
times.
You could make a story about one unusual tree that is
to be found in the park, the chozenia. Visitors would be
interested to learn about this relic species of the willow
family (a “relic” species is one that has survived from
very ancient times).
The Crowberry (Empetrum sibiricum V. Vassil) Crowberry
(Black crowberry) is a small berry of black color. It's eatable, stony,
almost tasteless, neither sweet, not sour. It is an evergreen branchy
bush of the Empetrum family; its height is up to 25 cm. Long up
to one meter, dark-brown stalks of black crowberry creep on the
land; their ends rise up. With cold period they get dark obtaining
violet-black color. The crowberry's branches look like branches of
a coniferous tree bacause they are covered by small leaves reminding needles. The leaves are small, dark-green, stiff, subulate.
It starts blossoming as soon as snow melts. Its flowers are small,
tripetalous, pink or dark-red. They turn into fruitage – black with
grey bloom juicy berries. People gather the crowberry in August.
Apart fro the coast of Baikal the crowberry can be found on the
subalpine mountain zone of Eastern and Western Sayans. Young
sprouts of the crowberry are used as a medical means.
The Cowberry is a perennial plant. It grows on dry and damp
coniferous forests, in bushes, sometimes on peat boggs. The
plant's root is horizontal with rising branchy sprouts 15–20 cm
high. The leaves are coriaceous, on short leafstalks, elleptical, with
declinate edges.
Cowberry's globe-formed fruitage of red color on the background of green leaves, are eaten by animals and birds. Decoction
on the leaves is ised in medical purposes. Tea with cowberry jam
is a good sudorific. For a long storage fresh berries are covered
with sugar or water. Frozen berries are especially good for gamebird, also it is used for making sweets filling, marmalade, fruit
drink and jam.
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The park also has a huge variety of fauna, including several species that registered in the Red
Book of Russia. Bears, reindeer, black-hat groundhogs, wapiti, elks, red deer, sables, squirrels,
foxes and wolves are all to be found here, and water spaces in the park contain otters, a muskrats,
and Baikal seals. Looking up to the sky you can see white-tailed sea eagles, whooping swans,
black cranes, and black storks.
You can also see a bird we have not met before –
a member of the falcon order. What is it? Find out
more about it.
Sapsan
Falcon
The Grass-snake. This rare not nymerous
kind is met in the southern and central regions
of Buryatia and Eastern Pribaikalie.
It is a snake of medium and small size, with
a long and thin body, a well marked neck, a
small elongate head and a thin sharp at the end
of the tail. There is a yellowish or orange spot
on the back of the head. It doesn't have poisonous teeth. It inhabits coasts of reservoirs, bogs,
thermal springs. It winters in holes and crevices.
After wintering it appears at the end of Aprilbeginning of May, and in June-July it oviposits.
Natural factors (short non-frost period, low birth
rate, early summer frosts) as well as anthropogenic factors (cattle pasture, field works with a use
of technics their capture by locals and tourists) influence on the grass-snakes' population.
There is a remarkable abundance of ant hills
(6-7,000 of them) on the Ushkany islands.
They are not found in such numbers anywhere
else in Russia. The biggest ant hills are 170 cm
high and 310 cm across.
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Wildlife sanctuaries
In a wildlife sanctuary special protection rules do not
apply to all natural species, as in a nature reserve, but
only to particular species: the vegetation, or certain animal species, etc.
Wildlife sanctuaries are created for various purposes: to restore and increase populations of
animals that are hunted, to provide a rest zone for birds which are making their annual migration,
to protect places where fish spawn, etc. Hunting, fishing and some other activities are not permitted in such areas.
There are three state wildlife sanctuaries under federal control in the Republic of Buryatia – the
Altacheysky, Kabansky, Frolikhinsky wildlife areas, – occupying more than 180,000 hectares in
total. The Kabansky wildlife area is a part of the Baikal national biosphere park. There are also
17 wildlife areas in Buryatia under regional control. We will tell you about the two wildlife areas
which are located near Lake Baikal.
The Frolikhinsky Wildlife Sanctuary was
established in 1976 in the north of Buryatia. It
is a part of the central ecological zone of Lake
Baikal and is also part of a World Natural Heritage site.
The main landscape feature at the Frolikhinsky sanctuary is Lake Frolikha with its crystalclear glacial water. The landscape features here
are both beautiful and romantically named:
capes Ayaya, Frolikha, and Khaman-Kit, Papakha rock, and Frolikhinsky spring.
The area is home to several large animals,
including elk, wapiti, musk-deer, wild reindeer,
bear, and wolverine as well as ermine, foxes
and wolves. Some animals are under special
protection: the otter, osprey, white-tailed sea
eagle, black-hat groundhog, and one fish – the
Frolikh char. The Frolikhinsky wildlife sanctuary
and Lake Frolikha are very popular destinations
for visitors.
152
Another wildlife area, the Enkhalooksky Sanctuary, is located in Kabansky District and was set up in 1995 to protect and
restore populations of animals that are hunted along the coast of
Lake Baikal, particularly the wapiti and elk. The area is home to
elk, wapiti, wild boar, bear, white hare and many other animals
that we already know. Birdlife includes the great bittern, gray
crane, Caspian tern, eagle owl, and the white-backed woodpecker, all of which are registered in the Red Book of Buryatia.
The origin of the place name “Enkhalooksky” is uncertain, but most
specialists derive it from the word "Enkhe", which means "good fortune"
in the Buryat language. The name of the Frolikhinsky wildlife area and
of the river and lake, which are located there, is believed to derive from
Frol, one of many Russian settlers who came to the shores of Baikal in
the 17th and 18th centuries (a nearby cape is called after Frol). It is also
possible that the name is connected to the char fish that are found in the
Lake, since some old written sources call these fish “trout” (“forel” in
Russian).
153
Natural monuments
Dear friend! Lake Baikal Box has taught you a lot of new and interesting facts about the unique
landscapes of Baikal's shoreline: its rocks, capes, islands, plants and animals. Some of them have
become symbols of Baikal. As well as its parks and reserves, Baikal has a number of landscape
features that are considered to be “natural landmarks” in their own right. The term “natural landmark” was first coined by the German scientist, Alexander Humboldt (he used it to refer to a
particular tree of unique size and shape), but what exactly do we mean by a “natural landmarks”?
Looking at the encyclopedia, we find:
Natural monuments are natural objects that have scientific, historical, cultural and educational and aesthetic value (waterfalls, unique trees, etc., which are protected by the state).
Scientists often disagree about the natural sites that deserve to be classed as monuments.
They may be ancient trees, rocks, or islands. What natural monuments can we find on Baikal?
There are the Ushkany islands, and many other unique and mysterious natural phenomena – trees
on stilts, singing sands. So many that it is impossible to name them all!
Mysteries of the Ushkany Islands
The Ushkany Islands are unique (although they are
from being the only unique islands on Lake Baikal) and objects of fascination to scientists and researchers on account
of their mysterious origin, and unique flora and fauna. You
already know that the Ushkany archipelago consists of four
islands, and you probably remember where their strange
name came from. Do hares have anything to do with the
Islands' name? Tell your friends about it.
The Ushkany Islands are 7 km to the west of the Svyatoy Nos peninsula, and their total area is 10 sq.km. Big
Ushkany Island has a meteorological station and is part of
the Trans-Baikal national park. Look carefully at the photo.
What animal does this creation of nature remind you of?
Round Island is closest of all to the Svyatoy Nos peninsula, and Long Island is (unsurprisingly) the longest in the
archipelago (it is 1.25 km long). Bailal's greatest colony of
gulls is to be found on the southern side of Long Island.
What other creatures are found on the Ushkany Islands?
There are about 2000 seals living on the western side of
Thin Island, which is framed by a beautiful “necklace” of
malachite (its bright green is visible in shallow water).
Look attentively at the photo.
What animal does this creation of nature remind of?
154
The “Singing sands” of Turali
Turali, with its remarkable "singing sands",
is one of the most visited places around Lake
Baikal. The native people of the northeast
shore of Baikal – the Evenks – knew of the singing sands long ago. The small cape of Turali was
already marked on old maps of the Lake. On
sandy beaches in a blustery wind and sometimes during a surf the sand makes a creaking
sound, like new shoes or the touch of a bow
on a violin string. There are many legends associated with "singing sands”: they have been
interpreted as siren voices tempting travelers
into the desert, or the ringing of bells in cities
covered with sand. The explanation for “singing sands” remains mysterious and the sensation they arouse is uncanny – as if the earth began to sing beneath your feet. In fact, the sound
is closer to a melodious whistle than to a song.
Where else in the world can we find singing
sands?
The Stilted trees
Peschanaya Bay (“Sandy” Bay) is a popular and
picturesque spot. It is sometimes called the Siberian Riviera on account of its golden sandy
beaches, cedar taiga and the emerald water of
the Lake. Peschanaya is considered a natural
monument due to its “stilted trees” – ancient
larches that are bent in freakish form, and stand
on natural stilts, that are taller than a man's
height. The stilted trees are found on the northern slope of Sandy Bay, where water and wind
constantly wash and blow soil away from under
them, leaving the tree roots exposed.
The Ininsky stone garden, to be found 15 km
from the village of Suvo in the Barguzin valley, presents a spectacle of various and different-sized stones, which seems to have grown
from under the ground. These boulders are up
to 4–5 m in diameter. One researcher on Lake
Baikal, Vladimir Lamakin, believes that these
boulder heaps are glacial deposits, dating from
over 100 000 years ago. Another explanation
is that the stones were hurled into their present
position by some natural cataclysm.
155
The word "turali" in the Evenk
language means «rattling,
singing sand».
Children, to round off our story about nature reserves,
here are some important rules that you
MUST ALWAYS OBEY WHEN YOU VISIT SUCH PLACES:
you can only visit reserves and protected natural areas
with the permission of their administration;
DO NOT:
you must not dig holes to leave rubbish;
you must not pick flowers;
you must not damage trees and bushes;
you must not cut your "autographs"
on stones or trees or anything else;
you must not gather plants, herbs or stones.
156
Peoples of Baikal
More than 100 nationalities live in peace
and harmony on the shores of Baikal, sharing
the invaluable wealth of friendship between
peoples.
Now let's learn about how human settlers
came to Baikal and its territories.
Various tribes and nationalities have been
living round Baikal since ancient times different.
In the 3rd century B.C. the region was settled
by the Kurykans, which were nomadic tribes of
Turkic origin. Their livelihood depended on cattle breeding.
The next to arrive were the Tungus or Evenk
people, who lived in river valleys and specialized in hunting and reindeer breeding. Later
Mongol-speaking tribes settled around Baikal.
The Buryats had a semi-nomadic way of life.
Russian settlers came to Baikal in the 17th century. Unlike the Buryats and Evenks, the Russians had a settled way of life: they cultivated
the land, grew crops, made tools, and built
towns and villages.
Later arrivals include Tatars, immigrants from
Belarus and Ukraine, and exiled Poles.
157
The Evenks
The Evenks have lived in the taiga beyond
Baikal since ancient times.
The earliest records concerning the Evenks
are in the works of Gmelin, Middendorf and
Pallas, who refer to them as “Tungus”. One
comment by these authors tells us that the Tungus are “obliging without servility, proud and
courageous”.
The traditional way of life of the Evenks was
nomadic or semi-nomadic. They engaged in
hunting, fishing and reindeer breeding, and
also excelled in various crafts: forging metal,
making implements out of the bone and hides
of wild animals and reindeer, building sledges
and skis, etc. They have a reputation as excellent forest hunters and pathfinders.
The Evenks (the self-name –
orochen, Tungus).
158
The Evenks dress differently in the summer
and winter and for festive occasions, and there
are marked differences between the clothes
worn by men and women.
“Their costumes are like the waistcoats of
Spanish grandees” wrote the exiled Decembrist, Wilhelm Kuechelbeker, who was delighted by the Evenks and called them “Siberian
aristocrats”.
The Evenks are still well-established in their
traditional territories, which cover almost the
whole of Eastern Siberia.
National dishes of the Evenks include silavun (the meat of a wild animal or fish, fried on a spit),
kulnin (dried meat dipped in flour and boiled in water with berries) and seven (bear meet crumbled into small pieces and fried in bear fat).
The Evenks lived in tent dwellings (“chumy”), covered with birch bark in
the summer and deer skins in winter. These shelters give excellent
protection from frost and the north wind, and can be erected in less
than twenty minutes!
159
The Buryats
The Buryats are a native people of Eastern Siberia who have inhabited the area that
is now the Republic of Buryatia, Irkutsk Region
and Zabaykalsky Territory for many centuries.
The Buryat tribes are first mentioned in the Sacred Legend, a renowned Mongolian chronicle
of the early 13th century. The Buryats who settled around Baikal chose a way of live that suited
their surroundings. Their skills included hunting
and fishing, and later farming the land. The Buryats excel particularly in cattle breeding.
Under Russian rule the Buryat groups and
tribes came together to form a distinct community – the Buryat ethnic group – by the end of the
19th century. But several separate Buryat clans
can still be recognized: the Bulagaty, Ekhirity,
Hori, Hongodory, etc.
Various legends have survived about the emergence of the Buryat
tribes. The Buryats connect their origin with particular animals and
birds. The Hori Buryaty tribe, for example is supposedly descended
from a divine swan-girl who had to marry the sharp-witted Horidoy,
after he stole her swan clothes when she was bathing. She bore him
11 sons who were the ancestors of the Hori Buryats, but then
tricked her husband, took back her swan clothes and left her
family, saying:“You, earth dwellers, stay here, and I will
fly to my homeland in the skies!”.
160
The traditional dwelling of the Buryats is the
yurt. A yurt can be made of felt, and also of
logs or planks. The dome-shaped ceiling stands
on four columns and has a hole to give light
and allow smoke to escape from the central fire
place. The entrance to the yurt is on its southern side. The interior of the yurt is divided into
two parts: for men (on the left) and for women
(on the right).
A decorated post for tethering horses stands
in front of the yurt.
Surkharban is a buryat sport holiday. Its old
name is “Eryn gurban naadan” (“Three games of
men”). Necessary competitions in three kinds
of sport take place at the holiday – archery,
horse racing and wrestling. During the holiday
a famous dance called Yokhor is danced.
The holiday of White Month or Sagaalgan
goes back to the ancient national and religious
traditions of Mongolian peoples. It’s a symbol
of man’s and nature’s renewal, openness and
purity of thoughts, hope and good expectations. The name of the holiday comes from the
word “sagaan” which means “white”. Earlier
“White Month” was considered to be a holiday of dairy products and was celebrated in autumn. Nowadays the holiday of White Month
is celebrated as the New Year according to the
lunar calendar.
The best known Buryat dish is buuzy, which
is steamed in a way similar to the Central Asian
manty. Other traditional foods are milk and
dairy products: salamat and urme, which are
made from beaten milk, as well as sour milk,
and dried pressed curds (huruud) which cattlefarmers ate instead of bread.
161
The Russians
The first Russians who came to Baikal were Cossacks, sent there
by order of the Tsar to settle this part of Siberia. They engaged in
farming and cattle breeding, crafts, hunting and fishing. They brought
their own folk culture with them to the new place of settlement,
but also enriched it with new Siberian cultural elements, learning to
build houses that can withstand the bitter Siberian cold and to grow
bread, wheat and other crop types. Later, more Russians came to
Baikal from many different regions, particularly after the emancipation of the serfs, when development of these virgin lands offered
great opportunities.
The Old Believers are a particularly interesting
part of the Russian community around Baikal.
162
The Old Believers came into existence as a result of the
schism that accompanied Russian church reforms in the 17th
century, and migrated to Siberia in order to escape persecution. The Old Believers had large families (hence their other
name, “Semeiskiye”, which means “family people”) with as
many as 10 or 20 children. They grew wheat, kept cattle and
were the first in Siberia to grow vegetables. The Old Believers of Trans-Baikal are still unique in maintaining a traditional
Russian way of life that has been lost elsewhere.
The “Semeiskiye” are respected for their devotion to hard
work, strict observance of old customs and adherence to different rules, which helped them to survive in the Siberian
climate.
They observe high moral standards: not to abuse alcohol
or to smoke, and to maintain a strong commitment to the
family. These habits have ensured good health and long life
in their community.
Descendants of the Trans-Baikal Old Believers live today
in the Republic of Buryatia (Bichursky, Zaigraevsky,
Mukhorshibirsky and Tarbagataisky Districts), also a number
of villages: Novo Desyatnitskoe village (Kyakhtinsky
District), Yagodnoe village (Selenginsky District), Hasurta
village (Horinsky District), Leonovka and Voznesenovka
villages (Kizhinginsky District), and in the cities of UlanUde and Gusinoozersk. Many Old Believers also
live in Krasnochikoysky District, which is part
of Trans-Baikal Region.
163
Ecological traditions and
customs of the Buryat Peoples
Ecological traditions are the sum of national knowledge and skills gained in
the process of human interaction with the natural surroundings, formed under
the influence of culture, standards, ideals and stereotypes of thought, which
are transmitted from generation to generation.
“Ecological traditions” can be in the nature of recommendations or absolute prohibitions concerning human action in the environment. The first call on us to avoid disturbing mother-earth
without any need: not to damage and dig into the earth, except on arable land and at farmsteads,
or the recommendation to use dead wood and not live wood for making fires.
There are also many prohibitions: not to pour water on a forest path, to cut down trees near
settlements, to cut pine, fir or cedar trees, and to kill certain animal species.
Boys and girls, let's make a checklist of the ecological principles, which are applied by the people living
around Lake Baikal. This is very important because national beliefs, customs, traditions have always been
used for the protection of nature. Then you can tell your friends and visitors to Baikal all about them.
Since ancient times all peoples have respected five natural elements: water, fire, land, air, wood.
Water
All peoples have treated water with
care since ancient times. Water was
honored as a pure element. In old Russia water was a means of purification
and at the same time a source of power. People organized their merrymaking and fortune-telling near water. The
religious attitude to water among the
Buryat people is connected with belief
in a water spirit, called "Lusaday Khan."
Remind your friends that people should
not profane water, do their laundry or
wash cars in reservoirs.
Earth
Many peoples call the earth the great provider.
In ancient times it was considered a terrible sin to move stones, to
dig and damage the earth's surface without any need, and to spill
cow's or mare's milk on the earth. A person who cleans roads is
considered to be a benefactor, and he also clears the path through
life path for his descendants. So it is always a good deed to clear
obstacles from a road. When you cultivate the land you should not
leave stakes and tools in the ground when they are not longer necessary, because they are like splinters in a finger. When tubers and
roots of plants have been dug out, the ground should be leveled
and not left uneven.
164
Fire
Fire is a symbol of life and was respected as one
of the most formidable forces of nature for both
good and evil. Fire must be clean: you should not
step over it or throw garbage into it.
The sun is the sky's fire and the home hearth is
the earth's fire, so it should be treated with respect.
Ancient people believed that flames were alive and
needed food and drink.
It is good to give a present to the fire spirit, splashing fresh tea and throwing meat slices into the fire.
Air
Air is the basic element of life. Every living
being needs it. All peoples consider it sinful to
pollute the air in holy places with smoke.
The Buryats clean the air with a special aroma, which they call “Sanzei” (Bogorodskaya
dried grass, or “Aya-ganga” in the Buryat language), and Russians use incense (an aromatic
substance that includes the juice and pitch of
different plants)
Wood
There is a strong cult of respect and worship for wood among many peoples. The oak
was sacred to the Slavs, who viewed it as the
“world tree” and as the essence of maleness,
while a birch tree was close to femininity. The
Slavs planted an oak if a boy was born and a
birch or a pine for the birth of a girl.
The Buryats believed that by cutting down
a tree without reason you would shorten your
own life and that of your descendants. It was
forbidden to cut down trees without need, and
to cut down a tree that stood alone was particularly sinful.
Boys and girls, you shouldn't break branches
or scrape the bark from a tree, because it is a
living being and feels pain like we do.
165
There is a superstition that if you want to come back to Lake Baikal you
should throw a coin into the water. This will symbolize that you have
treated the Lake well, pacified it, and showed your respect, so the Lake
will not prevent you from coming back.
Another belief connected with water was that fertile
rain could be brought on by clearing springs and wells,
and deepening the channels of streams. Light rain could
be encouraged by throwing grain into a well and for heavy
rain people threw peas.
Children in Buryat families were taught to respect the
land. Damaging and desecrating the environment could
merit punishment as serious as the death penalty. Even
socks in Buryat boots (called “gutuls”) were turned upwards to avoid stumbling and offending the ground.
According to ancient beliefs, the forest has two owners: Borovoi and Grandfather Woodsman, who keep a
strict guard over the forest. Anyone who injures the forest
will be punished, as the forest guards will call their friends,
“Manila” and “Uvodila”, to help punish the malefactor.
There is a tradition in Buryatia of decorating the branches of certain trees with ribbons and scraps of new fabric.
A tree that stands alone in the steppe is also sacred, and
passers-by should stop and make a ritual offering of food,
coins, or coloured fabric.
166
Ecological problems of Baikal
Dear children, we have come to the end of our journey across Baikal. Now you know that we
live in one of the most remarkable places on earth, on the shore of the deepest, the most ancient
and one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. But, unfortunately, not everybody treats it properly and shows due respect towards the natural environment. In this part we will tell you about
ecological problems of the Lake and of the landscapes and habitats around it. We hope that you
will then be among those who are ready to protect the unique natural wonder, which is Lake
Baikal.
“Ecology” is a word from Ancient Greek, meaning “the science concerning
home or dwelling place”. It studies all the complex interrelations in nature,
the interactions between living organisms and non-living matter. The term
was first coined by a German scientist, Ernst Haeckel, in 1866.
The Ecological problems of Lake Baikal arise mainly from human activity and particularly from
the operations of industrial enterprises along its shoreline and in its drainage basin.
A drainage basin is the zone from which rivers, lakes or seas collect their
water: it includes underground water sources, streams, and ponds from
which water gathers, flows and falls into a river, and then into a lake or sea.
It includes also the natural area from which water flows down to rivers and
lakes after rain. Quality of the lake water also depends on agriculture: waste
from animal husbandry, and soil erosion.
167
Human activity on the shores of Lake Baikal
Human beings have not always caused harm to the Lake. The difficulties have arisen gradually. We
can separate the recent history of human activity on Lake Baikal into several stages.
The first stage is the end of the 19th and start
of the 20th centuries, which was a time of discovery and application of new scientific inventions, and improving technology: universal application of steam engines, invention of cars,
electricity, and the construction of railways, including the rail link from Moscow to the coast
of the Pacific Ocean, one part of which was laid
along the shore of Lake Baikal.
The second stage dates from the 1930s,
when there was rapid development of forestry
and wood processing. Forests on the slopes
of mountain ranges around Lake Baikal were
felled and timber was floated down rivers and
over the Lake.
Some of the timber sank and decayed at the
bottom of rivers, polluting them and reducing
the populations of some fishes and animals:
black and white grayling, taimen, otters and
other species that can only live in clean water.
Different types of wood were floated down rivers: pine,
birch and larch. The larch often sank.
The third stage began in 1959 when work
started on a hydroelectric power station on the
Angara River, as a result of which the water level in Lake Baikal rose by one meter. The shore
territory along the east coast of the lake was
flooded, the area of bogs increased, and populations of some fish, which were important for
fisheries, declined due to decline in numbers
of crustaceans (particularly epischuras) in the
Lake.
168
The fourth stage was in the 1960s-80s when
the Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant (BPPP) was built
at the southern end of the Lake and the BaikalAmur Railway (BAM) was built around its northern shores, disturbing the Lake's ecosystem.
The fifth stage, which dates from the 1990s,
has seen large-scale poaching both on the lake
itself and in the surrounding forest, involving
illegal catches of valuable fish species (omul,
and sturgeon) as well as hunting for fur animals
(sable, fox, and seal).
Boys and girls, unbridled human activity causes huge damage to the environment. Deforestation, fires, uncontrolled ploughing, and uprooting of forests have led to wind and water erosion.
As a result, more than 10 species of birds that live around Baikal (whooper swan, tundra swan,
gray goose, shelduck, etc.) have ceased to nest, and their numbers have declined sharply. Various
plants and animals, which are biological pollutants, have also appeared: Canadian pondweed, the
Amur catfish, the Amur sleeper, and many others.
Erosion (”corrosion” in Latin) - corrosion of rocks and soils by surface water
floods and winds. It includes a break and carrying out of material wreckage
and their further measures.
Define, what kinds of erosion are represented in the pictures.
Explain, why it happens in nature. Do you think it’s possible to
prevent it?
169
The principal pollutant of Baikal is the Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant (BPPP) which dumps its foul
water directly into the Lake and emits pungent, suffocating gas and vapors from cooked pulp, polluting the air and river tributaries running into Baikal. Many people ask: “Why was this plant built
on the shore of Baikal? Is it impossible to produce paper, cardboard and pulp somewhere else?”
Children, you know that the water in the Lake is so pure that it is close to the quality of distilled water. Such water is needed for pulp processing, which is why the BPPP was built on Baikal
in 1966. The cellulose made at the plant is used for production of special aircraft tires, and also
to make carbon for the defense industry, which can withstand temperatures of several thousand
degrees. The forests around Baikal provide raw material for the plant. Imagine how many trees
are cut down to feed the plant!
Another plant produces cardboard and paper on the banks of
the Selenga River (the Selenginsky Pulp and Paper Plant), but it
uses a closed production cycle, which prevents direct discharge
of foul water into the river.
170
Another major source of water pollution in Baikal is the Selenga River, the largest inflow to the
Lake. The river delta is a center for migratory birds and the main spawning place for the Baikal
omul. The main pollutants of the Selenga River are large industrial enterprises on the territory of
the Republic of Buryatia. Sewage treatment plants account for 35% of foul water flows into the
Selenga.
Enterprises in Trans-Baikal region also create pollution: the town of Petrovsk-Zabaykalsky and the
village of Krasny Chikoy are located on the Chikoy and Hilok rivers, which are the main tributaries
of the Selenga river.
The Selenga River has its source in Mongolia, and the river also takes in pollutants in that country
(created by industrial and mining plants, and by agriculture).
Other pollution of Baikal water
comes from industrial facilities in
Russian cities and towns nearly
the Lake, including Irkutsk, Angarsk, Cheremkhovo and UsolyeSibirskoye.
The Irkutsk hydroelectric power
station, shipping on Baikal, and
the Trans-Siberian Railway have
negative impacts on water level
in the Lake.
171
SOS! Fire!
The greatest threat to the forest around Baikal is from fires,
which are particularly destructive for coniferous forest, since it
takes longer to restore.
Fires are usually caused by people who fail to put out a camp
fire or throw down a burning match or cigarette. Very rarely fires
are started by lightning.
Fire destroys the habitat of birds and insects and its aftermath is a ”green desert” of deforested
land covered by shrubs and grass. Until the taiga is restored, only poor-quality species of wood
will grow. What would happen if the Lake did not have forests around it? Rains water would wash
earth down into the Lake in a dirty avalanche, the rivers and streams feeding the lake would dry
up, and Baikal would turn into a big, dirty reservoir.
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172
Garbage left behind by people is a major problem for
Baikal. You have probably seen yourself how much garbage
people leave behind –glass and plastic bottles, plastic bags,
tins, etc. Thousands of people come to the Lake shore every day, so you can imagine how much waste accumulates.
Paper takes only 15 days to break down in earth, but a can
takes 20 years, and plastic does not decompose at all.
What must you do to reduce the quantity of garbage left
around the Lake?
Remember these simple rules:
places where there are
Don't throw down garbage in
no special bins.
lk or picnic, collect your
After you have finished your wa
nearest garbage bin or box.
garbage and take it away to the
ween three different
It is important to distinguish bet
types of waste:
l origin (vegetables, fruit, meat
a) Products of plant and anima
urally;
products), which decompose nat
y can be recycled);
b) Paper, glass, plastic, metal (the
luminescent lamps,
c) Thermometers with mercury,
cial recycling).
used batteries (they require spe
Following these simple rules, you can help
to save our unique lake.
173
I am an ecologist!
Dear boys and girls, garbage is one of the main ecological problems for Baikal today. We ask
you to discuss this very important topic in your classroom, and to carry out some experiments.
Questions for discussion:
What will archeologists of the future be able to learn about our civilization from investigating our
garbage heaps?
What is the difference between waste and garbage?
What can be reused?
What can be recycled?
What are the difficulties in processing garbage?
What resources can be saved by recycling of waste?
How can garbage be processed and what are the most efficient ways of processing it?
What do you and your relatives do with garbage?
Glass is one of types of garbage.
What can we do with empty glass bottles?
What can be made from glass?
Why is glass a suitable raw for cookware production?
What are advantages and disadvantages of things made of plastic?
Plastic is the type of garbage that takes longest to decompose.
What do you think what plastic is made of?
Why is plastic used to make certain things?
What are advantages and disadvantages of things made of plastic?
Experiment №1.
"The impact of heat on plastic"
Experiment №2.
“Does plastic decompose? “
Tools and materials: a hand-dryer with a clamp
or vise, a pair of tweezers, different things made
of plastic (spoons, containers from food), and a
stopwatch.
Work process: dig various plastic bags into
the ground, and nearby dig in the same
amount of bags made from paper.
Topic issue: How does heat influence plastic?
Work process: using tweezers, you can hold
one of plastic things under the stream of hot air
coming from the hair dryer. Write it down what
you have noticed. Try to do the same in turns
with other things with a help of tweezers.
Questions for self-checkup: What do you
think what will happen to the paper and
plastic bags? In a few weeks time dig the
bags out of the ground. Compare your hypothesis with the actual result. Do you think
plastic can be recycled? What things can be
made from recycled plastic?
What did this experience help you to learn
about plastic and its production?
174
I am an ecologist!
Project: Pines and Needles
Baikal's shores are surrounded by green. People often go to the
forest to admire its beauty, breathe the fresh air and to listen to the
silence. But not everyone knows which tree species make up Baikal's
green necklace. Find the odd-one-out in the following list. Indeed,
these plants have a feature, by which you can select two “odd” species. Find them.
Pine, fir, cedar, Siberian dwarf-pine, larch, Siberian spruce
Why exactly them?
The trees that you have selected belong to coniferous species.
They differ from other plants because:
– Coniferous trees have needle leaves;
– Coniferous trees are also called “evergreen”;
– Coniferous trees have cones.
STAGE 1 OF THE PROJECT: multi-coloured reading
Read the text to learn about those coniferous trees
which grow on the shore of Baikal. Use colour pencils
to shade them:
– for the tree’s crown
– for cones
– for needles
– for growth conditions
175
Project: Pines and Needles.
Use these data to fill in the comparative table
Name of
plants
Crown shape
Cone features
Needle
features
Common Pine
Siberian pine
Siberian
spruce
Fir
Cedar
Siberian Larch
176
Growth
condition
Importance in
nature and for
people
The Siberian spruce
The Siberian spruce is a slim evergreen tree, which
grows as high as 50m, with trunk diameter up to 2m. Unlike the pine, the spruce has a cone-shaped crown. Spruce
needles are small (about 1.5 cm long) and do not form
bunches, but stay separate, forming a thick covering. The
needles have a life of 6 or 7 years. A Siberian spruce has
long beautiful cones, about 10-12 cm tall. A young spruce
has a dense, often narrow top, while older trees usually
have a wide and spreading top.
A spruce forest is dark, quiet and damp, with little light
and few insects.
The spruce can also be used to build houses, as well as
for making pulp and paper, essential oils, and even ascorbic acid. Some stringed musical instruments are made
from spruce wood.
The life-cycle of the Pallas' warbler, the smallest bird
in Buryatia, is closely connected with the tree. This shy
bird, weighing just 3-7 grams, builds its nest at the base of
spruce branches making it almost impossible to see and to
approach.
The Siberian larch
A larch is one of few coniferous species that shed their needles during the winter, thereby retaining moisture, which it badly needs in the winter months. In the springtime the long, thin branches
of the larch are covered with needles that look like soft, green brushes. In autumn larch forests
flash with a golden light, and the queen of the Siberian forest sheds her raiment at the first frosts.
Winged seeds fly out of the ripe cones at the same time.
Larch has been valued as excellent ship-building wood
since earliest times, and larch forests were called “ship
groves”. Its high concentration of resin protects larch
wood from rot, and the timber may last for hundreds and
even thousands of years. The larch lives for about 400500 years and withstands cold winters, so it can be seen
even far beyond the Arctic circle.
The tree can also resist southern heat and drought. The
larch is fond of light, and therefore has an open crown
that allows light to penetrate. Straight-growing larches
can grow into forest giants with height of 40–45m and a
trunk diameter greater than 1,5 m.
177
The Fir
The fir looks very like the spruce; having the same
dense, conical and feather-edged crown. The two trees
can be easily confused at a distance, but are easily distinguishable close up.
Fir needles are rather different from those of the
spruce, being flat with a rounded top. There are two
waxy white lines on the bottom side of each needle and
the upper side of the needles is a monotone dark green
with a glossy surface. Fir needles are arranged on the
branches one by one like spruce needles, but they live
longer (up to 10–12 years) and are soft to the touch. Fir
cones point upwards like candles on a Christmas tree.
The trunk is covered by a light gray, smooth bark but
older trees often have some splits in their bark. The trunk
itself is very slender and straight.
Fir trees like shadow, so it is always very dark in a fir
forest. The tree resists cold, but it requires humidity, so
firs will only grow where the level of air humidity is high
enough. The fir is very particular about its soil and will not grow on poor sandy soil and in bogs.
Fir wood is soft, weak, and rots easily. It is used in the perfumery industry because it contains
special aromatic substances that can be used to produce perfume and soap and which are not
found in the needles of other trees.
The Common pine
The common pine is a slim, evergreen tree, which
grows as high as 40 m. Pines seek light, so the bottom
branches usually die off and the trunk becomes a slender column pointing up to the sky. The pine has a mastlike crown. Pine forests are always light and it is possible
to see a long way through the forest. Pine needles form
bunches of two needles each.
Pines are not particular about their soil quality, which
may be dry or boggy. Pines that grow on sandy soil send
down deep roots to find water, so they stand up well to
high winds.
The pine is a very useful tree for people. It can be used
to build houses, and pine wood is naturally rich in resin,
which prevents rot. Pine resin also has many medicinal
properties. Pine needles are used for the production of
pine extract for baths, essential oils, and also to make a
special paste for the treatment of burns and swellings.
178
The Cedar pine
The cedar pine is a powerful tree with a dark green
crown and long,barbed needles. It grows to about 35–40
meters, has diameter up to 1.8 meters, and its needles
are about 6–14 cm long. The needles are three-sided,
and gather in bunches of 5.
Cedar wood has a beautiful texture and a pleasant
pink colour. A grand piano made of cedar is graceful
and sonorous, containers made of cedar are excellent
for keeping milk products fresh, the wood is used to
make containers for oil, a wardrobe made of cedar will keep moths out, and a beehive of cedar
is well-liked by bees. Cedar wood resists rot and can be easily cut, so it is much used in wooden
architecture, and also for making pencils. Families can live in houses made of cedar pine for many
generations, and the wood is excellent for building bath houses, saunas and for making barrels.
Hunters in the taiga will often spent the night under a cedar because of its warmth. The tree's
soft resin cures toothache and gum disease, and can also heal cuts and burns. Cedar needles can
be used for aromatic baths. The cedar nut is particularly valuable and can be used to make cedar
oil, cedar milk and cedar cream.
Under natural conditions, in the taiga, a cedar pine starts to produce nuts when it is 40-50
years old. A bird, the nutcracker, depends on the cedar pine, and also helps the tree to propagate, by pecking at the pine nuts and hiding them in the
woodland floor.
In two months the bird can store up to 60 kg of nuts
in 20,000 different places. The bird feeds off the nuts in
the winter and uses them to feed its young, and some of
the remaining nuts sprout into new trees. Cedars can live
for 300–600 years.
The Siberian dwarf-pine
The Siberian dwarf-pine, which can be seen in the forest around Baikal, is a thickly branched, low-lying evergreen bush. It has three-sided needles, 4–7 cm long and
gathered in bunches of 5.
The cones are oval or oblong, 4 cm long, of a bright,
light-brown colour. The edible seeds are about 7–10 mm
long and are spread by the nutcracker bird. The bushes
are a favourite refuge for sables, squirrels, bears and other animals. The wood and the needles can be used as
fuel, and also to extract turpentine, resins and essential
oils. A water infusion of the needles is a good remedy
against scurvy and the seeds contain nut oil. The Siberian
dwarf-pine cedar is grown as a decorative plant in gardens and parks.
179
Stage 2 of the project: growing cedar trees”
Plan of Action
To grow up a Siberian cedar pine you need seeds ( pine nuts)
1.Make the seeds
germinate
Put the seeds into a container with water. Seeds of good quality will swell up
and sink to the bottom. Empty husks and seeds of bad quality will float, and
you should throw them away.
2. Protecting against
infection
To prevent seed diseases you should pre-treat the seeds by keeping them for
2 hours in a 0.5% solution of potassium permanganate.
3. Soaking
Pour hot water (40-50 C) onto the pine nuts and soak them for three days,
changing the water each day. Then mix the nuts with three times their volume of peat or medium-grained, well-washed river sand. The sand or peat
should be damp, but not too damp.
4. Stratification
The best time for planting cedar is the end of April and beginning of May.
90 days before planting the nuts should be “stratified”. This is done by pouring the mix of seeds and peat or sand in a wooden box to a depth of 10-20
cm. Then, make holes in the walls of the box and under the box to allow air
to enter. Mix the contents of box once every 15 days and ensure that they
remain as damp as when first mixed. The box should be kept at a temperature of + 4-6 C in a basement, cellar, or home refrigerator. It is important that
the seeds remain damp at all times. The temperature can fall as low as –4 C,
but only for 2-3 days. If the stratification is done correctly, most of the seeds
will produce sprouts when they are sown.
5. Sowing the seeds in
the ground
The best soils for the cedar are sub-sands (not too dry) or loam soils (not too
wet). The seeds should be sown at a depth of 2 - 3 cm.
The sowing should be “mulched”, which means covering it with a layer of
sawdust and peat crumbs. This prevents the soil from drying out, and from
solidifying after watering or rain, and also stops weeds from growing.
6. Make the seeds
germinate
Watch how sprouts
emerge
7. Make the seeds
germinate
Taking care of the
young tree
It is interesting to observe how the cedar sprout rises. First of all, there is a
green loop. Then the sprout becomes straight and puts the nutshell out of
the ground, so that it looks like a cap on the top of the stem. Little by little
an emerald whisk of needles opens, and the nut falls off.
You should care for the growing cedar by weeding, loosening soil and watering. The best way to improve the soil is with cow manure (mixed with water),
but you can also use combined mineral fertilizers.
The cedar grows slowly for the first 5-6 years, but then much faster and there
is not long to wait for the first harvest of pine nuts.
180
Stage 3 of the project:
measuring air pollution by the state of pine needles
Do you know that: Coniferous trees are particularly sensitive to air pollution. You can easily
measure the degree of air pollution based on the condition of pine trees.
Monitoring plan:
1. Select several trees that are a little higher than a person. You can define the age of a tree
by counting whorls (points from which a circle of branches emerge) on the trunk.
2. Look at the top sprouts from the previous year (the second whorl from the top) and examine the state of the needles to define the level of damage and drying-up.
3. Define the degree of damage according to the following features:
1 – Needles without visible damage;
2 – Some small spots on needles;
3 – Many spots on needles, some of them large.
4. Classify degrees of drying as follows:
1 – There are no dry areas on the needles.
2 – The tip of the needle is dried (2-5 mm).
3 – The needle is dried for up to 1/3 of its length.
4 – The needle is dried for more than a half of its length.
5. The age of the needles should be taken into account. To do this, count the share of needles
that are still present (e.g. 10%, 30% or 50%) on each whorl. Then you can work out the age of
needles by comparing the number of areas on a sprout that have completely preserved needles
with the areas of partially preserved needles on the previous sprout.
6. Do a quick test to measure the level of air pollution:
Maximum age of needles
The degree of needles damage on two-years old sprouts
1
2
3
4 years
I
I–II
III
3 years
I
II
III–IV
2 years
II
III
IV
2 years
–
IV
IV–V
1 year
–
IV
V–VI
1 year
–
–
VI
Nominal designation of the air pollution degree:
I – perfectly clean
IV – polluted ("cause of concern")
II – clean
V
– dirty ("dangerous")
III – fairly clean ("normal")
VI
– very dirty ("highly dangerous")
181
We are playing!
Quiz – “Who is the best Baikal eco-expert ?”
Dear friends, we propose a quiz the everyone can join in: parents, relatives and neighbours.
Having read From Secret Corners of Lake Baikal Box, you have every chance of being the winner.
The game includes 6 groups of questions with different degrees of difficulty (correct answers to
the questions are worth between 10 and 50 “Baikaliks”). The game is for two teams – children
and adults. The team that gives the right answer to the question, “what does the word the word
"Baikal" originally mean?”, begins the game.
In the world of plants
Protected places
Our Baikal
Section
Value
Question
Answer
10
What song is sung by the northeast wind on
Baikal?
“Glorious sea, Holy Baikal”
20
What is the most famous legend about Lake
Baikal?
The Beauty Angara
30
What is the main wealth of the lake?
Water
40
How many rivers flow into Lake Baikal?
336
50
How old is Lake Baikal?
More than 20 mln years
10
What is the Red Book?
The list of rare animals, plants and
mushrooms being under the threat
of disappearance.
20
What nature reserve is the oldest in Russia?
Barguzinsky
30
What natural monuments on Baikal do you
know?
The Mysterious Ushkany Islands,
The “Singing Sands” of Turali,
The Stilted Trees, The Ininsky Garden of Stones
40
Where is the Bay of Aya located?
Frolikhinsky Reserve
50
What is a protected natural area?
Specially protected natural
territories – are places, where any
human activity is either limited or
prohibited.
10
What coniferous tree sheds its leaves in
winter?
Pine
20
How many years does a cedar live?
300–600 yaers
30
What do people call the Baikal globe-flower?
Siberian globeflower
40
What flower does bloom when
it's 18 years- old?
Ladies’ slipper
50
What antimicrobic and tonic plant is threatened with extinction in the Baikalo-Lensky
reserve?
The Altai onion
182
Peoples of the Baikal Country
Ecological problems
In the world of animals
Section
Value
Question
Answer
10
What are the most ancient fauna in the lake?
Sponges
20
What large mammals are found in Baikal?
Seals
30
What animal is called the Siberian diamond
or soft gold?
Sable
40
Ares there red fish (salmon) in Baikal?
50
Reduction of numbers and shrinkage of the
area where this animal is found are caused by
human interventions, destruction of habitats,
fires, and tree felling in the largest national reserve in Buryatia. Which animal do we mean?
10
What industrial plant damages Baikal the
most?
20
What is the ecology?
30
Do you know five rules for
preventing forest fires ?
40
What is a waste and what is a garbage?
50
What ecological traditions do you know?
10
How many nationalities live in Buryatia?
20
Why is a Buryat yurt eco-friendly?
30
When did the first Russian settlements
appear on Lake Baikal?
At the end of the XVII th
40
What dishes of Evenk national cuisine do
you know?
Skulnin, silavun, seven
50
What districts of the Republic of Buryatia
have “Semeiskiye” inhabitants?
Tarbagataisky, Bichursky,
Mukhorshibirsky, Zaigraevsky
183
Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant
More than 100
Do I know the national parks of Baikal well?
A practical task: Write the names of national parks and reserves on the map of Baikal.
184
I am a creator!
A creative task. My Baikal and me
Boys and girls, let's imagine that you have visited Lake Baikal with your family.
Now, write a composition: what things did you do that Baikal will thank you for, and what did
you do that could make the Lake angry ?
185
PART
It’s Interesting
and Entertaining
Anthem of the Republic of Buryatia
Music by A.Andreyev
Words by D.Zhalsarayev
Our taiga, laky, steppe Motherland,
You are full of kind sunshine.
Flowering all across the land,
Be happy our native country.
Cowberry breath and bird cherry breath,
And lilac wild rosemary tincture.
I am not only breathe it in, but feast my eyes upon
My flat and forest land’s sweet smell.
Take, my Motherland, your filial thanks,
And treat me with sacred Baikal water,
So as I will gain mysterious strength
For my further difficult journey.
Together with you we are a single whole,
Your destiny became mine, too.
I am making a kowtow, my native land,
My beloved Buryatia!
Oh, Motherland!
CONTENTS OF PART 5
190
European researchers of Baikal (18th and 19th centuries)
192
Native scientists
197
199
MIR Submersibles on Baikal
201
203
Baikal in figures
210
214
217
227
230
The oldest surviving references to Baikal ("Bejhaj") are in Chinese chronicles dating from 110
BC. In The Secret Tale of the Mongols (12th–13th centuries) Baikal is called "Bajgal-Dalaj". European
travellers who made their way across Siberia to China in the 12th-13th centuries called it a “lakesea”. There is a detailed description of Baikal and its coast in the notes made by Russian Cossack
explorers from the western Russian provinces. A Cossack brigade of 74 people sailed in 1643 on
wooden boats along the western shore of the lake as far as Olkhon Island under the leadership of
Ataman (Cossack captain) Kurbat Ivanov. Ivanov drew the first map of Baikal, “Sketch of Baikal
and the Rivers that flow into it”, which was highly important for further exploration of the territory
around the Lake. Later a group of Cossacks led by Maxim Perfilyev journeyed along the east
coast of Baikal and created a number of fortified settlements, the largest of which was Barguzin.
One settlement on the east coast of Baikal was named Maksimikha after the Ataman.
A group of Cossacks accompanying the diplomatic mission of Erofei Zabolotsky, an envoy
sent by the Tsar to make a treaty of peace with the Mongolian khan, perished in a skirmish with
local people. The Posolsky (“Envoy's”) Monastery still stands at the place of Zabolotsky's death.
the Posolsky monastery
190
In 1665 the Archpriest Avvakum crossed Baikal, which he called the "ocean-sea"
and described it in his book, Life of Archpriest Avvakum. Conerning the Lake's fauna
he wrote: “There are many birds, geese and swans, which settle on the sea, like snow.
The fish in the lake are sturgeon and taimen, sterlets, omuls and white-fish and many
other kinds. The water is fresh, and there are a lot of seals in it, in this huge oceansea. Living in Mezen, I have never seen anything like it. The fish are very fat, so they
cannot be fried on a pan, as it will spill over.”
Nikola (Nikolay Gavrilovich) Milesku Spafary (1636–1707), a Russian diplomat
of Romanian origin, who was also a scholar knowing several languages, led a Russian
embassy to China from 1675 to 1678. On the way to China, in his travel diary, he gave
the first description of Baikal for geographical science: “Baikal can be called a sea
because … to go round it is impossible... its size at length and width is great … and
its depth is great. And it can be called a lake because its water is fresh and not salty;
the water is very pure, so that the bottom can be seen at a depth of many sazhens,
and it is good to drink.”
Spafary also listed all the rivers running into Baikal, and particularly the rivers
Selenga, Barguzin, and Upper Angara. He also described Olkhon Island. He later
published the book in Russian as A Journey through Siberia to the borders of China.
(from Baikal in Questions and Answers. G.I. Galaziy, Irkutsk, 2004)
191
European researchers(18th-19th centuries)
The works of European researchers of Baikal have a special place in the history of Russian science. Study expeditions by Russian and foreign scientists and naturalists, cartographers, botanists
and naturalists, mineralogists, ethnographers and historians reflected the ideas of the Russian
enlightenment scholar, Michael Vasilievich Lomonosov, of the importance of understanding the
natural environment and vast resources of Siberia.
Travellers and researchers who visited Siberia in the 18th century included foreign diplomats,
Swedish officer-prisoners of war, and the members of academic expeditions organized by Peter I
and his successors.
The Englishman John Perry who worked in the Russian diplomatic service published a book in London, The State of Russia under the Present Czar, which contains a description of the
natives of Siberia – the Tungus (Buryats).
The diplomat John Bell travelled by land to China and, in his twovolume Notes (1719–1720), described in detail the history of the Russian
conquest of Siberia, the cities of Tobolsk and Irkutsk, the life, clothes and
religion of the Buryats, and their language: “They are a numerous people
extending to the east and the south from Lake Baikal, very fair and sincere”. John Bell's books were translated from French into Russian in 1776.
A Swedish officer, who was taken prisoner at the Battle of
Poltava, the nobleman Phillip Johann Stralenberg remained in
Siberia for 13 years. On the instructions of the academician Daniel
Gotlib Messershmidt he collected materials for a map of Siberia
and a review of its history. When he returned home he published
a book, The Northern and Eastern part of Europe and Asia (1730).
192
Daniel Gotlib Messershmidt was one of the first participants of German expeditions to Baikal. He spent many
years in Siberia (1720 - 1727) and collected a large quantity (10 volumes) of naturalist, ethnographic and cartographic materials. Messershmidt's report, Review of
Siberia or Three Tables of the Simple Kingdoms of Nature
was not published, but his materials were widely used
by later researchers.
The archives of the Russian Academy of Science in Petersburg.
Unknown painter who took a part in the expedition of
D.G.Messerschmidt.
Johann Gmelin wrote a four-volume work, The Flora of Siberia,
describing 1778 kinds of plants, most of which were a new discovery for the world of science, and amassed a rare collection
of minerals. In his diary Travels across Siberia (four volumes,
Goettingen, 1751-1752) he described Siberian fortified settlements, fairs in Tomsk and Kyakhta, ways of life and religious
beliefs of the local people.
A portrait of Johann Jacob Haid
the middle of XVIII century. Mezzo-tinto. 29x18 cm.
S-Petersburg., the archives of Academy of Science
Peter Simon Pallas lived in Siberia for 26 years and his written
works extend to 30 volumes. A five-volume account of the flora
of Russia contains the description of 6522 plants. Pallas was one of
the first European researchers to describe the Lake Baikal endemic
– the Baikal oilfish. Pallas explored the areas between Irkutsk and
the borders of Mongolia, recording geographical, biological, and
geological facts as well as valuable ethnographic data about the
Buryats and Mongols, their religion, way of life, and employments.
He visited the settlements of Udinsky and Selenginsky, and the
“datsans” (Buddhist settlements) of Gusinoozersky and Tsongolsky . Pallas was one of the first researchers to note the probable identity of the Buryats and the Huns – his suppositions were
proved true many years later by archeological finds in Buryatia
and Mongolia (the remains of Hun settlements around Ulan-Ude).
193
The St.Petersburg academician, botanist, professor of mineralogy, and ethnographer, Johann Gottlieb George spent many
years near Baikal, in Tomsk, Irkutsk and Kyakhta, made a map
of the lake and its surroundings, described more than 730 plant
varieties in Baikal region, and made a considerable contribution to
ornithology, describing more than 60 types of birds.
Gerhard Friedrikh Miller studied Baikal region together with
Gmelin. Miller carried out field research and collected a huge
amount of material on the folklore of the Russians and native peoples of the region, and also on archeology and ethnography. His
works, Description of the Siberian Kingdom (1750) and History of
Siberia were published in St. Petersburg, and republished in Moscow and Leningrad in 1940–41.
In 1820 an English sea captain John Cochrane made a journey
across Siberia and Kamchatka with the permission of the Russian
government, which he described in a book published in 1824-25
in London, A Pedestrian Journey through Russia and Siberian Tartary, which includes an account of the beauty of Lake Baikal.
The renowned Finnish linguist and ethnographer Matias Alexander Kastren travelled to Buryatia in 1848, where he studied the
Buryat-Mongolian language, family life and social conditions, and
Buryat clothing (not merely its appearance but also its significance
in Buryat social life).
The French researcher Paul Labbe published a book in 1909, The Siberian Lamas, acquainting
European readers with the religion of the Buryats the nature of the region, its plant and animal
life, daily life, customs and wedding ceremonies of the Russians, Buryats and Cossacks. Various
Buryat clans are described in the book, and also the work of the Selenga Steppe Duma (a native
parliament).
194
Benedict Dybovsky (1833–1930), a Polish-Russian scientist,
geographer, zoologist, physician and linguist, and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR did much
work to improve knowledge of Siberia and the Far East of Russia.
Dybovsky studied at the universities of Derpt, Berlin, Breslau
and completed a thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine
and Surgery. He was sentenced to death for his part in the Polish
revolt of 1863-1864, but the sentence was commuted to 12 years
of Siberian penal servitude. He was first deported to Chita region
and then to the village of Kultuk in Irkutsk Province.
Dybovsky carried out research on Baikal with Victor Aleksandrovich Godlevsky. His classic study of the Lake's microfauna
(more than 100 kinds of freshwater shrimps and 2 varieties of the
deep-water Baikal endemic, the oilfish) represent the beginning of
systematic study of the world of Baikal.
Victor Aleksandrovich Godlevsky (1831–1900) was a Polish
zoologist and scientist who was exiled to Baikal in 1865 for his
part in the Polish revolt.
Together with Dybovsky he moved to Irkutsk in 1867 and for
more than 10 years the scientists worked together studying the
Lake, its depth, the water temperature at different depths, species
structure and variety, and biological features of the fauna of Baikal.
The work was mainly carried out in wintertime, when all parts of
Baikal could be reached across the ice.
Dybovsky himself said that the success of their scientific
research was due in large part to the technical abilities and physical endurance of Victor Godlevsky. Godlevsky's remarks on the
natural wealth of Baikal deserved to be cited: “The wealth of
lower-order animals to be found in Baikal is quite remarkable, in
terms of both the number of species and the number of individuals. The bed of Baikal teems with life that cannot be found in
southern seas: it is sufficient to turn a few stones along the shore
to enrich systematic zoology with new species.”
Together with Dybovsky he studied about 200 bird species and
discovered one species that was absolutely new to science – the
four-toed Siberian salamander.
A number of animals have been named after Godlevsky,
including Godlevsky's bunting – a bird which is now registered in
the Red Book of Buryatia.
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Ivan Dementevich Chersky (1845-1892) studied geology, paleontology, and tectonic processes inside the earth's crust.
Chersky carried out a geological study of the Baikal shore and compiled a detailed geological
map, studied the Siberian post route from Lake Baikal to the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, and also presented a Description of Collections of Tertiary Mammals Collected by the New
Siberian Expedition.
Applying his skills as a a geographer, Chersky studied the streams and rivers flowing into
Baikal; as a geomorphologist he proposed the division of Siberia into a Western and Eastern part;
and as a biologist he gave an account of the pink seagull.
One of the tools that Chersky used for his studies of Baikal were horizontal lines etched on the
sheer cliffs around the Lake. Called “Chersky notches”, the lines are still visible today and are used
by local people to gauge the water level in the Lake. Several landscape features are named after
Chersky: a mountain near Cape Kotelnikovsky, a peak in the south of the Hamar-Daban ridge, and
a hill near the source of the Angara, in the village of of Listvyanka.
The massive heritage of scholarship left by the first European researchers on natural science,
archeology and ethnography, their capacity to do such work in the severe Siberian climate
and primitive living conditions , the versatility of their scientific interests and devotion to
their calling seems astonishing to people today.
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Native scientists
Gleb Yurevich Vereschagin (1889-1944) was one of the
founders of limnology, which is the science of lakes.
Vereschagin came to Baikal for the first time in 1916, and
devoted the rest of his life to its study.
In 1924 Vereschagin designed a scientific station for the study
of Baikal's biology and from 1925 to 1929 he headed the Commission for the Study of Lake Baikal. The scientist managed the
creation of a biological station in the district of Bolshiye Koty,
which was later transformed into the Limnological Institute of the
Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Staff at the station used a small vessel (9m long with a 9 horsepower engine) to carry out studies of Baikal's tectonics, hydrography, and flora and fauna. The work by Vereschagin and his staff
confirmed that a considerable part of Baikal's endemic fauna and
flora originated from the world's oceans.
Biological station in Bolshye Koty
Mikhail Mihailovich Kozhov (1890-1968) was an outstanding Siberian scholar and creator of the specific discipline called
“Baikal studies”. Kozhov carried out studies of sponges, epischura,
lop-eared maxillopids, bullheads, Baikal oilfish and other fauna.
He spoke out against construction of the Baikal Pulp and Paper
Plant, which is now the main source of pollution in Lake Baikal.
A street in the central part of the city of Irkutsk has been named
in Kozhov's honour.
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Grigory Ivanovich Galaziy (1922–2000) was an academician,
doctor of biology, and the author of more than 400 works and
8 monographs on Baikal. Working at the Limnological institute
of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Science of the USSR,
Galazy set up a research station on Baikal, which he headed for
26 years.
Galaziy's scientific work, the encyclopaedia entitled Baikal in
Questions and Answers remains a core reference for both Russian and foreign researchers of Baikal.
In 1995 Galaziy was selected as a member of the Committee
for Protection of the Environment at the World Congress of Limnologists in Brazil and was awarded the Alexander Humboldt
medal “For Study and Preservation of the Environment”.
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1640–1641 Arrival of an expedition under the Cossack leader, Kurbat Afanasievich Ivanov, on
the western coast of Lake Baikal.
1667 The first approximate map of Baikal, in The Drawing of the Siberian Land, made by
order of the Governor of Tobolsk, Peter Godunov
1701
The first accurate map of the Lake, in The Drawing Book of Siberia, by the Tobolsk
Cossack, Semyon Remezov
1723–1727 The first scientific description of the Lake, presented by the German researcher
Daniel Gottlieb Messershmidt, who was directly charged with the study of Lake
Baikal by decree of Peter the Great.
1771–1772 An expedition led by the academician Peter Simon Pallas described the viviparous
Baikal oilfish. Another member of the expedition, the academician Johann George
Gmelin, gave a detailed account of the Baikal seal (nerpa).
1773
A detailed map of Baikal was compiled by the navigator Alexey Pushkarev, entitled “Special flat map of the Baikal Sea showing rivers and rivulets flowing into it
and also the Angara flowing out of it”.
1855–1857 The first Siberian expedition of the Geographical Society led by the academician
George Radde round Baikal.
1908 Publication of a 31-page atlas of Baikal (scale: one verst = one inch).
1916
Creation next to Lake Baikal of Russia's first nature reserve, the Barguzin Reserve.
1916 Opening of a biological research station in the village of Koty.
1925
Opening of a permanent Limnological Research Station of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in the settlement of Marituy.
1925–1929 An expedition led by G.Yu.Vereschagin explored all principal areas of the lake.
1959 Depth of the Lake was measured at 1620 m using a weighted cable lowered from
ice.
1961
Foundation of the Limnological Institute of the Siberian Department of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, based on the Baikal Limnological Station in the village of Listvyanka.
1974
Depth of the Lake was measured at 1637m using echo-sounding measurements
from a boat.
1986 Establishment of the Baikal and Zabaikalsky National parks and the Baikal-Lensky
Reserve.
1991
Researchers dived to the deepest point on Baikal (1637m) in the "Pisces" deepwater submersible device.
«Pisces» – a submarine device for deep
penetration surveys. The first deep penetration in
Baikal at a depth of 1410 was arranged in 1977.
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1993 Publication of a scientific reference atlas of Baikal by the Russian Academy of Sciences using the findings of research carried out in 1961-1985.
1996 Lake Baikal was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
1998 Deep-water drilling (600m) from an ice platform in the area of the Ushkani Islands
confirmed that Lake Baikal is 15 million years old.
1999 The Federal law “On protection of Lake Baikal” was passed (Federal Law № 94
dated 5/1/1999). Environmental organizations based around Baikal inaugurated an
annual “Baikal Day”, with the support of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the
Russian Federation.
Work began on reconstruction of the Baikal Museum in the village of Listvyanka.
The exhibition area was enlarged by three times, six aquariums were installed, and
a seal enclosure was created.
2001
2004
The first air-cushion amphibious vessel, the Hivus-10, began regular tourist operations on Baikal
2005 The Murmansk-Vladivostok Expedition-Trophy off-roader rally used a route across
the ice of Lake Baikal for the first time . A 105th meridian ice camp was set up
between the villages of Listvyanka and Tankhoi.
2008
The President of Russia issued a decree ordering the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean
oil pipeline to be rerouted away from Baikal (400 km to the north).
Lake Baikal was judged one of Russia's “miracles of nature” based on the results
of an Internet poll.
2009
It was decided to create Russia's first free economic zone for the tourism and leisure
sector 180km from Ulan-Ude in the region of Buryatia adjacent to Baikal. A tourist
complex in the zone should launch in 2017.
2010
The Baikal Pulp and Paper Plant in the town of Baikalsk resumed operations after
standing idle for several years. Foul water will continue to be discharged into Baikal
until August 2012.
2012
An international scientific conference, entitled “Baikal – a World Treasure”, was
held at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on April 24. The conference discussed
issues associated with the preservation of Baikal (a UNESCO World Heritage Site)
and prospects for further studies to support sustainable development of the Lake
ecosystem. The conference also took stock of results of the MIR-1 and -2 expeditions.
200
MIR Submersibles
on Baikal
The MIR is a deep-water manned device for
oceanological research and rescue operations.
The device can be lowered to a depth of 6 km,
weighs 18.6 tonnes, is 7.8m long and 3.8 wide.
Manufacturing cost per device in 1987 was 100
million Finnish markas (about 17 million euros).
The device was designed by engineers of the
Finnish company Rauma-Repola.
The principal aims of the expeditions of MIRs
on Baikal were:
– visual study of the structure and development
processes of the underwater ecosystem of
Lake Baikal, behaviour of organisms at various
depths, geological evolution and relief of
underwater slopes of the Baikal trough;
201
– draw the attention of society (in Russia
and worldwide), government structures and
decision-makers at various levels to the issues
of preserving Lake Baikal as a part of the world's
natural heritage;
– demonstrate ability of the Russian scientific
community to implement large-scale research
projects to a high standard.
Installation of flags
on the bottom of Baikal
Paper cups:
before and after deep penetration
Oil in solid
Planarians on the bottom
of Baikal
Baikal spongin
A new species of sponge found
in Baikal
The Mir studies revealed hitherto unguessed-at secrets of
Baikal. For example, it was found that about six tonnes of crude
oil is discharged into the Lake each year from tectonic faults.
It may be asked: “Why doesn't this oil appear on the Lake
surface?” The oil is absorbed by microorganisms. How these
organisms (worms and crustaceans) can live in places where
the oil is discharged and how they process the oil is now one
of the key riddles of Baikal studies.
The other breakthrough was the first-ever discovery of gas
hydrates in a fresh-water basin. Gas hydrates are characteristic of oceans and northern permafrost regions. Scientists
believe that gas hydrates could provide an alternative fuel in
the future.
Gas hydrates are solid compounds
formed of methane and water at certain pressure and temperature.
202
Dear friends! The MIR Submersibles on Baikal let the scientists see a wonderful and rich world
of Baikal flora and fauna once more. We can't see many of them with an unaided eye. But without
them Baikal would be incomplete. We will tell you about lower and higher plants of underwater
world, about hydrocoles of Baikal.
Diatomic algaes
Diatomic algaes have been famous since the
Jurassic period, they make about a quarter of all
organical substance of the planet. They are unicellular, individual or colony-forming organisms,
and they refer to true algaes. Diatoms' cells or siliceous algaes' cells are stripped of cellulose cover
and surrounded with a hard siliceous shell outside. The thickness of the diatomic cell is 10 times
thinner than a human hair.
In the shape of form diatomic algaes are divided
into two groups: with an actinomorphic or a bilateral shell. Most part of kinds the shell consists of
two parts. Color plastids of diatomic algaes are of
yellow-brown color depending on the set of pigments. An outside part of the shell is bigger, it
reminds a cover which covers with its edges an
inner, much less in size part of the shell.
Diatoms propagate by dividing by halves, thus
making two daughter cells out of mother one.
Interestingly, that every daughter cell gets ony
one fold of the mother's shell, and builds a second
one on its own. Mass propagating happens when
Baikal is covered by ice.
Diatoms mainly live in the upper 25-meter
layer of the lit Baikal water, but during storms and
strong mixing of Baikal waters they descend to
great depths.
Diatomic algaes are biofilters of Baikal water.
At present more than 12 thousand kinds of the
algaes have been studied; they make a considerable part of the lake's plankton.
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Volvox
Volvox – are green algaes, with the diameter
up to 1 mm; they make colonies at the water
surface. They are referred to active colonial
organisms. The size of one colony which has a
from of sphere is 5 mm and it includes from 10
to 200 thousand cells. The sphere's mass is a
semi-fluid jelly-like substance. Every cell looks
like an independent protozoan, but together
they make a colony. The cells have a pear-like
form and two filaments connected by cytoplasmic bridges which jut out. Thanking to it volvox
rolls over in the water, that's why it got its name
“rolling”.
While propagating some cells of volvox
plunge into the sphere where they divide longitudinally making some new young colonies
which further can jut out of the old volvox. At
mass propagating cells can cause water blooming, painting it into green.
Ulotrix
After strong breakers Baikal coast is covered by green lumps of jelly-like consistence,
by algaes from the bottom. They cover Baikal's
bottom by separate girdles, by a 15-metre line
from the coast to the depth. One can see the
algaes well from a boat at calm weather. The
nearest to the coast girdle of algaes is ulotrix, which is not endemic for Baikal. In summer
they cover coastal stones where they can take
roots, and in cold period they live at the lake's
bottom in the form of spores.
Ulortix is referred to green algaes and there
are more than 25 kinds of them. Mainly they
live in fresh waters. An algae's body reminds
unbranched threads. All its cells are the same
but the colorless one with the help of which
the thread fastens to underwater stones, piles,
snags. Inside the cell there is a girdle in the form
of unended ring. The biggest part of the cell is
occupied with vacuole, an organoid containing
cell sap. The cell's cover is cellulose.
204
Star duckweed (Lemna trisulca)
Star duckweed is a widely spread plant floating in the thickness of water. It grows in stagnant
reservoirs. While blossoming the plant floats to
the surface. Blossoming plants are egg-shaped,
thicker and more solid than vegetative ones. In the
thickness of water a star duckweed makes tangles
where young fish can find food and shelter. It is a
nice plant, together with other water plants it covers
water surface with an emerald carpet.
In autumn a star duckweed turns into a bud and
descends to the bottom for wintering. As all green
plants a star duckweed can undergo a photosynthesis, thus it can absorb carbonic acid and excretes
oxygen.
It consists of many semi-transparent leaves of
bright-green color at length of 1 cm connected in
three and more leaves. They grow in southern part
of Baikal, in the Bay of the Small Sea, in the delta of
the Selenga and other places on the lake.
Batter dock (Potamogeton natans L.)
A Batter dock or a water cabbage is a perennial
plant of Potamogeton family. Its stalk is quite
thick filled with aeriferous tissue, simple or a little
branchy, round in section, 60-150 cm long with
underwater and floating leaves. Leafstalks are
long, can be flat, striated, grooved. Underwater
leaves stripped of leaf plate start growing in
spring and up to the time of blossoming they fell
dawn. Floating leaves are numerous. Their oval
leaf plates are of brown-green color, contain a lot
of calcium. The leaves' length is about 8-12 cm
and width is about 4-6 cm. The leaves can be
used for curing scurvy, or as a wound healing or
resolvent means. The essence of fresh grass is
used in homoeopathy. The roots are considered
to be eatable in cooked or baked forms.
It blossoms in the middle of summer in the
form of spicate inflorescence. In the batter dock's
tangles fish and mollusks spawn and young fish
find their defence.
A batter dock can be found in the Angara, on
the south-eastern coast of Baikal and rarely in
Dauria.
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Meakin
The name “Meakin” has its origins from latin
words – miros – numerous, phyllum –leaf. It's
a plant with long stalks (up to 150 cm) making
a thick lace of underwater tangles. Thanking to
these numerous soft leaves the plant got the
name “feather-leaf”, and the Germans call it “a
milfoil”.
They call them feather ones for their similarity with a bird feather. Meakin's branchy stalks
catch on sculls and they often come off.
The plant has creeping roots, and its sprouts
can grow very fast. The leaves are brown or
green. The flowers are small, plain, pinky. They
are collected into a spicate inflorescence rising
above the water up to 2,5 cm.
The meakin's flowers are pollinated with
the help of wind, and they blossom from July
to August. In autumn bearing ripen which is
divided into four nuts. When the meakin fades
its inflorescence will go down to the water.
The plant enriches the water with oxygen
very well, it is a good forage for fish. In its tangles there are many small water organisms
cleaning the water from unicellular algaes.
The plant grows on different soils: from
salted to peat ones. It can be met under the
northern cape of the bay of Frolikha.
Canadian pondweed
(Elodea canadensis Michk)
The Canadian pondweed is also called a
water pest. Its motherland is Northern America. On Baikal it was fixed at the end of 70s
beginning of the 80s. There is an idea that it
appeared from the Irkutsk storage reservoir,
and later it setteled all over the lake.
The plant has very long branchy branches up
to 3 m. The leaves are lightly-green, a little bit
wavy with metalic shine. Its tangles make problems for navigation and fishery.
The plant is a biological pollutant of water
reservoirs. Negative ecological consequences
of the plant's spreading appeared in Posolsk
and in the delta of the Selenga river.
It resulted in changes of biocoenosis' structure also in reducing of the number of main
food fish.
206
Quillwort hirsure
(Isoetes echinospora)
The quillwort hirsure is a smal water plant in
the form of tuft of curved green subulate leaves.
The leaves grow from the thick roots. Interestingly, that in bosom of outer and medium
leaves there are oval sporiferous bags.
There are white spores in them the surface
of which is covered with short brittle spinelets
or high dense warts. The plant propagates by
spores. It grows in water reservoirs on sandy,
sandy-silty soils at the depth up to 2 metres
The quillwort hirsure is a relict plant and it is
registered in the Red Book of Russia.
In Baikal's basin the majority of the plant's
locations are in the northern edges of the lake
(lake Frolikha, Verkhneangarsky bay, lakes
Kicherskoye, Turkuit, Strakhovskoye, Karachaevskoye, Verkhne-Kicherskoye, Kulinda), also it is
met in upper reaches of the Barguzin river (lake
Amut, Yakondylon).
Demersal Hydra
The majority of representatives of acoelomates lives in seas and oceans. A freshwater
polip is an exception; it can be met in the bays
of Baikal. In Greek “hydra” means “a monster”.
Its body fastens to any surface with the help
of a sole. In the upper part of the body there is
a mouth opening surrounded by 4-6 tentacles
with the help of which hydras catch their prey
- water fleas and other animals including tadpoles and young fish. If the latters touch tentacles where there are urticant capsules, they
immediately shoot with long threads with poison.
The prey is pulled by tentacles to the mouth
opening and swallowed. Indigested remains of
food the hydra throws out through its mouth,
“wincing” with all its body. Hydras can change
their places gliding on soles or tumbling over
its heads.
207
Baicalia dybowskiana
The shell of Baicalia dybowskiana reminds a
small tower with its height up to 10–13 mm,
which is 3 times exceed its width. A longitudinal back of this mollusk is clear, on its last side
there are 8–12 ribs.
The shell itself is delicate because of low
mineralization of Baikal's water. The mollusk's
body is represented by a muscle leg placed on
the abdominal part of the body.
Baicalia dybowskiana inhabits the depths of
600-800 m deep. Baikal gasteropods have an
ability to eat organics filtered from water.
Planarians
(Rhimacephalus pulvinar)
Planarians refers to flat turbellarian worms.
There are more than 400 kinds of them on
Baikal. On their abdominal part they have a
mouth opening. While swallowing their food a
gullet comes out. Through the body's covering
one can see a furcate intestine.
In the coastal zone of Baikal the worms are
of different kinds. They have a various color
and a variegated pattern. In the middle of the
back there is a thin dark stripe. Under stones
at the water's edge their size is 0,5–2 cm, at
depths the size can reach 30 cm. Moving on
the bottom of the reservoir the worms look for
a victim. Further they envelop it with slime and
slowly suck it inside the body. Eating sick and
weak animals, planarians act as an orderly.
Planarians can be met at depths from 8–10
m up to 100 m and deeper on silty and sandy
soils. Its sizes are about 110 mm.
208
Manayunkia baikalensis
It refers to Annelida polychaete worms. The
length of the body is 7–8 mm, the length of tentacles is 1 mm. In winters and summers in the
depth of Baikal one can meet millions of small
“asters”. The manayunkia baicalensis look out
of their cosy tubular houses, which they built
in the thickness of soil and crowned them with
higher small towers. The worms live in tubules,
built of silty or sandy small parts joined with a
special material. Their body consisits of many
segments, each of them has a pair of setas. On
the front end there is an aureole of tentacles,
looking like a fan, with the help of which they
can breathe and catch food.
Manayunkia baicalensis inhabits sandy or
silty soils, stones, sponges. They eat small
invertebrate and ground remains.
Water flea (Daphnia)
The water flea belongs to the planktonic
cancroids of the superorder of cladoceran. It is
0,2 mm up to 6 mm long. Outside the water
flea is covered by chitinous covering reminding
a medieval knight.
At the edge of folds there are spinelets,
and at the back edge there is a tail covered by
spinelets. At the ends of extremities there are
setas, which make “sculls” while swimming.
They are also used for breathing and eating.
Most part of the time water fleas spend in
the water thickness moving by energetic jumps
due to flapping of its feelers which are covered
by special feathered setas. That's why their
usual name is “water daphnia”. A she-water flea
oviposits its eggs in the bag on the back.
Mainly water fleas inhabit ponds and big
puddles, where they eat different bacterias and
phytoplankton. Also they can be met in Baikal,
in its shallow places.
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Baikal in figures
• Water-collection basin
570 000 km2
• Baisin total area
300 000 km2
• Length of the Lake
636 km
• Greatest width of the lake (beam from Ongureny village
to Ust-Barguzin)
79,5 km
• Least width
25 km
• Average width
47,8 km
• Coastline
2000 km
• Water surface area (including islands)
31 500 km2
• Number of tributaries
about 500
• Maximum depth
1642 m
• Average depth
758 m
• The depth of the southern trough
а) maximum
1446 m
б) average
843 m
• Depth of the central trough:
а) maximum
1642 m
b) average
854 m
• Depth of the northern trough
а) maximum
903 m
b) average
576 m
• Height of Lake surface above sea level
454 m
• Areas of gulf and bays:
а) Barguzin
791 km2
b) Chivyrkujsky
268 km2
c) The Small sea
1019 km2
• Total area of 22 islands
716 km2
• Olkhon Island:
а) Length
71,7 km
b) Maximum width
14 km
c) Area
700 km2
d) Height above sea level (Mount Zhima)
1274 m
210
• Ushkany archipelago :
а) Area of Big Ushkany
15 km2
b) Height over the Lake
216 m
• Average-annual change of Baikal's water level in ordinary circumstances
82 cm
• Seasonal fluctuations of the level
60–120 cm
• Long-term amplitude of fluctuations of the level
2,23 m
• Number of the capes on Lake Baikal:
174
а) Northwestern coast
101
b) Southeastern coast
73
• Hours of sunshine (northern part of the Lake)
2000–2400
hour/year
• Hours of sunshine (southern and central parts of the Lake)
1900–2000
hour/year
• Duration of the cold season in Baikal region
up to 7 months
• Evaporation of moisture
19,1 km3
• Precipitation
12,8 km3
• Average annual outflow from the Lake
61 km3
• Annual variation in air temperature (islands, coast)
50–70° С
• Annual variation in air temperature (mountain ridges)
up to 100° С
• Maximum wind strength
up to 50 m/sec
• Average air temperature in the winter
-25° С
• Average air temperature in the summer
+17° С
• Thickness of earth’s crust under mountain ridges around Baikal
45–55 km
• Least distance to base of earth's crust in the centre of the Baikal trough
34 km
• Thickness of neozoic deposits in the trough
3–8,5 km
• Seismicity (number of earthquakes per year)
more than 2000
• Frequency of earthquakes above 7 richter points
1–2 per a year
• Frequency of earthquakes above 8 points
5–10 years
50–100 years
150–200 years
• Depth of earthquakes epicentres
12–22 km
• Greatest height of the ridges surrounding Baikal (Barguzinsky ridge)
2840 m
• Thickness of mountain-valley glaciers
Above 1000 m
211
Baikal in figures
• Foothill plain (abrasion relief, extending from the coast at a depth of
10-12m).
60%
• Average incline of the northwestern Lake bed
30–65° С
• Maximum temperature of hot springs
80–82° С
• Thickness of multi-year frozen layer on watersheds
from 0 to
500-600 m
• Calm weather in June-July (wave height less than 0.5m)
80% of time
• Wave height up to 1.5 m
80% of all summer
storms
• Wave height above 2m
17%
• Wave height above 3m
3%
• In the autumn waves can be as high as 5m
• Speed of wind currents at the surface
to 1,4 m/sec
• Speed of circulating currents on depths (50 m.)
56 cm/sec
а) 250 metres
30 cm/sec
b) 675 metres
12 cm/sec
c) 1000 metres
8 cm/sec
d) 1200 metres
6 cm/sec
• Monthly average speeds of circulating currents at the surface
2-3 km/day
• During storms
Up to 8-12 km/day
• Time for replacement of deep water by surface water
from 11 to 20
• Water exchange period in northern trough
225 years
• Water exchange period in the central trough
132 years
• Water exchange in the southern trough
66 years
• Whole Baikal
356 years
• Total quantity of water in lake Baikal
23,6 х 1013 litres
• Duration of the ice cover
4–5 months
• Ice thickness when the Lake fully freezes
5–20 cm
• Rate of growth of ice thickness
From 1 cm to 5 cm
• Width of mill cracks
From 40 cm to 1m
• The size of blocks formed by cracks
10–30 km
• Complete disappearance of ice in the
May 12-16
• In the north
June 9-14
212
• Time of full ice cover
Start of January
• Total number of the organisms living in Lake Baikal
(species and subspecies)
2635
• Number of endemic species
1800
• Biomass of omul in Baikal
26 000 tons
• Seals number
50 000–100 000
(various data)
• Biomass epishura and cyclops
1,8 million tons
• The catchment basin area
570 000 км2
• Biomass epishura and cyclops
1,8 million tons
• Geological age (Cretaceous to Late Eocene)
70–35 million years
• Age of deposits (The Tompudinskaya moraine)
39 000 years
• Age of deposits (The Relskya moraine)
26 000 years
• Black-earth silts on the first Baikal terraces
7 000 years
• Peat bogs of the Chivyrkuisky Bay
10 000–12 000 years
• Summer thaw depth
from 0,5 to 3 m
• Winter freeze depth
from 1 to 5 m
• The area of the mountainous tundra zone
20%
• The mountain forest zone
45%
• The mountain steppe zone
35%
• Density of autotrophic phytoplankton
up to 1 mln. cells
• Number of higher plant sub-species on Baikal (to V.V.Lamakin)
79
• Number of higher plant families on Baikal
27 species
• Bryophytic plants
15 species
• Diatomic Algae species
509 species
• Chlorococcales species
99 species
• Ulothrichales species
45 species
• Freshwater shrimp species
255 species
• Gastropods species
83 species
• Oligochaeta species
More than 100
species
• Number of Planarians species
More than
40 species
• The length of the non-freezing area at the source of the Angara
15–20 km
213
The Academic ridge – An underwater elevation, crossing the Baikal trough diagonally from the
island of Olkhon to Cape Valukan, peaks of which form the Ushkany Islands. Discovered by Gleb
Yurevich Vereschagin in 1932.
The Angara – A river, tributary of the Yenisei. The name's origins are connected with the character
of its valley at the source, having the form of cleft or a gorge, through which the Angara flows
out of Baikal.
Babushkin – A town on the southeastern coast of Baikal, named after a revolutionary, Ivan Vasilevich Babushkin, who was killed here in 1906.
Baklany – Used to describe a stone, island, or bay where many cormorants are found (Russian
“baklan” = “comorant”).
Vydrinaya – A tributary of Baikal. The river already had this name in the 17th century, when Nikolai
Spafary, on his way to China in 1675, wrote: “The river Vydrinaya takes its name from the large
number of otters and beavers found in it” (Russian “vydro” = “otter”) .
Goryachinsk – A health resort in Buryatia with hot springs, discovered in 1753 (186 km from UlanUde).
Davshe (Davsha) – A bay, river, or settlement. “Davshe” in Evenk means “meadows, a wide open
district”. The central part of the Barguzin reserve is located.
Dulan – A settlement in Kabansky District, on the southern slopes of the Gulf of Proval. “Dulaan” in
Buryat means “warm”.
Zasechnaya – A bay where I.D.Chersky scored a horizonal notch at a height of one metre above
Baikal's water level on June 26, 1880. Chersky made such notches at many places on the Baikal
coast in order to track changes in the Lake's water level over time. The intersections are now
under state protection as belonging to the history of science.
Zmeinaya – The name of a bay. The word means “grass-snake”. Grass-snakes in Baikal region are
only found near to hot springs, so springs and the bays near to them are sometimes called
“zmeiniye” or “kuliniye (from the Evenk “kulinda”, meaning ”many snakes”).
Izhimey – The name of a cape on Olkhon Island. “Ezhin” in Buryat means “the owner, the master”.
Mount Zhima, which forms the cape, is the highest point on Olkhon Island. Baikal's greatest
depth (1637m) is located 8-10 km to the south of the cape. The Buryats view the mountain as
sacred and many legends and traditions are connected with it.
Kaltusnaya – A river in a waterlogged valley. “Kaltus” in Evenk means “a bog, a damp place”.
Кotokel – A lake near Baikal. “Koto” in Evenk means “a palm tree, a knife, a club”, which is used to
clear a track through scrub. The name has also been connected with Russian “koty”, which are a
type of footwear worn in cold, damp weather, often by gold prospectors.
Kotelnikovsky – The name of a cape, which is known for its hot springs (water temperature is about
70 degrees). In January 1724 the academician D.G.Missershmidt learnt in the Irkutsk Chancellery
“that there is a hot spring by the Baikal-sea, at Kotelnikovsky, about 20 sazhens from the coast of
Baikal”. F.K. Drizhenko writes in his navigation directions that “travelling by steamship near Cape
Kotelnikovsky, the place of the springs can be seen from the large amount of evaporation above
it.”
Kultuk – A gulf at the southern end of Baikal and a village in the Barguzin Gulf. In the spring of 1647
Ivan Pokhabov “built the fortified settlement of Kultuk on Baikal-lake”. In Turkic “kultuk” means
“a corner, a gulf”.
214
Keltegey (Kheltegey) – A cape and group of islands in the Chivyrkuisky Gulf. In Buryat the word
“helegy” means “a slanting hillock”. The cape and the islands seem to lean to one side.
Мaksimikha – A village and a bay. Old Buryat traditions recount that a Don Cossack explorer,
Maxim Perfilyev, settled on the bank of the Barguzin Gulf and married a Buryat woman. The Cossack died, and his widow was known as “Maksimikha”.
Small sea – The channel between the north-western coast of Baikal and Olkhon Island. Its southern
part is called Olkhon Gates. “Small Sea” in Buryat is "narin-dalaj" (“narrow sea”).
Upper Izgoloviye, Lower Izgoloviue – Capes on the Svyatoy Nos peninsula. An “izgologiye” is a
cape on a river island, facing upstream.
Оimur – A village on the bank of the Proval Gulf, and a small river in a boggy valley. “Оimokhо” in
Buryat means “to ford a small river”. Or the name may come from the Buryat word for “a woodland track”.
Olkhon – The biggest island on Baikal. It is partially forested, and its name comes from Buryat: "oy"
is "wood", and “khon, khan” is a diminutive suffix.
Peschanaya – A bay on the western coast of Baikal, exactly 100 km from the source of the Angara.
It is one of the most picturesque places on Baikal's shoreline. “Peschanaya” means “sandy”.
Posolskoye (Posolskaya) – A village and a railway station. They are named in honour of Erofei
Zabolotsky, a Russian envoy to Mongolia and China who was killed here in 1650. The Posolsky
monastery was founded at the place of his death in 1661.
Proval – A gulf, named due to the earthquake in the northern part of the Selenga delta (January
12-13, 1862) when an area of the coastal steppe (about 200 sq. km) was swallowed up by the
Lake. “Proval” means “fall, collapse” in Russian.
Sarma – The name of a river and of a village. “Sarma” in Buryat means “a crossing on bulls”. The
name is obviously connected with a crossing of this rough river. A strong local wind near to the
river Sarma's mouth is also called “the Sarma”. It blows from the Primorsky ridge over the Lake at
a speed of about 40 km/s, from the west and north-western, most often in October-December.
Svyatoy Nos (Sacred Nose) – A peninsula connected to the mainland by a low, marshy isthmus.
The peninsula has the profile of a huge nose.
The Selenga –The largest tributary of Baikal. The name comes from the Evenk word “sele”, meaning
“iron”.
Snezhnaya – A tributary of Baikal. Its river basin and the northern slopes of Khamar-Daban have
large amounts of precipitation, particularly snow (“Snezhnaya” = “snowy”).
Тankhoy – The name of a bay, a port, a village and a railway station. “Тokhoy” in Buryat means “a
curve, a bend”. Since 1969 Tankhoy has been the centre of the Baikal national park.
Тuraly – The name of a cape on the northeastern coast of Baikal, between Khakusy and Shiraldy
bays. The singing sands of Turaly are located on the southern side of the cape (“Тuraly” in Evenk
means “musical, singing”), though a large part of them are now flooded.
Uda – the right tributary of the river Selenga. The name "Uda" is believed to derive from a tribe, the
Ude, which lived in the western part of Trans-Baikal region along the Orkhon and Selenga rivers
in the 12th century. The name may also come from the Mongolian word “ude” meaning "midday".
Frolikha – The name of a bay, a lake and a river on the north-eastern coast of Baikal, to the north of
Ayaya Bay. The name is from the Russian surname, Frolov (a Cossack explorer).
Khakusy – The name of a bay and a cape on the northeastern coast of Baikal. This sandy bay has an
oval shape, with dark coniferous forest and vast fields of reindeer moss against a background of
dome-shaped outcrops of the Barguzin ridge. The Evenk word “akushi” means "hot".
215
Khamar-Daban – A mountain ridge in Baikal region. In Buryat “hamar dabaan” means “a nose, a
lifting”, and describes a high and difficult mountain pass or a mountain. There is another explanation of “hamar dаbааn” as deriving from a term meaning “a cedar mountain”. “Khamar-Daban”
was originally the name for a small pass near Cape Shaman, which had a profile similar to a
human nose. The name was later used to refer to the mountain system around the pass.
Khuzhir – A village on Olkhon Island. In Buryat “khuzhar” means “saline soils, a place where salt
comes out of the ground”.
Shaman Stone – A stone rising from the water at the source of the Angara. In Evenk “saman” means
“sorcerer, healer, priest”.
216
Now we will tell you some legends that were collected
in the book by Lazar Eliasov, called “The Magician of
Siberian tales”. These legends and stories of ancients
times are a folk chronicle: different legends were
passed down from generation to generation about
how life appeared on the earth, where people come
from, how different events happened, what the role of
a particular historical people was, and why there are
so many names and for different things in the world.
How Baikal was made
Old people tell this story about how Baikal was made. They
say that there is very little soil on the Earth. Everybody knows
that if you dig a hole for a few sazhens or even less, you come to
sand, clay and stone. The deeper you dig, the less soil there is,
and the more stones and other materials , which you cannot find
on the surface. And further down, in the depths of the earth,
there are only stones, and even further there is only water. There
are many different stones in the ground, and there are stones
that make water boil and gush, when it is poured on them. and
many such stones can be found in the depths of the earth, many
more than on the surface. About one thousand years ago, deep
inside the earth, these stones and the water met. And the water
boiled, when they met. Where should the steam go? It ran in
various directions and pushed the earth, and the earth moved
like a wave and swayed. The water seethed and seethd in the
depths, then suddenly the water and the steam broke through
to the surface and covered the low places. It couldn't go any further, as there were mountains all around, and that is how Lake
Baikal was made. The lake never becomes less, because it is fed
from under the earth, and they say that its water is connected
to the Arctic Ocean. Long ago old men said that sometimes
the pieces of a boat that was destroyed in Baikal were found in
the Arctic Ocean, and boats that sank in the Arctic were found
floating in Baikal.
217
On Baikal's origin
Some people say that Baikal is a lake, but most call it a sea. There are legends,
which explain the name “Baikal”. The Buryats call it “Baigal”. According to the legend
of the Kabansk Buryats, the earth shuddered, a crack was formed, and red flames of fire
blazed from it. burning everything around them. People prayed to the gods to stop the
disaster, but the sky did not hear their prayers. So they began to ask “Bai, gal!” (“Fire,
stop, please!”). And the fire began to subside when it heard these words. In the place,
where it blazed, there was a huge basin, which filled with water. So this huge expanse
of water was called “Baigal”.
Where did the name “Baikal”
come from?
The Russians heard long ago that somewhere in the middle of Siberia there was a huge
lake. But nobody knew its name. When Russian merchants and later Cossacks crossed the
Urals and came to the rivers Ob and Yenisei, they heard that, further to the east, people live
around a lake, where the water boils by day and by night. Those Russians also heard that
the lake was rich in fish, and animals roamed the coast, and these animals had great value
and had nothing to compare with them anywhere else in the world. So the Cossacks and
merchants hurried on towards the sea-lake, and travelled for miles and miles without sleeping or feeding their horses, losing track of day and night, because they wanted so much to
be the first to reach the lake and see its nature and find why it is waters ceaselessly boiled.
The merchants and Cossacks journeyed for years and many of them died on the way,
but the survivors eventually came to the Shaman Stone. It blocked the road and screened
the sunlight, and there was no way around it to right or left, because of the high mountains,
so high that if you looked towards their peaks, your hat would fall off and still you would
not see the top of them. The Russians stood before the Shaman Stone and saw that they
couldn't reach the sea, even though they could hear it roaring and breaking against cliffs.
The merchants grieved and the Cossacks mourned, thinking they had come so far for nothing. They retreated, laid out their tents and began to think how to get round the Shaman
Stone or round the mountains. But they couldn't come round the mountains, or the sea
would swallow them. So the merchants and Cossacks stayed to live so near to the sea-lake,
but without any chance of reaching its shore.
They stayed there a long time until, to their good fortune, an stranger came to them
who called himself “Buryat”. The Russians asked him to guide them to the coast, lead them
around the sea and show them the land, where they had not yet been. But the Buryat said
nothing, and went off into the forest. The Russians did not make him stay but let him go with
God's blessing. The merchants and Cossacks felt sadness once again, understanding that
they would die there and none of them knew how many days and months they had been
there already. They even though of gathering their last strength and attempting to go back,
but suddenly the Buryat returned and brought his son with him. He said:
“I cannot get round Baikal with you – I'm too old to go round the Shaman Stone, my
time is past. Take my son – he has clear eyes and the legs of a deer.” And the old man went
back to the taiga and his son led the Russians by a new way, brought them to the coast and
said: “Baigal”.
The Russians asked him what it was, and he replied: “In our language it means a place of
fire – before there was a burning fire here, which made the earth collapse and the sea flood
in. Since then we call our sea 'Baigal'”.
The Russian liked the name, so they began to call the sea “Baikal”.
218
The legend about an omul barrel
According to the old byryat legend earlier winds-giants – Kultuk
and Barguzin, old friends – bossed fish lands. They liked visiting
each other, and played with each other and had some fun together.
And for their fun they had a wonderful toy – an omul barrel: where
it flew there omuls flew in very big amounts as if they wanted to
get into that barrel. This made them have fun a lot.
But once
our hercules fell in love with Sarma, a mountain epic-heroine, the
mistress of the Small sea.
She had a very severe character comparing with the ones of Barguzin's and Kultuk's. Also she was much stronger than they were.
They both would like to have a wife like Sarma. And they both
wanted to marry her. But Sarma answered that she would marry
the one who would bring a magic barrel to her first. “I would also
like to have a lot of omul in my Small sea”. The hercules decided
that it was a triffling matter, though they didn't want to yield. And
the barrel got in a very bad condition: it flew and creaked all the
time.
At last they managed to catch the barrel, but all over sudden
they stood frozen: no one couldn't make the barrel free – their
force was equal. But as soon as they decided to fight again, the
barrel somehow disappeared from their hands and it went down
the water...It turned out that Baikal himself took it away to finish the
quarrel. And Sarma didn't marry anyone. Till nowadays the giantswinds quarrel with each other who is better, thus arousing waves
on the lake.
219
The Beauty Angara
A ballet, based on this legend, was written and
performed in the State Ballet and Opera House of
Buryatia in the 20th century. The composers were
Lev Knipper, Bau Yampilov, the choreographer was
Mikhail Zaslavsky, the set was by Aleksandr Timin,
and the main roles were taken by Larisa Sakhyanova
and Petr Abasheev. In 1972 the ballet was awarded
a state prize and there have been more than 500
performances at the Buryat State Ballet.
Long-long ago in our region there was mighty, grey knight, called Baikal.
Nobody could equal him in strength and wealth. When he grew angry, his
waves reached to the mountains and rocks began to crack. Many rivers and
streams were his servants.
Old Baikal had only one daughter and her
name was Angara. She was the most beautiful daughter in the world. Her father loved her
very much, but he was strict with her and kept
her secluded, deep in his waters, never letting
her out. Angara was very sad and dreamt of
freedom.
Once, a gull from the Yenisei arrived on the
shores of Baikal. The gull landed on a rock and began to tell of the free life
in the Yenisei steppes. The gull told of Sayan and his handsome and glorious son, Yenisei. Angara heard the gull's story and felt even more sad. Later,
Angara also heard about Yenisei from mountain streams and her sadness
grew even greater.
She decided to see Yenisei, come what may. But how could she break free
from her prison, and the high walls of the palace? She began to pray:
Oh, Tengerian Gods,
Have mercy on this imprisoned soul,
Be not hard and cruel
To me, stranded and helpless.
Understand that my youth is being denied
By my father Baikal.
Give me strength and courage
To break free from these walls.
220
When Baikal found out that his daughter wanted to run away he locked
her up even more securely and started to look for a husband for Angara
among his neighbours, because he didn't want his daughter to go far away
from him. Old Baikal decided to marry her to the rich and brave Irkut. He
sent his servants for Irkut. When Angara heard of this, she cried bitterly.
She begged her father not to marry her to Irkut, whom she didn't love.
But her father was firm, and locked Angara away even more deeply and
locked her door with crystal locks.
Angara cried again for help. And the mountain streams and rivers
heard her and decided to help. They started to wash away cliffs and rocks
along the shore
The wedding night approached and on the night before the wedding,
when Old Baikal was sleeping soundly, Angara broke her crystal locks
and escaped from her prison. And the brooks and rivers cleared a way for
her on the Lake shore. And at last the way was ready. Angara broke loose
from the walls of stone and rushed to her beloved Yenisei.
Old Baikal was awoken by bad dreams. He quickly got up, heard the
noise and realized what had happened. In fury he ran out of his palace,
took a rock and threw it after his escaping daughter with a curse.
But it was too late. His stone missed Angara, who was already far
away, but it still lies at the place where Angara broke free, and is called
the Shaman Stone.
Old Baikal still wants his runaway daughter back. And if we move the
Shaman-Stone then Old Baikal will burst his shores and catch up with
Angara, flooding everything in his path.
221
Where did the Selenga
take her name from?
It was a long, long time ago. So long time ago that nothing has
remained from those days, except for a report that is passed from
grandparents to grandsons, and from fathers to sons. In those time
the biggest Tungus clan was wandering on the shore of Baikal,
where the Angara begins, not far from where Irkutsk is today. They
wandered across the taiga until they met another tribe. People can
always find a common language, and here it was particular easy
because the two tribes were related. The other tribe were Tungus
from the Chilchigir clan, who led a nomadic on the northern shores
of Baikal, where the town of Nizheangarsk stands today.
The Baikal Tungus got to know the Chilchigirs. And the Chilchigir Prince told them: “Our ancestors, maybe grandparents or greatgrandparents lived here, where you Baikal Tungus are living now.
But a misfortune occurred. Our grandfathers went onto Baikal to
hunt for seals, but the ice was fragile and their block of ice separated and drifted away from the shore. They drifted for a very long
time. They crossed the Lake on the block of ice and landed on the
other side of Baikal.
They couldn't get back, so they had to live in the new place.
They found it hard, but they survived and started to hunt again.
What else could a Tungus do? Once, while they were hunting they
found a big river. The hunters went up the river and found another
river which flowed into it. Our ancestors explored those rivers for
a long time, but they met no one. Those places were deserted,
though very rich in birds and animals. But there's no place like
home, and our home is here, where the Shaman Stone protects us.
If the Stone is moved, then everything will be flooded.”
The Baikal Tungus listened to their relative and asked: “What's
the name of that big river?”
222
“Have a little patience,” the Chilchigir Prince replied. “You will
soon understand.”
He looked at them all, saw that he had their attention and continued his story:
“We lived on the other side for a long time, we got used to the
big river, but we had trouble like our grandfathers. When we were
fishing, a terrible thunderstorm began. Our boats were destroyed,
and we barely managed to get to the shore that our ancestors had
left a long time ago.”
The Baikal Tungus were curious and they asked about the big
river's name one more time. The Prince replied that the river had
no name, because people haven't reached that river yet, and only
people could give names to rivers.
“Where does it flow into?”
“Into Baikal” the Prince replied.
And then the Baikal Tungus understood that the big river flows
above Baikal, and rivers like this are called “solonga” in Tungus.
Later the Buryats and Russians distorted the word and called the
river “Selenga”
The name has remained to this very day. What I have told you is
the truth – I have heard it many times from the Tungus.
That's how Selenga got its name, very simply. Nowadays people still give names to nameless rivers based on various things.
Each river has its own name.
Both the Evenks and the Buryats have similar legends, but this
one seems to be the most full and make the most sense. Magay
first hard it from a hereditary Baikal Cossack, Ivan Zasadin, at the
time of the Civil War.
This is one of the variants that was recorded from Magay's words in February
1948. Egor Ivanovich Sorokovnikov-Magay was born into a Buryat-Russian
family in the village of Taloye (Tunkinsky District) in the Republic of Buryatia. His
father's ancestors were Buryats, from whom he took his second generic name,
“Magay”, which is a name from legend. His father was a hunter, a violinist, and
an expert on fairytales. Egor Ivanovich received most of his repertoire from his
father. In the 1930s he was admitted as a member of the Writers' Union of the
USSR. Shortly before his death he was awarded the title of Honored Artist of
the Buryat Republic.
223
Buryat Folk Fairy tales
How lions died out in Siberia
A long time ago there were lions living in Siberia. They were shaggy and
overgrown with long hair and they were not afraid of the cold.
Once a lion met a wolf and asked:
– Where are you running to as if you were crazy?
– I am scared that I will be killed !
– And who has put such fear into you?
– A man who sneezes loudly. He sneezed once and killed my brother,
the second time my sister, and the third time he wounded my leg. You see,
I am limping.
The lion growled, so that the mountains shook and the sky wept.
– Where is this man who sneezes loudly? I will tear him to pieces! I will
throw his head over the distant mountain and his legs to right and to left.
– Don't even think of it! He won't spare even you! Run for your life!
The lion took him by the throat:
– Show him to me or I will strangle you!
And they started off. On their way they met little shepherd-boy.
– Is it him? – asked the lion.
– No, it isn't. He has not grown up yet!
They came to the steppe. On a hill there was a tired old man, who was
tending a herd.
– Is it him? The lion bared his teeth and grinned.
– No, it isn't. He is already too old.
They went further. And suddenly they met a hunter on a fast horse. He
had a weapon over his shoulders. The lion didn't have time to ask the wolf
a question, because the hunter took his gun and fired a shot. The lion's long
hair caught fire. The lion ran off and the wolf followed him. They stopped in
a dark ravine. The lion rolled on the ground and growled madly.
The wolf asked him:
– He sneezes strongly, doesn't he?
– Shut up! You see, I am naked! I have only my mane left and the tufts
of hair on my tail. I am shivering with cold.
– And where can we run to escape the loud-sneezer?
– Go to the forest!
The wolf disappeared into the furthest forest, but the lion ran to a hot
country, to a desert.
224
A mouse and a camel
Once a very big and very foolish camel argued with a small but very
clever mouse.
– I will see the sunrise before you! – said the camel.
– No, I will see it first! – answered the mouse.
– Really? But you are not bigger than my eyelash. I am a mountain in
comparison with you! You can't compete with me!
They argued the point again and again, and eventually they decided to
see who was right.
They waited for the morning.
The camel thought to himself:
– I am a hundred times bigger than this mouse. So, I will see the sunrise
a hundred times quicker. And as the earth is round, wherever the sun rises
from, I will see it in any case.
The foolish camel! He did not know that the sun always rises in the east.
The camel turned to the south and began waiting. And the little mouse
climbed onto the camel's hump and started looking to the east:
– There is the sun! I have seen it before you! How foolish you are! – the
mouse shouted, and jumped down to the ground.
The camel turned round and saw that the sun had already risen. It
seemed to be laughing at him. He became angry terribly – with the mouse,
of course, not with himself. He chased the mouse, wanting to trample her.
But the clever mouse managed to hide in the ashes of yesterday's fire.
Since then the camel always lies down and rolls in ashes every time he
sees them. He smears himself from head to feet and feels very pleased
with himself, because he think s that he is quits with the wretched mouse.
So the little mouse was cleverer than the big camel. That's why the Buryats call the first month of the year “the month of the mouse”.
225
A horse and a red deer
In ancient times the red deer had four eyes. He was proud
of it, and he also thought that he was the fastest animal on four
legs.
Once the red deer met a horse and said to him:
– You can run very well, but nevertheless you are not so fast:
you never will catch up with me!
– You are wrong! - said the horse, - I will catch up with you!
– And how will you do it? – asked the red deer.
– I will put a man on my back and tell him to ride me. Then I
will catch up with you.
The red deer laughed and said:
– You will not catch up with me whatever you do! Especially
with a man on your back!
They made a bet and set the time of the race. The red deer
went to pasture and gather strength.
And the horse went to a man and said:
– Sit down on me and ride me! We will race with the red
deer!
– All right! – answered the man.
The horse and the red deer met in the open field on the
appointed a day and they raced.
First the red deer was ahead, but the man began goading the
horse, so the horse caught up with the red deer and left him
behind.
The red deer wept bitterly in shame. And he cried so hard
and so long, that he sobbed out two of his four eyes. Since then
all red deer have marks below their eyes. These are traces of the
cry-eyes.
A hare and a snow
The snow said to a hare:
– I have a headache.
– You are thawing, and that is probably why you have a headache, - answered the hare. He sat down on a tree stump and
wept bitterly:
– I am so sorry for you, snow. .. I hid myself in you and hid
from the fox, the wolf and the hunter. And how will I live without you? Any raven and any owl will see me and peck me to
death. I will go to the master of the forest and ask him to save
you for me.
But the sun was high and was shining hot. The snow thawed
and ran from the mountains.
The hare pined and cried louder. The master of the forest
heard the hare. He listened to his request and said:
– I will not argue with the sun and I can't preserve snow. But
I will change your white coat for a grey one. In the summer you
will easily hide among dry leaves, brushes and grass.
The hare was delighted with this. Now he always changes his
white winter coat for a summer one.
226
I. Severyanin
Baikal
I've dreamt of Baikal since my childhood,
And at last I've seen Baikal.
We sailed over it and the mountain ridges flashed,
And the cedars looked down from the cliffs.
I remember many different stories
And many songs
Of this lake-like sea,
Of this Holy Baikal.
We sailed from one pier to the next.
Evening came. It was cold. The time was in May.
We took a train and went away.
We went to China in that blue train.
Many times my soul has pined,
Wishing to come back again.
I still do not know Baikal:
To see it is not to know it.
N.Damdinov
Baikal is beneath me now.
From the mountain-top
I try to encompass the smoothness
Of its glittering, fairly-tale immensity.
Here from the cliff I can see,
Where Chersky once stood,
Over there a breath of wind,
Brings a leisurely wave to life:
Probably the Barguzin
Ruffled the water,
And waves rush to the foot of the cliffs
Like a flock of swans.
They are without number,
without end Numerous, endless amid the silence.
The carefree wave-song murmurs unceasing
For millions of years
Amid the dumb silence of mountains.
And the song does not seem too long,
I could listen to it forever.
I've forgotten about tomorrow,
I can't worry about my descendants!
Holy Baikal, darkening with rage,
Punish me like a boy...
227
D.Ulzituev
Homecoming
Oh, Baikal,
The eyes of my mountain land,
I have returned to you
From far away!
The light-chestnut horses' legs
Gallop and gallop
Across you.
Huge clouds sail over you.
Exiled in great cities
I pined for your
Low, saddle-like, springing waves,
The dashing strength of
Tuneful Russian words
Unexpectedly
Powerfully
Suddenly wells up inside me.
Baikal, I bring you
A low bow of reverence
From Mother Volga
and fair-haired birch trees!
The ground rose to meet me
On all sides;
I have brought my heart
To you, my wind and mountains!
A blue haze shines
In the foggy distance
And ships sail peacefully
Across it.
Again the gulls are flying
Over the glassy water.
The blue arch of heaven
Is reflected in the face of the deep.
…On roads and highways
I often dreamt
Of seeing Baikal first quiet,
Then threatening.
And now I see it: the water is blueness.
Islands of white clouds
Are reflected in its surface.
A blue haze shines
… The road calls me again,
But to part with the Lake is such
sorrow!
D.Zhalsaraev
The Baikal Song
You said: “How beautiful Baikal is!”
If I am as you say,
This virginal beauty was gifted to me
By the flowering earth.
This song is washed by my waves
And taken up by the cedars.
You said “Baikal is crystal-clear…”.
If I am as you said,
The purity of crystal waters were made blue
By the transparent vault of heaven.
And taken up by the gulls.
You said “How powerful Baikal is!”.
If I am as you said,
This fairy-tale riot of strength
Was given me by Great Geser`s breath.
And taken up by the cliffs.
You said “The bottomless depths of Baikal”.
If I am as you said, I owe my depth
To the golden soul of the people.
This song is washed by my waves,
And bursts forth from my heart.
228
E. Golubev
Baikal
I was born and raised in backwoods
In secret woods of the Urals,
Where nightingale's song was heard
In a night above the Kama,
Where standing on a ridge,
Passing through thick mist,
You see shine of oriental lakes
And Western Russia's margin.
I thought the best place
All over the world is the Urals,
But when I saw the BaikalThe first time I doubted it.
…The train was going, passing by
Margin, woods and stopped.
Blue mirage is shining
And peacefully are going
The ships on it.
Again the gulls are flying
Above the glassy water.
The blue arch of heaven
Is reflected in the face of water.
…In the roads and ways
I frequently dreamt
See the lake first quiet,
See the lake then horrified.
And have seen: the water is blueness.
Islands of white clouds
Are reflected in surface.
Blue mirage is shining
But the road is calling,
And it is a pity to part with the lake!
I see a glorious lakeThe sacred Baikal.
I look down- there's blue lake
I look up- there's blue sky,
Only white clouds above
Float quietly,
Only gulls fly above
Stark water.
Only in the sky
There is a golden Sun limb.
And it looks, can't see enough
In the mirror of the waters,
Grey mountains, majestic
Big round dance.
High giants
Stark granite
The blue of this abyss,
As a mystery, it keeps.
Having dreamt about frredom,
Baikal will break out,
Frothing its waves,
Splashing at the cliffs.
It will hit with big wave
Into the chest of capes.
The giants don't stand
Like a granite wall.
It urges onto the mountain the clouds
With a thuderstorm,
But the the thunderstom is weak,
Like an old man's hand.
229
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E-resources
1. http://az-kozin.narod.ru / antology.html
2. http://baikalstyle.ru
3. http://www.baikal-asia.com / baik23.html
4. http://tonkosti.ru / Национальные_парки_Республики_Бурятия
5. http://www.magicbaikal.ru / info / reserves.htm
6. http://ru.wikipedia.org / wiki 232

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