The deepest lake in the world, the freshwater lake Baikal, is located in Russia. Its depth is greater than 1,600 meters. Only two lakes in the world have a depth of more than 1,000 meters – African lake Tanganyika and the largest in the world freshwater Caspian Sea, which is also partly located in Russia.

Lake Baikal is the largest lake in the world by volume of fresh water. The lake contains 20% of the world’s freshwater. The water of Lake Baikal is one of the cleanest in the world and even some scientists consider it to be the cleanest lake in the world. You can see and observe the bottom of the lake o a depth of up to 40 meters without any equipment.

Lake Baikal is larger than the whole country of Belgium.

Lake Baikal. The photo is provided by Roman Petrov

Lake Baikal is also the most unfrozen freshwater lake in the world, containing 20% of the world’s unfrozen drinking water on our planet.

Also Lake Baikal is the oldest lake in the world. It is approximately 25 million years old. During these years sediments deposited in the lake of up to 8500 meters thick. If the lake level remained unchanged, the depth of the lake could add up to 8.5 kilometers. It means that Lake Baikal contains the highest mountains on the earth but they are hidden from human eyes with water and mud.

Lake Baikal emerged due to seismic activity. This activity still continues today. During the earthquake in 1862 approximately 200 square kilometers of land with 5 villages went under water.

More than a thousand species of animals and plants, which are not found anywhere else, inhabit Lake Baikal. For example, a unique deep-sea predatory fish Comephorusdybowski is viviparous. This fish does not spawn, but gives birth to small fish. Only a few species of fish found in the tropics can also do that. In the lake the water is very cold, especially in the deep. To survive under such conditions Comephorus dybowski has 30-40% fat. Additionally, because of the fat this fish is virtually transparent. In the olden days the fat from this fish was used in making candles.

Comephorus dybowski. The photo is given by Alexandr Mamontov

Lake Baikal has many other amazing animals and plants.

See also:

Impressive Facts about Lake Baikal 

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To discover Russia with Alexey Gureev