To most of us, Siberia is just big. It’s too big to contemplate. It’s huge and it’s remote and, well – empty. Therefore it’s no surprise to find Lake Baikal here in the Siberian far east of Russia.
It fits right into our stereotypes by being the biggest, deepest, oldest lake in the world. It contains 90 percent of all surface water of the biggest country in the world and, to give a comparison to clarify the staggering scale, this amount of water is more than all the North American Great Lakes combined. The one stain on the stats sheet is Olkhon island, which at its impressive size, still comes in second to Manitoulin island in Lake Huron. As continental rail and roads have been laid and planes have become habitual, this isolated area has grown to be more popular as a travel destination. Stats collectors and outdoorsmen alike will find something of interest here and there is certainly enough space to get purposely lost in the beautiful surroundings.