Lake Baikal, located in eastern Siberia, has loomed large in the cultural consciouness of Russians since the first Russian explorers caught sight of it in the late sixteenth century. Condemned to wilderness exile as a heretic, the Archipriest Avvakum spoke of Baikal's dizzying natural beauty in his famous Autobiography (1669-76). In the wake of the 1825 Decembrist Revolt, hundreds of Russian officers and intellectuals were sent to perform hard labor in the Baikal region, where they wrote works of great literary value in spite of the inhuman conditions of the mines where they perished. Irkutsk, founded in 1652, is now known as the capital of central Siberia as well as the sacred home of these Decembrists - Russia's first democratic revolutionaries. In the Soviet period, Baikal became a source of solace and reverence to the millions of inmates who inhabited the infamous Gulag Archipelago. For Siberian citizens, Baikal continues to be a daily source of pride, a physical and psychological refuge from the bitterness of Communist-era and Post-Communist sufferings.

To contemporary Russians, the lake is also a cultural treasure - an icon of the unspoiled, natural beauty of the Motherland. Indeed, Russians revere Baikal as Americans do the Grand Canyon, and for many Russians a trip to Baikal is the dream of a lifetime. Russian schoolchildren, to this day, learn to call the lake the Sacred Sea or the Pearl of Siberia (Belt 1992). Perhaps not suprisingly, Russia's first and greatest environmental campaign - to save Baikal from industrial pollution - sparked the beginning of the country's environmental movement. Predating the first glimmers of perestroika, these environmental protests began in the 1960's when a large pulp mill was built on the southern shore of the lake, and they continue to this day (Stewart 1990).

Scientifically, Lake Baikal is the crown jewel of Russia's natural inheritance. It is the world's oldest, deepest lake, and it is more richly endowed with unique life forms than any other lake on the planet. Holding one-fifth of the planet's freshwater - more water than all of North America's Great lakes combined - this lake measures 1,637 meters deep, more than a mile from top to bottom (Belt 1992; Martin 1994). But the most extraordinary feature of this lake is its great antiquity and singular biodiversity. Often compared to Lake Tahoe in Nevada, both Lake Baikal and Lake Tahoe were formed similarly by movements of the earth's tectonic plates. But, Lake Tahoe, like most lakes, is about 15,000 years old and has two endemic species, while Baikal is over 25 million years old and contains 1,500 endemics (Belt 1992). Indeed, more than half of Baikal's flora and fauna is found nowhere else on earth. Among these unique species are the world's only freshwater seal as well as hydrothermal vent animals that live on the lake floor (Crane et al. 1991). Truly, this lake is a museum of living antiquities, and like the Galapagos Islands, it was declared a United Nations World Heritage Site in 1996 (Livingstone 1999).

The staggering scientific value of Lake Baikal coupled with its enormous cultural importance to the Russian people make this a site whose true measure can only be taken with tools from both science and the humanities. To treat the lake solely as a glorified test-tube would be as foolish as worshipping it as a kind of New Age deity.

LITERATURE CITED

Belt, D. 1992. The World's Great Lake. National Geographic, June 1992.

Crane, K., B. Hecker, and V. Golubev. 1991. Hydrothermal vents in Lake

Baikal. Nature 350:281.

Livingstone, D.M. 1999. Ice break-up on southern Lake Baikal and its

relationship to local and regional air temperatures in Siberia and to

the North Atlantic Oscillation. Limnology and Oceanography 44:1486-1497.

Martin, P. 1994. Lake Baikal. Advances in Limnology 44:3-11.

Rasputin, V. 1991. Siberia, Siberia. Northwestern University Press.

Stewart, J.M. 1990. The Great Lake is in great peril. New Scientist 30:58-62.