Original subtitles

Lakes are living creatures.

These precious reserves of water

live and die according to distinct natural cycles.

Their peaceful waters seem dormant,

yet they teem with mysterious life.

Lakes only reveal themselves

to the men and women who take time

to patiently linger beside their shores.

Together, we are going to discover their secrets.

In the heart of Siberia,

Baikal is a lake of extremes.

637 meters deep and 636 kilometers long,

it contains nearly 20% of the world's fresh water.

It's waters are the purest on Earth.

It's climate is one of the harshest,

dropping as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius in Winter.

But neither ice, wind, nor the interminable Winter

can hamper the development of an animal and plant life

that is unique in the world.

In this grandiose and hostile nature,

men and women have chosen to lead

a rare and remarkable existence.

Located 1,500 kilometers north of Mongolia,

Baikal lies right in the heart of Asia.

It contains as much water

as all the American Great Lakes combined.

Russians call it their great, sacred sea.

For more than 20 years, Sacha Yakovlev

has been traveling the lake up and down.

Here, near Olkhon Island,

it's the beginning of March

and the arrival of Spring has broken up the ice,

erecting a chaos of icy barriers that are tough to cross.

Sacha transports goods and often provides

the only link between the lake's inhabitants.

He knows when it's possible to forage through

or when we needs to turn back

because unlike Baikal,

the ice always has the last word.

Even when it's over a meter thick,

the lake's ice remains alive,

subjected to powerful internal forces.

Huge blocks of ice collide,

long cracks form,

and actual walls rise up.

These barriers on Baikal

are what we call ice hammocks.

They form very easily.

When the lake starts to freeze,

the layer of ice is torn up and carried by the wind.

The pieces are blown into certain spots

and pile up to form barriers like this.

This hammock is relatively small,

but there are thicker ones.

When that happens, it's impossible to cross them by car.

These vertical ice sheets

can loom 10 to 12 meters high,

but they are not the only danger lurking for travelers.

Fractures can appear and stretch for several kilometers.

Depending on the temperature and weather conditions,

they either contract or expand,

sometimes leaving a gap two meters wide.

I've fallen in the water before.

It happened last year on April 26th.

I was driving along on an old fissure

and in those spots, the ice disappears much faster,

and becomes more fragile.

So, there we were and the car sank,

right in the middle of Baikal.

We didn't even bother trying to get it out.

Very few people

live along the shores of this immense lake.

There is only one city in the north, Severobaykalsk,

with just 20,000 people.

The south boasts a handful of small villages,

who's total population is under 50,000.

For hundreds of kilometers

between these two outermost points,

there is not a single road, nor barely a soul.

Over 2/3 of Baikal's shores

are completely untouched and uninhabited.

This pristine environment is home to a host

of animal and plant species,

some of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

How did such rich biodiversity develop?

How do these animals manage to survive

and what is their relationship with Lake Baikal?

Over the past few decades,

national parks have been created around the lake.

Here in the Baikal-Lena Nature Reserve,

Sergei and Natacha Chabourov are on a mission

to protect and study this unique environment.

Natacha is a biologist.

She could have got a job in a lab in Irkutsk,

but she has chosen to live here with her husband

in a cabin that measure only 12 square meters.

Sergei is one of the reserve's Forest Rangers.

By the size and height of these scratches,

I'd say the bear is about four or five years old,

an average sized bear.

The animals you find most frequently

throughout the reserve are Roe Deer, Sika Deer,

Reindeer, Moose, and Mouse Deer,

which are all ungulates.

And for carnivores, you find Brown Bear, Wolverines,

Wolves, Lynx, and Foxes, of course.

There, we see deer feeding on the hill.

Soon, they'll be done with their breakfast

and go off to rest until evening.

I think along our coast,

there are about 300 deer within a territory

that stretches 110 kilometers long.

While Sergei tramps through the forest,

Natacha takes samples each day

for the reserve's biological studies lab

because Baikal's underwater life

is just as rich as that on land.

Though the lake's water is very cold in Winter,

it is still home to countless species.

My job is to study lakes.

Or more specifically, zooplankton,

which I've been studying for 20 years.

This zone hasn't been studied much by hydrogeologists,

so it's a bit like virgin territory.

Here in Baikal,

these planktonic organisms are what make the water so clean.

Particularly the crustaceans,

and notably the Aulacoseira baicalensis.

This tiny organism is what allows us

to call Baikal as self-cleaning lake.

All these sponges and epischura filter the water

and keep it as clean as possible.

Baikal's water is reputed

to be the purest in the world.

Scientists have long wondered

how the lake manages to rid itself of impurities.

To find out,

one must be prepared to dive into three degree water.

People who come to Baikal,

who live in Irkutsk or it's outskirts,

think there's not much life here.

But actually, if you just lift a stone very gently,

you realize it's teeming with life.

One of the lake's

most surprising endemic species

is a strange creature called goopkey.

They almost look like water plants

the way they flutter in the current,

but goopkey are actually primitive animals,

freshwater sponges with no organs.

Their vivid green color come from the algae

they live in symbiosis with.

They have a calcium skeleton

that filters the water.

For example, a two centimeter square sponge

is able to filter close to 20 liters of water a day.

The water and everything else there is

passes through the sponges.

For instance, organic residue,

the remains of algae, or other dead organisms.

It all collects on the surface.

Obviously, the pores where the water flows though

and is filtered would get clogged

if no one was around to clean them.

But a large quantity of different organisms exist

by cleaning these sponges' bodies.

Goopkey have lived in the lake

for over 3 million years

and are a genuine biological treasure.

Without them, the lake's water wouldn't be as transparent.

The exceptional purity of the water

has made it possible to set up an uncommon

scientific instrument in the lake.

Composed of a string of underwater spheres,

the Baikal Deep Underwater Neutrino Telescope

is an electronic eye fixed on the stars.

It tirelessly peruses the Heavens

in search of evasive elementary particles, neutrinos.

These particles travel at the speed of light

and are emitted by some of the most spectacular

cosmic events in the universe,

such as solar eruptions, or supernovas.

Neutrinos have virtually no mass

and travel through interstellar space

unstopped by any obstacles they encounter.

They pass straight though the Earth

from one side to the other,

which slows them down and makes it possible to observe them.

It takes an enormous quantity of the purest water possible

for the neutrino detector to function.

And there are few places on Earth

that fulfill these conditions as perfectly as Lake Baikal.

In order to record,

the environment has to be very transparent.

Whether water or ice,

and the water's of Baikal are the most transparent

of any lake in the world.

It is also the deepest lake.

Lake Baikal, our common treasure,

has made it possible to gather this scientific information.

That's why it was chosen.

Sunk over a kilometer deep in Baikal,

this detector may one day transform

the way we see our universe.

The depths of the lake harbor a multitude of other secrets.

Some are known only to geologists

who have plumed the rocky strata several kilometers

beneath the frozen surface of the lake.

In Khakusy, in the North of the lake,

inhabitants enjoy the hot springs

with little concern that the healing vapors

are caused by intense volcanic activity.

Or that the Earth's crust is much thinner here

than elsewhere in the world.

Baikal rests on a fault

that stretches across Siberia like an enormous scar,

the result of tectonic upheaval 50 million years ago.

Back at the time,

powerful terlluric forces disfigured the Eurasian continent,

thrusting up mountains and gouging out deep valleys.

This also caused a gigantic fissure to appear

where the Earth's mantle split open,

what geologists call a rift.

The geological process that gave rise to Baikal

is still underway.

The lake's shores continue to spread apart

at the rate of several millimeters per year,

further enlarging the immense ditch

which is already over seven kilometers deep.

Separated from other lifeforms for millions of years,

the lake's numerous plant and animal species

have evolved in ways that have made them unique.

For the novice,

it is hard to tell the difference between this seal

and it's cousins living in the icy waters

of the Russian Arctic.

Yet, this is no common Harbor Seal.

It is an entirely unique species called the Nerpa,

one of the few freshwater seals on Earth.

How it got here remains a mystery.

The Baikal seal is an incredible creature.

It's an aquatic mammal.

It's become a sort of symbol, you might say,

it's Baikal's calling card.

It's an extremely curious animal.

It's believed the seal's ancestors

migrated up the rivers from the Arctic Ocean,

gradually passing from seawater to brackish water

before finally adapting to the freshwater of Lake Baikal.

Cut off from marine seals for thousands of years,

Nerpa have evolved distinctly from their distant ancestors.

They have a flatter snout,

longer claws, bigger eyes,

and their hind flippers are very different

from those of the ocean dwelling seals.

With it's wealth of endemic species

such as goopkey and Nerpa,

Lake Baikal is a reservoir of unique biodiversity,

more biologically rich than any other lake on Earth.

It's also a true inland sea

who's influence on the climate is clearly visible.

For over 50 years,

scientists have been taking shifts in the weather stations

located along the shores of Lake Baikal,

attempting to understand

the lake's highly particular climate.

Youri Oussof has been studying the question

for over 20 years.

Visitors are rare in the Winter,

but Sacha never fails to turn up.

Every three hours, Summer and Winter,

Youri records the temperature, pressure, humidity,

and all the other data

that go into making a weather forecast.

Generally,

we see the lowest temperatures in January.

Right here, now,

the temperature's about minus 30 or minus 35 degrees.

The temperatures Youri records,

first at 50 centimeters, then one meter, and two meters deep

show a curious phenomenon.

Baikal takes longer to cool down and heat up

than the rest of Siberia.

For example, in May in Irkutsk,

it's the middle of Spring,

while here in Baikal, it's still Winter.

It's very cold and the temperature always drops

below freezing at night.

In the Fall, it's the opposite.

Lake Baikal has been heating up all Summer

and the water is still pretty warm.

So, when it starts to get cold in Irkutsk,

here on the lake, we still enjoy nice Fall days.

Baikal acts like

a kind of thermal buffer zone.

It's immense volume of water

gives it a great deal of inertia,

and influences the climate

for dozens of kilometers around the lake.

Today, it's a rare few who have managed to adapt

to this splendid, yet hostile environment.

The cold, isolation, and challenging lifestyle

are powerful dissuasions to anyone

who considers settling along these shores.

Poachers have long taken advantage of the situation

and the survival of certain rare animal species

is occasionally threatened.

Forest Rangers are the final defenders

of this endangered biodiversity.

Only four people still spend the Winter in Davsha,

a village built in the 50's,

two meteorologists, Youra, the Forest Ranger,

and his girlfriend, Urina,

who also tends the small animal museum on the reserve.

The scientists and their families who use to live

year round in this quaint and sleepy village,

only return once the weather warms up.

Leaving Youra on his own

to develop a close relationship with the unspoiled nature.

The first Nuthatch that grew accustom to me

has stayed nearby.

He takes a seed,

then flies off to hide it in my shirt or hat.

Then, comes back to fetch another seed.

Once the Great Tits saw that,

they started landing on my arm, too.

Actually, they heard the chirps.

When a bird flies away happy after a good meal,

it starts chirping with joy and the others hear it.

Youra doesn't communicate

with all the animals of the forest, yet,

but he is able to detect

the least little trace of them in the snow.

A small endangered creature happened by here not long ago.

These here are the fresh tracks of a Sable

that came to check out this hole.

It ventured out to the forest, had a look around,

then went back since it didn't find anything worthwhile.

Despite a total hunting band

since the end of the 20th Century,

Siberian Sables have always attracted poachers

for their fur.

In 1915, the species were even in danger of extinction.

Biologists offered to study the vast expanses of Siberia.

And it was here, around Lake Baikal,

that the last remaining Sables were discovered.

If I'm not mistaken,

there were about 2,000 Sables left in all of Russia.

At that moment, the question arose,

it was absolutely necessary to study and protect them,

and the reserve was created.

The reserve has allowed the Sable

to escape hunters and survive as a species.

In Davsha, they now venture right up to Youra's house,

giving him a chance to capture his encounters

with the little creatures on film.

Whether they live in one of the rare villages along the lake

or in a simple cabin on it's banks,

Baikal's inhabitants almost all live

on the fish from the lake.

But in the Winter, how does one catch fish

when the entire lake is blanketed in a thick layer of ice?

An original method was needed.

And the solution Baikal's fishermen came up with

is ingenious.

As soon as the first thawed ice begins to form,

they set up a rope that allows them

to cast their nets beneath the ice.

But when it's minus 20, it's not so easy

to pull out a net weighing nearly 100 kilos.

The lake contains over 50 different kinds of fish,

but only a few of them are worth catching.

There are different fish in Lake Baikal,

like Railing, Whitefish, Sturgeon, Roach, or Perch.

But mainly, we fish Omul.

This fish is another species endemic

to Lake Baikal.

It belongs to the Salmon family

and can grow up to 50 centimeters long

and weigh up to five kilos.

Omul is sometimes nicknamed The Bread of Baikal

and is the main food produced by the lake.

But contrary to appearances,

fishing this silver fish is not risk free.

In Winter, any activity on the ice can prove dangerous.

Once,

two guys were dropping their net by hand.

One was suppose to pull the rope

and the other one stayed in the shed.

So, the guy was pulling, and pulling, and pulling,

and after a while, the rope got stuck.

What's going on, he wondered.

But the other guy didn't reply.

So, the guy who'd been pulling

went to have a look in the shed.

When he got there, it was empty.

He looked all around and finally saw the other guy's head

poking out of the hole.

His foot had got caught in the rope

and he'd been dragged down the hole.

You get some funny stories like that.

Today, the number of Omul

appears to be steadily dwindling.

Paradoxically, fish in seal communities

seemed larger at the start of the 20th Century,

back when they were the subject of intense exploitation.

In the North of the lake, in Bajkalsko,

a Soviet area collective fishing operation called Kolkols

was founded in the 1920's.

Each day, boats would leave the village

to fish Omul and hunt seals.

Everything they brought back

was shared among the entire community.

There were about 170 people,

karlkosnokoffs who worked here,

mainly men.

The women would salt the fish

and sew chapkas out of seal fur.

There were four or five large boats

and right down here, there was a salting factory,

and also a seal treatment factory.

People still fish today,

but everyone works for themselves.

Today, the fishing collective has closed down

and living conditions are precarious.

Many houses don't have running water,

despite their close proximity to the lake.

The families who still live here

gather in the center of the village

at an odd sort of service station.

This is where they come to pump the lake water

they use for their daily needs.

In Bajkalsko, the bustling activity of the Kolkols

and it's tons of fish are nothing but a distant memory.

After six months of interminable Winter,

the frozen icy landscape comes back to life.

The ice cracks, breaks apart, and begins to thaw,

freeing the lake's water once more.

Encircled by mountains who's tallest peaks

loom nearly 3,000 meters high,

Baikal also takes in water from the torrents,

streams, and rivers of an immense watershed.

There are about 330 rivers

that empty into Lake Baikal.

The biggest ones are the Selenga,

Barguzia, and Upper Angara.

The rest are only small rivers.

Only one of them, the Angara, leaves Lake Baikal.

It flows into Siberia's Yenisei River

and then, continues onto the icy Arctic Ocean.

Once more, it is possible for scientists

of every field to pursue their studies of the lake.

Olga Rousina has been studying Baikal's fish

ever since she got her PHD in Biology.

I can tell you

there are 61 species of fish in Lake Baikal

and about half of them are endemic.

These species are, for the most part,

linked to single family called the Kotyada.

After years of evolution

and being isolated in Lake Baikal,

they develop into 32 different kinds of fish.

And that's one of the endemic families.

Scientists wonder if the stocks of Omul

aren't indeed dwindling, as fishermen fear.

Personally, I don't see any major change

in quantity and when it comes to the Omul,

it's quantity has actually increased in Lake Baikal.

More specifically, in the schools of Omul

that live deep down at the bottom of the lake.

Only in April

is fishing finally able to begin again.

The Siberian nature makes up for lost time.

Pines, Cedars, and Larches,

Rhododendrons and Blueberry Bushes,

countless species of Moss and Lichen

finally shrug off their mantle of snow

and revel in the sun.

For the inhabitants of Baikal,

the race against the clock has just begun.

In just three months,

gardens need to produce the fruits and vegetables

that will last throughout the year.

In Davsha, Irina,

curator of the small natural sciences museum

grows an endangered plant known as Golden Root.

It's also a beautiful plant that smells nice,

but it's most important feature

is that it's root contains a compound

that's a type of rhodiolacide.

It has highly stimulative properties

and is even considered stronger than ginseng.

We use it mainly for fatigue or lack of energy,

it's invigorating and an energy booster.

In Davsha,

we find another strange plant

who's history is tied to Baikal's.

It is one of the oldest plants in the world,

several million years old,

and has survived through the last Ice Age.

This here is craniousbermosvelosum,

a plant endemic to Baikal

and a vestige of the Tertiary Period.

It's very rare on our shores.

In general, it grows in what we call the Pribaikalskiy

the Northeast of the lake.

It grows in sparse little clumps

with no more than one plant per square meter.

It's called solvulosken

because it's covered with tiny hairs

that soak up the sun's heat.

As soon as the snow and ice have melted,

the plant starts to grow.

First, the leaves, then buds appear,

and it starts to flower.

At the same time,

the animals that were living at half speed

during the cold winter months,

start to bustle about in search of food.

For Natacha Chabourov

it's the perfect time to take a head count

of the migrating birds

that have nested around the lake to nest their chicks.

During this season,

it is not unheard of to encounter

another one of Baikal's emblematic creatures,

the Brown Bear.

Bears wake up towards the end of March.

They come out of their lairs when they've been hibernating.

Spring is when they purge their systems of parasites,

so they eat grass and dig up roots.

Since bears are omnivores,

their diet is extremely varied.

They eat insects and ants,

plants and roots,

animal carcasses,

or else small animals they can catch easily.

In the Spring,

on of the bear's main food sources is a curious insect

that looks both like a butterfly and a moth,

the Caddisfly.

During the breeding period,

the female lays her eggs on rocks along the lake's shores.

Once the larvae hatch,

they cling to the rocks until they reach maturity.

For the hungry bears just emerging

after months of hibernation,

it's too good to be true.

They lumber out to the shores to enjoy the bonanza.

The Caddisflies gather on rocks all around

and bears can gorge themselves on them.

They lick them right off the rocks.

They're a source of protein, so good for the bear's health.

They also find dead fish.

They're constantly on the move in search of food.

Bears are opportunists.

Once the Caddisflies are gone,

they turn to ant masses.

And as soon as the fields dry out,

they feed on tasty berries.

Later, once their strength is built up,

they hunt young deer or newborn moose.

Baikal's nature is generous.

Over 1,000 species live around the lake.

With the return of warm weather,

the Nerpas bask on the rocks

where the best spots are often keenly contested.

These animal's good health

is an excellent gauge of the quality of the lake's water.

The least imbalance in Baikal's delicate ecosystem

would inevitably have repercussions on their lives

and on those of dozens of other animal species.

And yet,

the vast lake seems fairly unthreatened by pollution.

But to what extent is Baikal able to regenerate itself?

Are it's filtering organisms enough

to sustain it's exceptional transparency?

It's something scientists have been wondering for decades.

Elvira Alexandrovna and her husband

were the first to study the question

at the biological station in Bolshiye Koty.

We have a database

containing all the research we've done for 46 years,

and we've taken samples every 10 days.

Elvira's son, Viatcheslav Maximov,

has continued the work his parents began.

An expert in Marine Biology,

he takes daily samples from the lake,

ranging from the surface to 700 meters deep.

Baikal is stable.

We use to say self-cleaning,

but my father didn't agree with that

because there's no such thing as self-cleaning.

But Baikal remains stable

thanks to it's geography and climate.

Twice a year, the water mixes from top to bottom

due to temperature variations.

As soon as it starts warming up a bit,

the top layer of water

gets about one to four degrees warmer.

That makes it heavier and it starts to sink.

And then, the lower layers rise up.

That's how they mix.

As the water sinks,

it drags along a large amount of dead organic material.

All sorts of creatures feed

on theses miniature waste products.

The most important stage in cleaning the water

is the microbiological stage.

Here, there are all sorts of microorganisms,

from those that lean oil,

to those that feed on dead organic matter, or bacteria.

Actually, Baikal is an oligotrophic lake,

an environment with very low levels of nutrients.

So, as soon as there's something to eat, even oil,

all the organisms race straight for it

and devour it until there's nothing left.

Oil.

Though the word almost sounds out of place in this setting,

it none the less describes an actual fact.

Lake Baikal contains oil.

For years, scientists have been aware

that oil is seeping from the bottom of the lake,

almost four tons per year according to their estimations.

But where do the hydrocarbons come from?

The only way to tell is to dive to the bottom of the lake,

nearly 1,700 meters down.

Once mere submersibles were put at their disposal,

a handful of lucky scientists were able to explore

the depths of the great lake.

Our immersion to the deepest point

of Lake Baikal began at a depth of some 1,600 meters.

Let's say, 1,700 meters.

The constant seepage of hydrocarbons

ought to pollute the lake,

but in fact, it does no such thing.

The oil disappears almost immediately without any trace.

What happens to it?

We've already defined certain new organisms.

In particular, we've discovered new species of nematodes.

These are small worms

that live in agglomerations of bitumen near oil sources.

They live in rather dense liquids,

but how they survive is still a bit of a mystery.

That's what we're trying to understand.

How do they manage to live here?

After dozens of dives,

scientists finally discover that besides worms,

certain bacteria also play a crucial role

in cleaning the lake.

The oil disappears because it gets eaten by microorganisms.

On the shores of the lake,

Spring and Summer are but a brief interlude.

The Siberian Autumn is already back.

Almost as suddenly as it vanished,

the ice reappears.

This seasonal cycle

with it's temperature contrasts and environmental upheavals,

has marked nature and human lives for ages.

Inhabited since the Neolithic Era,

Lake Baikal has guarded the traces of hunter-gatherers

who survived by hunting reindeer,

trapping seals, and fishing.

In the South of the lake, in Sagan-Zaba,

a practically vertical white cliff

holds traces of their presence.

Scenes engraved in the rock

show them on horseback or hunting deer and swans

with bows and arrows.

The pertroglyphs also include strange images

of antlered shamans dancing with their arms raised.

Baikal's untamed nature has been venerated

by Siberian shamans since prehistoric times,

and their rites have been handed down to the present.

The small circular bay at Khuzhir on Olkhon Island

is no doubt their most spectacular sanctuary.

Faced with the immensity of the lake

and an environment that exceeds them,

today's shamans perpetuate the tradition

and continue to pay homage

to the countless spirits that dwell within nature.

For example, here on Lake Baikal,

we have a goddess of the surface of the water, Abihatan.

The god of the depths, Losuthon.

We also have gods of fish hooks and fishing.

All these spirits help the fishermen.

Thousands of ribbons tied to the totem poles

on Olkhon Island flutter in the wind,

carrying messages from Baikal's inhabitants

to the spirits of nature.

Offerings placed at the feet of these totems

speak of the people's attachment to these traditions,

which many continue to honor,

no doubt out of a certain superstition.

And even after thousands of years,

we continue to perform the ceremonies.

23 million years old,

guardian of Siberia's water,

and enriched by it's singular nature,

Lake Baikal leaves a permanent impression

on those who visit it.

And supplies it's inhabitants with a feeling of eternity.

When I first came to Lake Baikal with Sergei,

we were looking for a place that suited us.

At first, I didn't feel like Baikal was the place for me.

When we crossed the reserve and arrived here,

something deep inside told me to stay.

People often think it's hard to live here,

but that's not true at all

because the sense of freedom and beauty that surrounds us

are truly beneficial.

For Baikal,

the issue today is to remain this peaceful, proud lake

that suffers from no ills.

Projects to build large scale tourism centers in the South

are a source of concern

for those whole live along it's shores.

Lake Baikal is listed as a World Heritage site

and must be preserved.