Talk:Lake Baikal

Need map
Need map to show the relative location of lake Baikal within Russia... I don't know where it is geographically relatively speaking to major points in Russia... Bigger picture map please!

comment
what happend to the lake baikal
 * No worries, it's still here! 71.65.54.92 20:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Lake Baikal and whole Siberia is in it's greatest danger since soviet times. Russian business-oriented newspaper Kommersant posted 20th April 2012 an article about new russian government bill project of state-owned "Siberian corporation". Scandalous situation is in terms of operation of this new corporation. By the project this corporation will take under it's sole control 60% of all eastern russian territories (including region of Lake Baikal), will be above all international agreements and above domestic law jurisdiction, receive exclusive rights to acquire (public servitude) any public or private land for mining fossils, with direct rule of Russia President Vladimir Putin. Do we need to refer it? Article [use translator]: http://kommersant.ru/doc/1919404 Westsomething (talk) 14:13, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Biodiversity Discrepancies
"Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world" "Lake Baikal hosts 1,085 species of plants and 1,550 species and varieties of animals. Over 80% of animals are endemic."

The former is cited and in the intro; the latter is uncited and in the Geography and hydrography section. Can anybody clarify? Mouse (talk) 16:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Confusing
"At 1,637 meters (5,371 ft) with its body 1,285 meters (4,216 ft) below sea level, Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world by over 500 feet.["

Shouldn't the first numbers have 'deep' after them? And what do the second set of numbers mean? "Its body" is a thousand meters below sea level? Does that mean it extends that far? GeneCallahan 11:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The writer meant that since the surface of the lake is 456 m above sea level, the deepest point in the lake is 1,285 m below sea level. But since that point is made in the following section and doesn't seem to be a particularly "vital" statistic, I eliminated it from the intro.  Best, Eliezg 01:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed changes
This article includes all measurements in both kilometers and miles. For more standard internationalization, it should include information only in kilometers. Marcos Juárez 19:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * That goes against Wikipedia's Manual of Style for units of measurement. We need to have both included in the article, otherwise we Americans will get confused. --Lethargy 01:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Because the lake is so large in surface area, you should also provide information about which place to visit the see the best part of the lake.

I've never heard it called a sea in Russian, and in any case, "озеро" means "lake".Palefire 09:30, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) This part is strange: In Russian, it is traditionally called a sea: О́зеро Байка́л (Ozero Baykal), and in the Buryat and Mongol languages it is called Dalai-Nor, or "Sacred Sea".


 * I can see maybe because maybe "Dalai-Nor" (actually Nuur and Dalai meaning ocean or sea) is not a literal translation of Baigal Nuur (Baigal meaning nature). Sacred Sea is more of a figurative definition because most Mongolian's won't refer to it as sacred but it's esteemed as such. If that makes sense.

The following points were suggested by me, Em3rald, a new user. I do not have reliable references for this information, so I am hesitant to post it in the actual article. If I have time today, I will find what I can to cross-reference within the Wikipedia (such as specific fish species, etc).


 * 1) More information (or at least an internal wiki link) should be added referring to the lake being a central crossroads for 2 old cultures: Sayats and Buryats.  09:30, 29 March 2006 (MST)


 * 2) Should add a reference to location: 51 29'N and 55 46'N latitude and 103 41'E and 109 57'E longitude.  09:30, 29 March 2006 (MST).


 * 3) Some information regarding the topographics of it's floor should be included. This article doesn't touch this yet, so it almost seems like the lake is uniformly "V" shaped, which it is not.  It has 3 underwater holes or depressions:  South, Middle, and North.  As well, some reference to the Academic Mountain Ridge which also adds character to the lake bottom. 09:40, 29 March 2006 (MST).


 * 4) Some information regarding ice formation in winter should be included. In this article as it stands, one might think the ice blankets it 100%.  I don't know if this is true, I believe ice only covers the bays and shallows.  Some unofficial reference I have mention the ice reaches 1 metre thick (which is apparently not very thick for lake ice?).  Plus average temperatures and related information seems valuable to this article. 09:45, 29 March 2006 (MST).


 * 5) A photo of the Nerpa would REALLY be an asset to this article, but I am too unsure of copyright infringement to confidently link any images. I guess I have to go read the rules and guidelines with image posting in mind. 09:45, 29 March 2006 (MST).


 * 6) More information regarding the fish indiginous to the lake would be good. For example, the 20 some odd species of Gobi, the rare Golomyanka, and other more common fish species.  I suppose it would be easy to cross-link these to and from other wikipedia files.  Also, crayfish and other related organisms and their impact on the lake as an ecosystem.  09:50, 29 March 2006 (MST).


 * 6A) I seem to recall that there is a species of fresh water dolphin endemic to this lake. The article mentions the Baikal Seal as the only mammal.


 * 7) Information regarding the Irkutsk Dam and it's impact on the lake should be included, such as damage to the Omul population (more and smaller), the Baikal Bullhead (fewer and less robust), and overall water level. 09:55, 29 March 2006 (MST)


 * 8) History: Atsagat datsan (Buddhist Temple), Ghengis Khan, Fortresses, etc.

That's it. I appologize if I am not following specific posting structures ... I am still unfamiliar with the editing procedure. -Em3rald 17:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * 9) the depth of the lake is found to be 1680 meters (43 meter more then it was thought to be) after two Russian submarines went to the bottom of it for the first time (July 2008). then making its depth to be 1680m. - esaliba 31-July-2008 —Preceding undated comment was added at 05:18, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

What improvements are needed?
If anyone knows of improvements that are needed, please add them to the to-do list so we can focus our efforts. --Lethargy 01:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I think a section on Lake Baikal as a religious center of shamanism is warranted, and in general the article only seems to occasionally nod towards the natural beauty (in the geography and tourism sections). Certainly someone could read this and have little idea what Mark Sergeev is talking about when he writes:

"'If you are stopped suddenly by a penetrating blue and your heart pauses, as it sometimes happens only in childhood, from astonishment and delight...if all petty worries, all the vanities of the world, fall away like autumn leaves, and the soul takes wing and is filled with light and silence. If, suddenly, the real world holds back, and you feel that nature has its own language and that it is now clearly understood. If a simple earthly wonder has entered your life and you have felt ennobled by this encounter—it means, this is Baikal.'"


 * (Sergeev, Mark. “Words of a poet.” WWW Irkustk. 2003. Irkutsk Computer Center. 9 Jan. 2009.)
 * --Gwern (contribs) 18:02 25 January 2009 (GMT)

Tried to make citation method consistent per tag at top of article
I tried to fix it all up. One link did not work, so I commented it out in the code – it is still there but hidden. I couldn't figure out where the links under References went. I put a few in the article but I was not convident about placement. Therefore, I left the whole list intact under References, even though I converted the first three to the Notes format. Please contact me about any problems or anything you want me to fix. Thanks! Mattisse(talk) 01:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

A few inconsistencies
In the second paragraph is states that Lake Baikal is the oldest lake in the world, while later it lists its age at 25-30 million years. However, in the article on the Caspian Sea it lists the age of that "lake" as 30 million years old. Perhaps it should be changed to "one of the oldest".

Also, later in the 2nd paragraph, it states that "Olkhon, by far the largest island in Lake Baikal, is the largest lake-bound island in the world.". However, it you check the article in Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, you will see that Manitoulin is a much larger island.


 * Is that all verified with reliable sources, though? --Lethargy 21:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Sediment
What is the meaning/significance of this statement? If all the sediment were scoured from the lake, the water from above would replace the scoured sediment so the depth of the lake itself would not change.

I'm confused. Unschool 19:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The meaning seems to be that if all the sediments, but no water, were sucked up or dug out (how??), the body of water in the lake would sink down into the new and much deeper trench, and the actual depth of water would be roughly the same.. But I agree it's not any kind of valuable, or evenm scientific insight.83.254.151.33 (talk) 03:12, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The Meaning of the Name
I heard once that Bay-kal actually means big lake in Turkish and it makes sense. Can someone familiar with Turkic languages confirm this? 85.99.161.82 09:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Answer: I'm a Mongolian, Baigal means Beautiful and etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.42.72.28 (talk) 04:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Not the Largest lake on Earth by Area
Lake Superior covers the most area at 82,4142. Lake Baikal is approx 31,5002. I updated the sentence that said it was largest by area and volume to mention only volume.

Confusing passage
The section on geography and hydrography includes this passage: "The lake is completely surrounded by mountains. the Baikal Mountains on the north shore and taiga, is technically protected as a national park and contains 22 small islands, the largest, Olkhon (also spelled 'Olchon'), being 72km long."

This needs help. The period after "mountains" is apparently misplaced but I'm not sure what's intended. It's completely surrounded by mountains, those on the north shore being called the Baikal Mountains and the others not being specified? There's taiga everywhere or just on the north shore? Is it just the lake that's protected as a national park, or part of the shore as well? (and maybe information about its legal status doesn't belong in this section at all) What does "technically protected" mean? There's a law on the books but some reliable source asserts that it's routinely overlooked? JamesMLane t c 16:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

How come it doesn't have the fact that the lake is a gift from Mongolia??? --Alien Mahar 12:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Dalai nuur
I think Mongolians call the lake Baigal Dalai. See also map no. 15 at http://mongol.tufs.ac.jp/landmaps/ (the full map takes a while to load, and is in Monggol bichig). The most well-known Dalai nuur is in northeastern Inner Mongolia, a.k.a. Hulun nuur. Yaan (talk) 15:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S. My Russian is rather bad, but maybe someone could ask this question at Russian WP? Yaan (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The Russian article has a brief section on possible sources for the name. There appears to be no consensus, but the following hypotheses are listed:
 * Bai-Kul (Turkic) – Rich Lake;
 * Baigal Dalai (Mongolian) – Rich Fire;
 * Baigaal Nuur (Buryat) – lake Baigaal - with the origin of the Buryat "Baigaal" unknown;
 * Bei-Hai (Chinese) – North Sea
 * It says further that the first Russian explorers referred to it by the Even name "Lamu" (sea), but by the second half of the 17th century, they had adopted the Buryat "Baigaal" - hardening the "g" into a "k". The English came consequently from the Russian. There are unfortunately no sources given.  Cheers, Eliezg (talk) 16:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * So, maybe asking the russians is not such a good idea. Dalai has nothing to do with fire, Dalai, as in Dalai Lama, means ocean. I also tend to think that in Mongolian, Baigal means Nature, and that the Buryat wort is probably cognate with the Mongolian one. edit: now I see that fire is meant to be the second syllabe of Baigal. In mongolian, fire is gal, and rich is bayan. I don't know if the bay stem can occur on its own. If it can, then the explanation actually would be somewhat misleading, but still make sense.
 * But what I am actually wondering is what is the correct Buryat name of the lake. The Mongolian name given in the intro to this article before my correction was, after all, wrong. Cheers, Yaan (talk) 16:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I did some more research on Russian webspace, and if it makes you feel any better there is enough uncertainty about your question that a whole book has been written: "Gurulev, S.A. What is in your name Baikal? Novosibirsk: «Nauka» 1991. (in Russian)"  The blurb about the book I found says:
 * The book explores names for Lake Baikal that were used by many peoples - Lamu, Beihai, Tengis, Dalai, Baigal, Baikal and others. The most mysterious of these is "Baigal".  For the explanation of its roots name versions are proposed: chinese, dinlino-ketski, ancient turkic, buryat, yakut, arabic, tibetan.  The most likely origins seem the Buryat and Yakut, in which the search for the roots of "Baigal" take place. Myths, legends, songs, heroic eposes, history, ethnogenesis and anthropology of the Buryat and Yakut are explored in the process.
 * Sounds like a fascinating read, unfortunately, I don't believe it's translated. But it also sounds like there's no easy answer to your question.  Best, Eliezg (talk) 16:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for that, but actually, I think there should be an easy answer to my question: How do Buryats call the lake ? Baikal nuur or Dalai nuur or Baikal dalai, or something yet different ? I don't really care what the name means, I only want to know (with source, if possible), what the name is :-) . Regards, Yaan (talk) 16:58, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, OK. Yeah, ordering that book from the Ulan Ude library would probably be overkill :).  In Buryat, they call it Baigal Nuur (Байгал Нуур).  here's an official Buryat language government page for confirmation: http://egov-buryatia.ru/bur/about/baikal/   - Eliezg (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Cool, I feel like I could read it if my mongolian was better. Thanks a lot, Yaan (talk) 17:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * In Mongolian the name of the lake Байгал and the word for nature байгаль are spelt differently with the softening sign "ь" in the latter. This means these are different words by etymology. Guess байгаль for nature was loaned from Sanscrit like бодьгаль (bodhigali), maybe not. Perhaps the Gökturks called the lake something like Bay Göl. Then the Mongolic tribes came back, and later devt of vowel harmony in their language made it Baigal. Gantuya eng (talk) 14:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I suggest if you are not 100% sure do not speculate. Baigali or baigal is the same word. baigali is not a loan word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.120.238.17 (talk) 22:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Baikal Neutrino Telescope
In my opinion, a reference to the Baikal Neutrino Telescope should be added, which is located in the deep waters of the lake and which has been operating for quite some time already, producing interesting physics results.

Unfortunately, I am too lazy to do this now so perhaps somebody volunteers ? GenghisDon (talk) 13:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

link to external photo of area
I see there are no External links so I did not add it. Just though I would add it here, in case anyone wanted to see a wonderful overview of the terrain. (Perhaps you already know about it.) Regards,  Mattisse  15:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Global Warming
Global warming scare: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/05/the-worlds-larg.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Altonbr (talk • contribs) 18:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

More than the Great Lakes or more than "all the great lakes"?
It's famous for holding a volume of water larger than that of all the great lakes combined.

The citations for this statement seem to me to suggest that Baikal has more volume than the North American Great Lakes, but does Baikal actually hold more water than all the world's "great lakes" (including, for example, the African Great Lakes), as the sentence above implies? Camillus 23:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The text refers almost certainly to the North American Great Lakes, and I removed the ambiguity accordingly. Cheers, Eliezg (talk) 05:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC).

This article mentions that Baikal contains 20% of the world's unfrozen freshwater. It also goes on to say that this is more than all of the North American Great Lakes combined (Superior, Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario). However, the article for the NA Great Lakes claims they contain 21% of the world's freshwater. Seems as if either one of the percentages is incorrect, or the claim (albeit very impressive, nonetheless!) is not correct. Piano1963 (talk) 13:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[piano1963] 18 November 2015 Piano1963 (talk) 13:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Snippet
Also, I removed the following snippet: mostly because the material about the pulp-mill is covered elsewhere and the Tahoe-Baikal reference is borderline spammy, in in either case it didn't really belong in the "Geography" section. But if anyone wants to revive it, there it is. Best, Eliezg (talk) 05:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Although there were muted protests, a wood pulp and cellulose processing plant was built at the south end of the lake (at Baykalsk). The plant still pours industrial effluent into Baikal's waters. The overall impacts of watershed pollution on Baikal and similar watersheds are studied annually by the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, an exchange program between U.S., Russian, and Mongolian scientists and university graduate students started in 1990.

Map
The map of Baikal in the box is high resolution and nice looking, but why is it in German?! Perhaps someone can find an English language alternative. Also: nowhere is there a map showing where Lake Baikal is located relative to the rest of the world, its position in Russia or proximity to Mongolia (though the well-informed visitor does get a good idea of its location relative to the "Republik Burjatien" and "Irkutsker Oblast"). Is there a geographical or mapmaking project or locus where such things can be requested? Best, Eliezg (talk) 23:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

What about a snippet on this?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534960,00.html?mrp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.207.244.4 (talk) 17:58, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Usual vacations time topic. They are talking about, but possible declassified documents are not accessible online. Words, words, words. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 07:00, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Olkhon
Under Geography and hydrography:

Olkhon is stated as being the fourth-largest lake-bound island in the world. However clicking on lake-bound island takes you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_in_lakes.

On that page Olkhon is listed as the third largest Island.

So which of the pages is correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Borga2000 (talk • contribs) 16:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Opposing information on age and size
The lake cannot be 25 million years old and also be expanding at a consistent rate of 2cm a year. If calculated retroactively the lake would have been 500 kilometers narrower 25 million years ago (-25M x 2cm = -500km) that is 6.3x narrower than the current size of the 79km lake. By this calculation the lake could not be older than about 4 million years(25M / 6.3) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.29.150.229 (talk) 12:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Apples and oranges... 88.148.192.177 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC).

Russian exploration and conquest section needs citations badly
The entire Russian exploration and conquest section needs citations badly. There are no citations there and this anecdote is especially egregious:

"(The story goes that the Buryats did not know how to use firearms, so they decided to burn the muskets along with the dead Cossacks. The fire caused the guns to go off, killing a few people which made the Buryats think that the Russians were still fighting after they were dead.)" Oneliketadow (talk) 16:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Especcially that real famous story of whole railroad car with gold bars which fallen to the bottom of the lake - was lost there by White Russian Army in the start of XXth century. Westsomething (talk) 05:11, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Research - Purpose of 2008 Dives Is Unclear
This section states: "Although originally reported as being successful, they did not set a world record for the deepest fresh water dive, ..."

This is ambiguous. The dive could have been succesful without setting a world record if its purpose was (partly) research. Perhaps it should state that the dive was successful even though it didn't set a record.203.97.52.178 (talk) 01:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The Great Blue Eye of Siberia
Widely-used titles similar to this should be included in the article; preferably in its introduction or first section.

Warmest Regards, :)—thecurran Speak your mind my past 11:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Average depth
"Average depth 744.4 m " and source, but I dddn't found any informations about Average depth in this source. --Piotr967 (talk) 11:42, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Great point. However the linked document lists volume and surface area and I believe average depth = volume / surface area. Perhaps we should add a note? — sligocki (talk) 00:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * How can the maximum depth (1642m) be less than the average depth (1700m)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.232.11.3 (talk) 08:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Misnomer?
"Since the water body was formed via tectonic activity, and not geomorphology, many experts believe that Lake Baikal is a misnomer, and that the body of water cannot technically be classed as a lake in the scientific sense of the word.[5][6]" I'm removing this claim until it can be better backed up. For the following reasons: 1. I'm not aware of any definition of lake that say it can't be formed via tectonic activity. If there is one please provide it. 2. Tectonic processes ARE a part of geomorphology. It doesn't make sense to say that it's not. 3. "many experts" what experts? non of the links provided say anything about it not being a lake. Lordrichie (talk) 18:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks like that bit of nonsense was added by an Australian edu ip on Apr 13 and overlooked until now, thanks for catching that. Vsmith (talk) 21:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Chinese behavior on Baikal lake
I think it's worth adding this as a separate section in the article - about the incredible activity of the China directly related to Lake Baikal. Although China is very far from the lake - an interest of this state to the largest fresh water lake is suspicious, if not dangerous enough. I've read about two giant projects of China on the Lake Baikal - the first one was about construction of gigantic waterpipe from the lake to the border with China, which fortunately did not materialize and the second one project (which in discussion today) is to build a bottling plant on the lake to make fresh bottled water from the Baikal with delivery to China, all projects offered fully-paid by Chinese state and mostly offered only from the Chinese side. With such projects it is easy to calculate - how many days China will need to completely drank off the whole lake Baikal considering the population and medical standard of fresh water consumption by human? Westsomething (talk) 05:25, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

-i agree they need critics as well--Venajaguardian (talk) 03:00, 28 October 2012 (UTC)


 * C'mon, the Angara's average discharge is over 3,000 cubic meter per second, that's 1011 m3 = 1014 liters a year. So even if they were bottling a billion liters of water per year at that plant, that's merely 0.001% of what flows out of the lake over the same period. Even if they were talking about 200 billion liters per year - that's like a bottle of water per day for eveyone in China and Russia together - it would be only 2% of what flows out of the lake down the Angara and Yenisei and into the Arctic Ocean. They can always control the water flow rate as needed at the Irkutsk Dam. Thank God, it rains or snow every year in Siberia. Things such as watershed pollution (think mining, paper mills, or even slope erosion due to excessive logging) matter a lot more for the lake water than whatever amount of water a bottling plant could use. -- Vmenkov (talk) 04:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Turkic name of Lage baykal=Baygöl, Bay=big/deep/rich Göl=Lake
We need to indicate Turkic name origins of Lage baykal=Baygöl, Bay=big/deep/rich Göl=Lake — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ismet11 (talk • contribs) 04:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I have done so. The history of the Turkic name is now in the article.--Khanate General ☪ | talk |  help Project Mongol Conquests  15:29, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Here's what I did
The problem as I saw it that there were too many photos running (mostly) down the left that were essentially decorative. They didn't match the text they were near. Although it's not an iron rule or anything, IMO it's better if images match (and ideally help to elucidate) the nearby text. There were a lot of photos, but that itself is not problem as there's a wealth of visual information to convey here.

So after consolidating the separated history sections, I swapped some photos for others and made three galleries. I know that this is slightly non-standard and that some people don't like galleries but this was my idea for the best solution. As I say there's lots of info here that's best shown visually. Regarding the general gallery at the end, yes there is a Commons category which theoretically could obviate that, but the category is quite large (with fair amount of dross) and finding useful stuff there is hard, so I picked what I figured might be some representative pictures for the more casual reader. (There are still two photos out of place -- the lake in winter and the lake in summer, in the environmental dangers section, but meh.)

Anybody who doesn't agree with any of this, we can talk, or you can change any of it or redact it all and then talk. Herostratus (talk) 01:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Basin countries
Regarding this edit: Please see Drainage basin and see the watershed map of the Yenisei River basin to the left of the infobox in the Baikal article. Note tributaries inflowing to the lake from Mongolia. This is part of the lake's drainage area.

The infobox parameter 'basin_countries' is intended to list countries that are part of the lake's drainage basin. It is not talking about the location of the lake itself. Personally I think the parameter is over used, but in this case it is used properly and supplies the reader with additional information, though it is easily vulnerable to misinterpretation as the recent changes have made all too clear. -- Racer X11 Talk to me Stalk me  14:16, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Noticed that there is no location description in the infobox so that is part of the problem. I will add that now and also correct the basin countries values while I'm at it. -- Racer X11 Talk to me Stalk me  14:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Sources for future article expansion
Dated, but still useful for historical purposes: Also, given the way Wikipedia works, entire sections of this article were probably lifted from Kropotkin & Bealby's EB11 article anyway and need attribution... — Llywelyn II   12:06, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

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 * Added archive https://archive.is/20070928094910/http://spb.ecology.net.ru/enwl/2006/03/15_16.htm to http://spb.ecology.net.ru/enwl/2006/03/15_16.htm

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 18:01, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Lake Baikal. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110723022331/http://baikal-pipe.net/?page_id=64 to http://baikal-pipe.net/?page_id=64

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 11:18, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Spelling Check
Hi, I just want to check that Baikalsky Priboi, though romanized as Baikalskiy (байкальский), is actually Baikalsky Priboi. If it is, could someone make the change? Also, if appropriate, could someone add 'meaning Baikal Surf in English' in brackets, please (after Baikalskiy Priboi)? Thanks a lot for your time!

79.66.165.180 (talk) 19:52, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:06, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Great-baikal-trail.jpg

unnecessarily long phrasing: etymologically meaning, in Mongolian vs meaning in Mongolian
fix it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4126:F428:7914:3CF6:BAC8:EE29 (talk) 19:33, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Lusud-Khan
Apparently there is a myth of a sea-monster in lake Baikal called Lusud-Khan. Strange there's no mention of it in the article, shouldn't it be included? VenomousConcept (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a lot of urban legends and myths surrounding the lake, none of which are mentioned in any capacity as far as I can tell. I'm guessing most of the stories are circulating in "less official" sources.--Amelia-the-comic-geek (talk) 19:42, 23 November 2023 (UTC)