The question about the etymology and the time of appearing the name "Baikal" has not solves yet. Although, it belongs, without doubt, to the most ancient names on the territory.
It`s known, that the earliest mentions about the lake were found in Chinese chronicles starting with the Hunnu epoch. According to the content which was described in the resources, the term "Baikhai"-"the north sea" could mean only the Baikal, because there were no other water pools, which could correspond to the definition. But it should be taken into consideration that there couldn`t be a direct connection between the Baikal and the Baikhai .These words seem to appear convergently in different periods and in different language area.

Many scientists consider that the name "Baikal" has a Turkic or Buryat-Mongolian origin. So, V.Dyagilev wrote: "The Baikal got its name when there were neither Russians no Buryats on its shores, only the Yakuts lived there. They were pushed aside to the north, but gave the name Bai-Kel, which meant "the rich lake". Such statements can be found also in works of other scientists.
G.Vereshagin wrote: "some scientists think that the word has a Mongolian origin, from the word "Bai-Gal"("Rich fire") or Turkic - "Bai-Kul", which means - "rich lake".
Still, the fact is that in known written Turkic and Mongolian documents of the middle age there were no mentions about the geographical object with the name Baikal. Some scientists explain this fact by guessing that the name was the Tenghis. This name, as known, first was mentioned in "The sacred Mongol legends" in the following context: "Borte-Tchino was an ancestor of Chingis-Khan, who was born according to the heavens permission. His wife was Goa-Maral. They appeared, swimming across Tenghis (the inner sea), moved at the river Onon on the Burkhan-haldun".

S.Gurulev in his argumentations based on the facts that "the given examples show that originally the Mongols were well aware about the Selenga Land, Bargudzhin-Tukum and the Baika". He supports his idea by giving links to the fragment from "Altan Tobch": "The son of the heaven…. Ghenghis-Khan gathered the entire world together to Tenghis-dalai".
B.Zariktuev also says: "in the middle centuries the Baikal was called by different names. The Turkic tribes called it Tenghis, but the people who lived close to the lake, called it the Baikal". In late Middle centuries, when most of the peoples called it the Baikal, the Mongols changed the name Tenghis to Baikal”. However, neither in Old Turkic nor Mongolian written documents there was no information about Lake Baikal. Several times there were remarks about the state Iir-baiirku, Bargudzhin-Tukum, the river Selenga, the tribes Uch-Kurikan, Baiirku, Barguti, Khori, Saikati and others.

There were some guesses which were found in the Arabic documents (12th century) that the term Bahr-al-Bakka, which meant "the sea that born lots of tears" or "the sea of horror" concerns Lake Baikal. It also said that it is “the sea with unique clean and tasty water. It is situated behind the Sea of Diamonds. God created it in the form of two horns, combined together. It appeared from the earth`s crevice. It is groaning and always will groan till the Day of the judgmen".
L. Bern wrote about the Tunguss and Buryat name Baikal: "for the first time the Russians heard about the Baikal more then 300 years ago, in 20s of 17th century. In one of the documents, which date back to 1610, the information about the Baikal was given: here the lake is called in the Buryat language as the Baikal and in the Tunguss-the Lama, which means –the sea". The local people of Pribaikalie-the buryats with the Mongols called the Baikal by the word "Baigal-Dalai". This name, according to the buryat legends, is known from the early ages. The word "Baigal" has several meanings and in Russian it means "natural", "existing", "worthy" and the word "Dalai"-the sea. So, the name "Baigal-dala" means "natural sea".

So, at what time did the name become widely-spread? To the beginning of the 17th century, when the Russians came, according to the documents, the name “Baikal” has already been known among local people.
If we take into consideration, that the name Baikal (Baigal) became useful in Mongolian legends of 17-18th centuries, then we can guess that approximately in 11-12th centuries, the Mongolian-speaking population became dominant in number, the name stuck to the sea-lake in the modern sound.

Geologists believe that the Baikal has already, been in existence in late Palaeogene. Its origination started not less than 25-30 millions years ago. In the prebaikalian period the relief was not nearly as contrasting as at present, yet it was a mountain relief. Height probably did not exceed 300-500 m above the bottom of the basins, which surrounded these mountains. Originally the Baikal basin was certainly shallower and narrower. Probably it was a river bed, which accepted waters from uplands of Transbaikalia and Mongolia.

Individual parts of the Baikal basin, which is currently united, were considered by geologists and geographers as being developed at different times. Some basins subsided more, some less. But this process took place in one and the same geological period, the Tertiary. Even in the initial stages of formation, the basins of baikalian type represented beds of more or less large lakes, connected by rivers, and could constitute a gigantic united system, like the present lakes of the Laurenty system in North America.

Opinions on mechanisms and history of the Baikal basin formation differ. Investigators of the XVIII century regarded it to be a sink. Chersky believed that the Baikal basin is a result of slow and progressive transformation of folds in Laurentian rocks. Then the assumptions of the XVIII century have undergone a change and the Baikal was considered to be a large graben, and according to Zuss, a combination of two grabens, originally divided by mountains, which extend from Olkhon island to Svyatoy Nos peninsula.

V.A.Obruchev: "It is deep, wide and its slopes are too steep and abrupt. Such a depression could be formed solely by disjunctive crustal movements and is comparatively recent in age, otherwise its steep slopes would have been smoothed out owing to washout, and the lake would have been filled with the slope products".
V.D. Ivanov believed that the uplift of the land in the form of a wide and flat arch, in which faults and individual block structures developed in places, was responsible for formation of the recent topography of Pribaikalia and Transbaikalia. The Baikal and the basins resulted from subsidence of high part of the arch. Such basins are known in geology as the rift basins. Block tectonics appears to be the main mechanism of formation of the topography of the Baikal mountain region. But geologists are of the opinion that phenomena of earth curve, which form its folding, should be taken into account. Consequently, curve deformations are also responsible for the formation of the Baikal basin. E.V. Pavlovsky, N.A. Florensov consider the Baikal basin to be a deep syncline, complicated by normal faults.

Especially remarkable about the Lake Baikal region are shifting winds, monsoons and breezes. It is a certain sign of a maritime climate. And as such, the huge mass of water exerts a serious influence on the surrounding environment and gives rise to a complex local wind system. The exceptional variety of the Baikal winds is reflected in the great number of names for them. Many local signs are connected with the winds. It should be noted that each wind brings along a definite type of weather.

"Barguzin" blows from the north east down the Barguzin valley. Typically this is an autumn and winter wind. In the open sea, it reaches a speed of 18 - 20 m/sec. Storms brought about by the Barguzin whip up waves of 3.5 - 4 m along the western coast of the lake in the region of Olkhon and Goloustnaya.

"Kultuk" blows from the south west along the entire length of the lake. The speed of this wind can get up to 18 - 20 m/sec. When this wind is blowing, the whole lake is disturbed, the height of the waves is usually not less than 2m. In the zone where the wind's speed is the highest, the waves can be more than 3m height. The waves caused by the Kultuk take a long time to settle down.

"Verkhovik" is a dry wind starting in the Verkhnyaya (Superior) Angara River valley, and is one of the mightiest and durable winds on Baikal. Verkhovik is a north and north-east wind, blows over the whole lake, usually in spring and summer. Its speed can reach 18 - 20 m/sec. Far from immediately do the waves calm down after this wind and a strong gentle swell persists for a long time.

"Shelonnik" (Selenga) comes from the south east. In summer its speed is moderate, up to 10 m/sec., and stronger in autumn, up to 20 m/sec. It reaches its maximum speed at the mouth of the Selenga and quickly weakens in Baikal's southern basin. Only seldom does it raise storms in this southern part with waves of more than 2m. Shelonnik brings air from Mongolia over the Khamar-Daban Range. It is followed by thaw and clear weather.

"Sarma", in the Olkhon region, is particularly strong. Its gusts are so strong that they can lift roofs off houses, and turn boats and launches over. In these gusts the wind speed can reach 40 m/sec. Waves whipped up by this wind can be as high as 2 - 3m and in the centre of the lake up to 5.5m.

Lake Baikal is known as the Galapagos of Russia. Then the islands of Baikal is the Galapagos of Siberia as both share a history of spending many years in isolation from external inclement Siberian world for very long period. If it was ocean that isolated Galapagos, it was the Baikal that cut his islands from the hostile permafrost of Siberia. The flora and fauna of islands had to evolve independently being cut off from mainstream animals and plants in the Baikal region. Lake Baikal has 22 islands of which Olkhon is the largest. Famous are the Ushkany Islands. With their natural and climatic conditions this is an exceptional wonder for Baikal.

For almost five months a year Lake Baikal is covered with ice. This period of ice plays a very significant role in its life. The most considerable peculiarity of the ice regime of Lake Baikal is its late freezing that takes place only in the middle of winter, long after the beginning of severe Siberian frosts. When other rivers and lakes froze long before in the year, Baikal still resists ice fetters. Its cold waves break against the shore and decorate the seaboard rocks with icy patterns.

The lake is freed of its ice imprisonment around May - June when its shores turn rosy due to blossoming of rhododendrons. The late ice phenomena (freezing and melting) are caused by the small range of temperature change of huge water mass.
It`s saving to drive the car over the ice when the ice is not less than 30 cm thick. Transportation of loads up to 15 tons in weight on the ice not less than 50 cm thick. Transportation of loads more than 15 tons in weight on ice not less than 70 cm thick.

Lots of people had been living near Baikal since ancient times when more than three centuries ago, the first Russian explorers drew near the lake. The first Russian expedition to Lake Baikal took place in 1643, and the honour of the discoverer of the Eastern Siberian "pearl" belongs to a Cossack, Kurbat Ivanov. The second expedition (1647) was led by Vasily Kolesnikov. They reached the north coast of Baikal and built there a fortress, Verkhneangarsky ostrog. The data on Baikal brought back by Ivanov and Kolesnikov greatly enriched the geographic knowledge of that time.
Baikal was also visited by prominent travellers and by tramps, by dignitaries-ambassadors, and by deprived outcasts, such as the priest Avvakum, the author of the book "The Life of Avvakum the Archpriest". Of course, his book has a lot of inaccuracies and exaggerations, but it is valuable because it is the first literary description of the Baikal's natural wonders.

There were a number of detailed and reliable geographic data on Baikal in the papers of Russian envoys starting out for China. To prove the reliability of the facts about Baikal`s nature and population, the Academy of Sciences sponsored and sent to Siberia several expeditions. Thus, the first scientific expedition to Siberia was carried out as the private errand of Peter I in 1723-24. It was headed by D. G. Messerschmidt and brought back some new materials about Baikal.
From 1732 till 1743 the 2nd Kamchatskaya Expedition was working in Siberia. Led by V. I. Bering, this expedition gathered and published many interesting, formerly unknown facts about the lake. In 1772, academicians from St. Petersburg, P. S. Pallas and I. G. Georgi attempted for the first time to account for the origins of Baikal.
Poles I. D. Dubovsky, A. L. Chekanovsky and I. D. Chersky, V. A. Godlevsky exiled to Siberia for having participated in a rebellion in 1863, also contributed greatly to the exploration of Baikal.
At the end of the XIX century in connection with the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, geological and geographical explorations took on a more systematic character. At that time academician V. A. Obruchev, a famous Russian geologist and geographer, began his scientific investigation.
In the 1920-s the Academy of Sciences organized an all round exploration of the lake. In 1976 the first color picture of Baikal was taken from space.

Having been explored for three centuries, Baikal still keeps many mysteries. The unique surroundings of the lake require from explorers persistence and time. Lots of the lake phenomena have not been described yet. They are completely hidden from science, and scientists endeavour to penetrate deeper into the mysterious world of the lake. But in the future, the amazing nature of Baikal is sure to reveal to the scientists new, as yet unknown phenomena.

Water travel across Baikal is already possible by the end of May; right after the ice of Baikal has broken up, until the beginning of December. However, in the spring and autumn, boating on Baikal can be rather chilly because of storms that force winds up to 25-30 meters a second. These storms are prevalent at the end of May and at the end of September and which may last till December. The height of waves during a big storm can reach 4-5 meters. Wave steepness can reach up to 22 degrees. To go out with such waves is unsafe.
The best period for passenger vessels on Baikal is from the beginning of June until the end of October. The duration of travel depends upon weather conditions as well as the thickness of ice, especially in the north. The ideal time for travel on the lake is from July 10th till August 20th.
During this period there is steady sunny weather and storms seldom occur. Bodies of water in the shallow bays warm up to +20-22 C. During such time navigation on the tranquil surface makes for sheer sailing pleasure, and the absence of wind and the rolling of waves allows one to be on deck all day long. The second half of August on Baikal becomes noticeably colder, and storms occur more often and last longer.
Those who bathe in the bays of Baikal during this time will likely be met by colder waters, and traveling by boat already requires warm jackets. At the end of September the woods along the coast start to turn yellow, reaching peak color in the first part of October.

On the 5th of December, 1996 the Committee for World Heritage, at UNESCO`s 20th convention in the Mexican town of Merida, took the long-awaited decision that Lake Baikal would be put on the list of World Heritage sites. Now this is a "reserve" of world importance and a unique treasure for all people on the planet.

The World Heritage - a special status means that Baikal and its coasts are a reserve of world importance. The responsibility for preserving and protecting the lake, before it is assigned to the Russian Federation and you and me is on the citizens. The status of the World Natural Heritage gives the following advantages:
1. It gives the additional guarantee of the preservation and integrity of unique natural features.
2. It raises the prestige of the territory and governing names of the organizations.
3. It facilitates the popularity and development of alternative types of eco-industry (above all - eco-logical tourism)
4. It facilitates the securing of financial means for the support of places of natural heritage, above all from the Fund for World Heritage.
5. It helps organizations monitor and control the state of natural places.

THE BASIC THREATS TO THE PRESERVATION OF WORLD HERITAGE - LAKE BAIKAL:
1. The pollution of the lake`s water by the waste products of the Baikal Cellulose-Paper mill
2. The pollution of the lake`s water by the Selenga River, a major inflow of Baikal (due to the communal and industrial drains, the backwash from pesticides from the adjoining territories)
3. The pollution of the lake`s water by household drains which are situated on the banks of towns and villages
4. The destruction of the forest as a result of fires and cutting in the lake`s water basin.
5. The destruction and pollution of the bank by the action of tourism (rubbish, illegal building, the destruction of the soil)
6. The pollution of the lake`s water due to the waste left by boats.
7. Poaching

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