Irkutsk: the gateway to Lake Baikal

Founded as a Cossack outpost in Siberia, Irkutsk remains the most convenient starting point for Lake Baikal, the deepest and one of the oldest lakes on the planet.

The center is explored on foot; the lake requires a car or bus.

In the historic center, wooden houses decorated with intricate carvings, once belonging to nineteenth-century Siberian merchants, survive among the city's more modern buildings.

Just steps away, the Church of the Epiphany, in Siberian Baroque style, preserves decorative colored bricks rare in Russian religious architecture.

In the afternoon, one should venture to Lake Baikal, which at over 1,600 meters in maximum depth contains roughly one-fifth of the planet's unfrozen fresh water.

On the shores of the lake, the village of Listvyanka offers smoked fish local to the region and a small museum dedicated to the lake's unique ecosystem.

Lake Baikal, formed roughly twenty-five million years ago, hosts hundreds of animal and plant species found nowhere else on the planet, including the world's only freshwater mammal exclusive to lakes.

In winter the lake freezes with such clarity that in certain spots you can see the lake bottom through the ice for several meters' depth.