Siberia primer

I wrote about meeting my guardian angel at the St Petersburg airport. After that I met some girls from the UK at my hostel, who invited me out to dinner. They left the next day on the Trans-Siberian to spend some time in the Lake Baikal region.

Today I came back to my hostel and, in yet another "small world" moment, discovered that two weeks later my UK friends had flown from Siberia to Moscow and, in a city of over 10 million people, are staying at my hostel!

I'm not sure if I'll have internet access in Mongolia. I found out from them that I may not have internet access in Siberia. So I may not be online for a month or more. So here are some fun facts to ponder.

The numbers on Russia, and Siberia in particular, are hard to comprehend. Russia is more than twice as big as the US (including Alaska). Siberia is bigger than the US and Europe combined. The forested regions of Russia cover four times the area of the Amazon basin. Four of the 10 longest rivers in the world are (at least partially) in Siberia: Yenisey (4), Ob (7), Amur (9), Lena (10).

In two days I'll hop on a train to Irkutsk, which is at the southern end of Lake Baikal. I'll spend some time there but I'll spend four nights on Olkhon Island, at Nikta's Homestead, a guest house recommended by my UK friends. (Nikita is a former Russian table tennis champion!)

Baikal is by far the world's deepest lake, at 5,371 ft, more than a mile for those of you scoring at home. It is a completely unique ecosystem. Most of the animals and plants there don't exist anywhere else, including the nerpa, a species of ringed seal, the world's only freshwater seals.

It is estimated that the lake holds 15-20 percent of the world's fresh water. Think about that! More than the Great Lakes combined. Beneath the water is over 4 miles of sediment. It may also be the world's oldest lake, somewhere between 25 and 30 million years old.

Over 300 rivers flow into it, but only one, the Angara, flows out. The pressure at the bottom is so great that it would be impossible to fire a cannon there. And yet the golomyanka lives there, a translucent, scale-less fish that gives birth to live young. Though they live throughout the entire depth of the lake and are thus fairly immune to changes in water pressure, they are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature and literally melt in sunlight.

The chemical composition of the water is so unique that fish that swim downstream into the lake die. It's covered by ice up to six feet thick during the winter, thick enough for trucks to drive over.

I could go on. Is it obvious I'm excited to go there? It's something that's always fascinated me, yet another entry in this trip's list of "things that may only interest me."