It's time to go to Lake Baikal! In January there are the Sun shining in snow crystals, ice fishing, dog sledding and a winter marathon. Green taiga, landscapes that you will never see anywhere else are all around.

In early January, Baikal is just beginning to freeze, the shore is in huge ice splashes. When you move through a white frosty steam on a water surface on a motor ship, and the rays of the sun break through from above, everything around seems magically beautiful.

Most tourists stop in Listvyanka, right on the lake. In your free time, you can go to the steam room and ride horses or snowmobiles in the vicinity, and they sell delicious omul in the local market.

Ice is the main sightseeing

Walking on the ice of Lake Baikal is the most popular activity in the midst of the winter season. Tourists really want to see methane bubbles and cracks. They also ride skates and bicycles on the mirror surface.

Tourists overcome long distances on a HIVUS - hovercraft. This type of transport is used for excursions on ice to the western shore of Lake Baikal - to Peschanaya Bay.

Here is one of the most beautiful places on the coast: a beach with golden sand (which is important in the summer), rocky outcrops, and stilted trees still grow - their roots resemble legs.

Railway Tour

By the same transport, tourists get to Circum-Baikal - that's what the locals call the railway (CBR) with a length of 260 kilometers, enveloping the lake. This is a monument of architecture and a unique engineering structure. Travelers examine the tunnels and retaining walls, bridges and viaducts, and at the stops they go out onto the ice.

Olkhon, Ogoy, Shaman

Olkhon is the largest (73.5 kilometers long) and the only inhabited island on the lake. And, as experts say, the most visited place on Lake Baikal. Tourists usually spend the night in the village of Khuzhir. Nearby is the famous Shamanka rock, or Cape Burhan. As a rule, acquaintance with Olkhon begins with an excursion there.

At Cape Khorgoi, guests are shown the Kurykan wall - a structure of the 7th-8th centuries, about two meters high. Large stones in the masonry are held at the expense of their own gravity, a binder solution was not used. There are flat plates with spherical indentations, presumably altars inside.

Capes and rocks of the Small Sea (the strait between the coast of the Irkutsk region and the island of Olkhon) are covered with multimeter splashes of frozen water. They are called Sokuy, they can exceed ten meters in height and a meter in width.  Due to the large thickness, the ice takes on a turquoise hue.

Natural attractions are not the only reason why tourists go to Lake Baikal. In early January, you can go ice fishing there, including participating in the open international tournament BOTIF-2020. A unique competition is the fishing relay: the team has three participants: those who win will catch at least three fish of maximum weight faster.

Another unusual winter activity on Lake Baikal is a game of golf on ice. These are unique competitions that are held only in two places on Earth - in Greenland and here.