We are glad to offer you several possibilities for accommodation during your staying in the Baikal region. At your disposal are hotels, hostels, guesthouses, own apartments, homestay, traditional nomadic yurt:

• Ulan-Ude
• Irkutsk
• Olkhon Island
• Listvyanka
• Severobaikalsk
etc.

Now we know 1550 species of animals in Lake Baikal. Fauna of Baikal is remarkable with its endemism. About 80% of organisms are endemics. 11 families and 96 genders are completely endemics. According to scientists opinion the Baikal fauna is an ancient, consists on sea and fresh waters forms, and Baikal is a huge storage of this residual fauna that was just partially transformed during its long life in the lake.
The Barguzin sable, Siberian brown bear, mountain goat, and wild reindeer are known worldwide. Manchurian deer, elk (the European moose), squirrels, lynx, wolverine, roe deer, musk deer, wild boar, Baikal Seal, omul (a type of salmon found in Lake Baikal), and a large number of bird species represent only a partial list of Baikal's diverse wildlife.

The Evenk`s are an indigenous people of Siberia. They occupy a large territory from the left bank of the Yenisei River in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. The southern boundary of the Evenk distribution range reaches the left bank of the Amur and the Angara rivers. The number of the Evenk in the Russian Federation is about 30 thousand.

Buryat`s. The earliest mention of Mongol - speaking tribes, which can be considered buryat ones, can be found in Mongolian chronicles, composed in the 13th century. These groups, evidently, formed the core, around which the consolidation of the tribes took place. They lived in the basin of the Angara and the Lena, as well as on the eastern shore of the Baikal and lower reaches of the Selenga. The consolidation of the tribes finally led to the forming of the Buryat nationality.

The Old Believers, who got the name "semeiskie" for they arrived at the new place of their settlement in big families (semiya), make up a unique regional ethnographic group. They were founded more than 300 years ago by a group of religious dissenters unwilling to accept the liturgical reforms of the seventeenth century Russian Orthodox Church, in particular Patriarch Nikon.

Baikal Seal - Nerpa (Phoca sibirica)
The Nerpa or Baikal Seal is an endemic of Baikal and his only mammal

The Nerpa is one of the smallest true seals. The seals have a uniform steely-grey coat on their backs and fur with a slightly more yellow tinge coating their stomachs. As the coat weathers, it becomes brownish. When first born, the seal pups are around 4.5 kg and have a coating of white silky natal fur. This fur is quickly shed and exchanged for a darker coat, much like that of the adult.
It is still a great mystery how nerpa appeared in the centre of the Asian continent, if its relatives live in the northern arctic regions, but it is estimated that they have inhabited that location for some 2 million years. The areas of the lake in which the Baikal Seals reside changes depending on the season as well as some other environmental factors...

Baikal - UNESCO World Heritage site

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.