Baikal World - Inhabitants and Settlers of Lake Baikal


Origin & Development
Legends & Fairy tales • Earth's Crust Thickness • Underwater Relief • Landscapes • History & Formation • Seismic Activity •
History of Lake Baikal
History of Explorations • Inhabitants & Settlers • First maps of Baikal • Archaeological Sites •
Lake Baikal Climate
Introduction • Fogs • Winds & Waves • Ice Conditions •
Fauna & Vegetation
Mammals • Baikal seal - Nerpa • Ichthyofauna • Invertebrates • Vegetation •
Water of Lake Baikal
Colour • Transparency • Temperature • Pressure • Depth • Currents • Budget • Chemical Composition • Pollution •
Recreational Areas
Circumbaikal Railway • Peschanaya Bays • Olkhon Island • Chivirkuysky Gulf • Wooden Irkutsk • Trans-Siberian Railway •
People of Lake Baikal
People of Siberia • Buryat nation in Baikal • Russians in Baikal •

Explanation of the local terms and geographical names at lake Baikal

First settlers of Lake Baikal

Inhabitants of lake Baikal - Russians and Buryats

The beginning of the Russians' settling in Pribaikalye is closely connected with the exploration of the taiga zone. At that stage trade and industry were mostly characteristic of the colonization. The major migrations to Siberia were represented by North Russian peasants. The Russian people developed here integrated economy based on a combination of crop-growing and stock-breeding alongside hunting, fishing, carrier's trade and nut-gathering.

Subsequently the Russians' settling was definitely influenced by the construction of the Moscow highway (1760) and the Trans-Siberian Railway (finished in 1898), and also Stolypin's agrarian reform (1906). Thus, new villages quickly sprang up along the roads.

The first Russians discovered in Siberia

the lands originally inhabited by a great number of families and tribes that had not formed a nation yet. The tribes had totem names of a bird or an animal. They differed from each other in their economic activity: some of them engaged in hunting, others in fishing, the third did both. There were such societies already, mostly in southern regions where they had both stock-breeding and crop-growing.

In Pribaikalye the Buryat ethnos had completely formed only by the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.

In the 19th - 20th century, the taiga and mountain taiga regions, adjacent to Baikal were widely inhabited by the Evenk people. The discoveries of archaeologists, investigations of anthropologists, linguists and ethnographers make it possible to consider the Evenks the most ancient settlers of the Eastern Siberia taiga zone.