Lake Baikal is the world's oldest lake, at 25 million years (possibly older), and deepest, averaging 744.4 metres (2,442 ft).

Located in the south of the Russian region of Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast, it is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world, containing roughly 20% of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water.

ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli looks on after landing back on Earth from their Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft on May 24, 2011 in Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. The mission of the Soyuz TMA-20 was launched last December to the International Space Station with the flight engineers Catherine Coleman from the United States, Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli. The next expedition is expected to launch this June. (Photo by Stephane Corvaja/ESA via Getty Images)

Russian-born artist Vlad Korneev poses for a picture in his museum called “Designpanoptikum, Museum For Extraordinary Objects” on November 4, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. The museum displays objects whose outward appearance was determined by function rather than form, he says, and are the result of a collection he started while accumulating props for his photographic works. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Ralph Mirebs, an urban explorer and photographer in Russia, has revealed extraordinary photos of Soviet space shuttle prototypes gathering dust in an abandoned hangar. The abandoned hangar is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is still in operation today (with the close of NASA’s shuttle program, Russian Soyuz shuttles are the only way for astronauts to reach the International Space Station). The Buran prototype shuttles found by Mirebs, however, are from an earlier era – they are the last remnants of a space program that began in 1974 and was finally shuttered in 1993. (Photo by Ralph Mirebs/Exclusivepix Media)

Combine harvesters work on a wheat field of the Solgonskoye farming company near the village of Talniki, southwest from Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, August 27, 2015. Russia, one of the world's top wheat exporters, will harvest its third-largest grain crop in post-Soviet history this year, leading Russian consultancy SovEcon said on August 27 after upgrading its forecast. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Moscow riot policemen detain an activist during an unauthorized protest anti-Putin opposition rally to defend Article, 31 of the Russian Constitution which guarantees the right of assembly, in Triumfalnaya Square in Central Moscow, Russia, on December, 31, 2011 (Photo by Konstantin Zavrazhin/Getty Images)

Photo by: Sergey A.; Source: LiveJournal

People mourn at a makeshift memorial in front of the Russian embassy in Yerevan on March 23, 2024, a day after a gun attack on the Crocus City Hall in Russia's Krasnogorsk. Camouflaged assailants opened fire at the packed Crocus City Hall in Moscow's northern suburb of Krasnogorsk on March 22, 2024, evening ahead of a concert by Soviet-era rock band Piknik in the deadliest attack in Russia for at least a decade. Russia on March 23, 2024, said it had arrested 11 people – including four gunmen – over the attack on a Moscow concert hall claimed by Islamic State, as the death toll rose to 133 people. (Photo by Karen Minasyan/AFP Photo)