Olkhon is the largest island in Lake Baikal. The length of the island is 73.5 km, width - up to 15 km, area - 730 km². Permanent population - 1744 people (2019). Distance from Irkutsk by road - 256 km. It is separated from the mainland by the Maloye More and Olkhonskie Vorota straits. To the east of the island is the deepest place of Lake Baikal - 1642 meters.
These scanty data from Wikipedia only give us a general idea of the island on Lake Baikal. They cannot convey all the beauty and unreal nature of this land. Transparent water in summer, when all the pebbles on the bottom are visible, and unrealistic, just like photoshopped, transparent ice in winter. You can talk for a long time and a lot about the beauty and wild nature, the purest water and viscous binding air, which is impossible to breathe. But words and photos will not convey all the power of the lake, which is breathtaking. You need to see it yourself!
By the evening of the second day of our tour, we will cross the ice road to Olkhon Island in UAZ cars. Yes, such is the greeting from our Soviet past. Until the ice has risen, three ferry crossings operate. In the summer there are huge queues of cars.
The most interesting thing is an excursion on the ice of Lake Baikal to colorful and unusual places where you can take amazing photos.
Kharantsy. In winter, the grottoes of this cape are covered with huge icicles. Huge ice hummocks around.
Cape Sagan-Khushun (Three Brothers) is a picturesque cape, made of light-colored marble, densely covered with brownish-red lichen spots. Hence the name translated from the Buryat "white cape" (Sagan-Khushun).
The Sagan-Khushun rocks are included in the list of Baikal natural monuments. This place stands out for its spectacular cliffs, known to the local population as the Three Brothers. This name is associated with the legend: “The Olkhon shaman had three sons and a daughter. The daughter fell in love and, against the will of her father, who forbade her to think about the wedding, ran away from home to her beloved. The father turned his sons into eagles and sent them in search of the fugitive. time the sons-eagles found their sister, but she tearfully persuaded them not to tell their father the truth and not to betray it. Returning home, the sons told their father that the search had been unsuccessful, but their father was a shaman and immediately recognized the lie, for deception he turned his sons into rocks. Later he himself found his daughter and also turned her into a rock. Since then, four cliffs have stood nearby - three brothers and their sister. "
Cape Khoboy (Khoboy in Buryat means "fang, molar") is the northernmost cape on Olkhon Island. The tip of the cape is crowned with a spectacular pillar-shaped rock resembling an outwardly sharp canine. From the side of the sea, this rock has a pronounced resemblance to the profile of a female head with a bust, as in the ancient Greek galleys. The local name of the rock is Virgo. There is a Buryat legend, according to which this is a petrified Buryat woman who asked the Tengriyas (celestials) out of envy for her husband the same palace as the one granted to her husband. Tengrii with the words: "As long as there is evil and envy on earth, you will be a stone" - turned it into a rock. The place is remarkable for its polyphonic echoes, which are reflected from the monolithic rock.
