By W. E. Ricker News from Siberia
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News from Siberia by W. E. Ricker News from Siberia An old shaman had 333 sons but only one daughter, named Angara. She was the apple of his eye and he guarded her jealously, but somehow she fell in love with a youth named Yenisei who lived many leagues to the west. Early one morning Angara quietly left home and set out to join her lover. When the shaman woke and found her gone he was furious. With his magical powers he seized a huge rock and hurled it after her. But it fell short, Angara continued on her way, eventually found Yenisei, and the two journeyed together down to the polar sea. The proof of this story is that the big rock can still be seen where the Angara leaves Lake Baikal, and it is still called the shaman's stone, shamanskii kamen'. io-day the Angara Yenisei is the next major USSR river system that is to get the !;cascade" treatment of dams throughout its full °length. The first one is just above Irkutsk; it backs the river up right to tne lake and raises the lake level 1 or 2 metres. It also drow~ed the tracks of the trans-Siberian railway, which was rerouted over the hills -- a shorter distance but with a considerable grade and less exciting scenery. Next downstream :s the Bratsk dam, said to produce more power than any other s~ng~e unit in the world, and a third is under construction. ~he Yenisei has one dam so far, above Krasnoyarsk. The reason -2- for selecting this system for early development, in preference to the Ob for example, is that it has a steeper gradient and flows through regions particularly rich in coal and ores of various sorts, so that major industrial developments are projected. The only important migratory fish to be affected is the inconnu, and its stock is not particularly large. On balance they hope for increased fish production from the increased water area. In any event, among Siberian Rivers the Yenisei, Lena and Indigirka all have relatively small fish stocks and fisheries. Those of the Ob are 15 or 20 times as great, and for a very interesting reason. In the lower 1000 km or so of its course the Ob lacks oxygen in winter, and fish (mainly coregonids) have to evacuate it -- some wintering in the brackish Ob Gulf, others upstream. In spring the fish rush back into the 'dead' zone and utilize the rich growth of plankton and benthos that blooms rapidly during the growing season. Incidentally, the Ob inconnu run upstream as far as Novosibirsk, where a dam s·tops them, and in its tributary the Irtysh they even get into China -- a distance of at least 5000 km as the river flows. If the fish that reach China have come all the way from salt water, this considerably exceeds the longest known salmon migrations, on the Yukon and Amur Eivers. Cossacks arrived in the Angara valley during the 1620 1 s and the town of Irkutsk was founded a generation later. From the beginning the Baikal '·' sea 11 fascinated the Russians. There -3- is a long song in the heroic style, composed during the last century and still sung, which extols the lake's beauties and the accomplishments of its peoples. The trans-Siberian railway originally had an "aquatic" section, a trip across Baikal by steamship in summer, or on tracks laid across the ice in winter later replaced by shore-line trackage. Biological interest dates back to Pallas and others in the late 1700's, but the first extensive description of the fauna and physical conditions was by two enthusiasts, B. I. Dybovsky and V. Godlevsky, who sounded, dredged and collected during 1869 and 1870, using their private means to defray expenses. After the railway was built an expedition led by Professor A. A. Korotnev sailed the lake fo~ three years, 1900-02. The first biological station was established in 1919 by the Academy of Sciences, later taken over by Irkutsk university. After a large-scale Academy 11 Expedition 11 in 1925-27, in 1928 a new biological station (later called Limnological Station, now Limnological Institute) was opened and still flourishes. It is situated near the lake's outlet at the village of Listvyanka or Listven{chnoe (both names are used, derived from l1stvinnitsa =larch). A creek nearly was the scene of a gold rush in the early part of the century. The university's biological station also operates year-round; it is situated 25 miles farther up the coast, and is accessible only by water, by ice, or by trail. We arrived in Irkutsk on the evening of September 22 - Evgenii Dmitrovich Gusev and myself. Next morning snow was -4- falling and a stiff breeze blew down the Angara. While waiting for a ride to Listvyanka we had a look at the local museum -- with a small but good anthropological and ethnological section. When the Russians arrived there were, and still are, three peoples in the area. Most numerous were the northern or Buryat Mongols who herded sheep on the hilly grasslands lying on the southern, eastern and middle part of the western sides of Baikal. The lake's name is from their language, as is the tale of the shaman's· daughter. At the northern end of the lake were the Tungus or Evenki, a forest people mainly, whose bands extended north to the Arctic Ocean, as did their eastern neighbours the Yakuts. Both had a way of life similar to our woodland In9ian tribes, including vessels, teepees and even small canoes made of birch bark -- though the local tree produces a bark that is much inferior to ours. Both Buryats and Tungus qid some fishing in Baikal and elsewhere; gill-nets of tree fibers and of horse hair were on display. Earlier cultures have been excavated at various sites, extending back to the old stone age. At 2 p.m. the Director of the Limnological Institute picked us up and we drove down to the lake over the roiling wooded country that skirts the lateral bays of Irkutsk reservoir. In one of these a small ice-breaker was tied up to shore -- one of two used to ferry freight and passengers across the lake early in the century, now used as a base by a local athletic club. In spite of the fresh snow, the birches and aspens had scarcely begun to turn color, but larches were farther along. These plus pine and spruce made up the forest. -5- The Institute is now operated by the Siberian Section of the Academy of Sciences. Its laboratory building is situated not far from the lake shore. Behind and uphill are three apart ment buildings for staff, and a fourth nearly completed. The village nearby consists of only a few cottages, and.some staff members have homes 50 miles away in Irkutsk, commuting on week-· ends. A small-boat basin has been built 300 yards or so from the laboratory; the coast here is very exposed, but fortunately the prevailing winds are off shore. After a tour of the building and museum, about 5 o'clock we embarked on the flagship of the Institute's fleet, the G. Yu. Vereshchagin, named after a former Director. With us were Dr. Bons Konstant!novich Moskal~nko, head of the Laboratory of Ichthyology, and one of his staff, Igor Petrovich S_hum!lov. We ran north into a quartering offshore wind for about 4 hours. The plan had been to set a net that evening, but the wind was too strong, so we anchored. for the night~ Morning-found us in Bukhta Peschannaya (sandy bay), a tourist "base" with small cottages accommodating up to 500. It lies between two promontories the Bolshaya and Malenkaya Kolokolnya (big and little belfries). Across the lake the eastern mountains were silhouetted by the rising sun. About 6 o'clock we moved south a mile or so, near Baklannii Kamen (cormorant rock), a skiff was lowered and a bottom gill-net was set in about 50 metres of water. This was a monofilament nylon_ net about 150 metres long, 3 deep, and 40 mm bar mesh -- the legal minimum on Baikal. The crew predicted -6- gloomily that there would be few fish or none, that the site was not a good one, that we should be across the lake where the Selenga River enters, etc., etc. When the net was lifted with about 3 dozen nice omul after only half an hour, they still insisted this was a very poor catch, though to me it seemed excellent. The omul, a large cisco, is by far the most important food fish in the lake. The fish we got were immature specimens .12-14 inches long and 5-6 years old. (The matures are on their way to spawn in tributary rivers, especially the Selenga, which they ascend as far as Mongolia.) The incidental catch was one specimen each of the two principal pelagic sculpins: yellowfin and longfin. Once on board, the morning~ catch was hurried to the 11 11 galley, and we had omul for lunch (as fish soup-- ukho ), fried omul for dinner and again next morning. The ship returned~to Sandy Bay, and nearly everyone went ashore to (1) look for mushrooms; (2) inspect the Institute's 11 base11 there -- a good sized building with laboratories and living quarters; (3) climb the big belfry~ (4) walk along the frozen beach. A new tree occurred sparingly, a 5-needle pine that produces edible nuts, called cedar (kedr) in Russian.