Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal (Russian: о́зеро Байка́л, tr. Ozero Baykal; IPA: [ˈozʲɪrə bɐjˈkɑl]; Buryat: Байгал нуур, Mongolian: Байгал нуур, Baygal nuur, etymologically meaning, in Mongolian, "the Nature Lake") is a rift lake in Russia, located in southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast.

Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake by volume in the world, containing roughly 20% of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water. With a maximum depth of 1,642 m (5,387 ft), Baikal is the world's deepest lake. It is considered among the world's clearest lakes and is considered the world's oldest lake— at 25 million years. It is the seventh-largest lake in the world by surface area. With 23,615.39 km³ (5,700 cu mi) of fresh water, it contains more water than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

Like Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of 31,722 km² (12,248 sq mi). Baikal is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, many of which exist nowhere else in the world. The lake was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. It is also home to Buryat tribes who reside on the eastern side of Lake Baikal, rearing goats, camels, cattle, and sheep, where the mean temperature varies from a winter minimum of −19 °C (−2 °F) to a summer maximum of 14 °C (57 °F).

Baikal (drink)

Baikal is a Russian non-alcoholic drink of dark-brown colour. The drink basis is water, the composition also includes sugar, citric acid, carbon dioxide and extracts of some natural medicinal herbs. It has been produced since 1969. It was developed as the Soviet counterpart of Coca Cola. After the beginning of Pepsi Сola production in the USSR in 1973, the formula was revised. From 1973, Baikal has had an original formula, which now closed to Russian company "OST-Aqua".

In the Moscow of the 1990s, it had become nearly impossible to find; only in the provinces did BAIKAL continue an obscure existence, often of dubious quality.

In 2009, a Dutch photographer who spent nearly two decades in Moscow relaunched the drink in Germany. He changed the look and taste. The drink was renamed to WOSTOK (Russian: Восток = East).

You can still find generic drinks (carbonated soft drink with guarana extract containing caffeine) under the name Baikal made by various companies - for instance SLCO GmbH (Siberia Group) in Germany. Similarity to the original is unknown.

Baikal (rocket booster)

The Baikal booster (russ. Байкал) is a proposed reusable flyback booster for the Angara rocket family based on the Angara Universal Rocket Module. It was designed by the Molniya Research and Industrial Corporation (NPO Molniya) for the Khrunichev Space centre, reusing the flyback and control system for the reusable Buran orbiter.

Description

The booster would be equipped with an RD-191 rocket engine burning kerosene and liquid oxygen to provide approximately 200 tons of thrust. In addition, it would be equipped with a folding wing stored parallel to the fuselage of the vehicle during the booster stage of the flight. After separation from the Angara launcher's second stage at an altitude of about 75 kilometers and a speed of Mach 5.6 (3,600 mph; 5,800 km/h), the Baikal's wing would rotate 90 degrees and the booster glides in upside down position reducing speed. Once the booster reaches subsonic speeds a U turn is performed and an air-breathing RD-33 jet engine in its nose section is started to fly back to its launching site and make a powered horizontal landing on a runway. Apart from economic advantages, this procedure greatly reduces the risk of falling space debris. Reducing this risk was important as the Angara rockets will be launched from the deep inland Plesetsk Cosmodrome.