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Russian PM Putin dives to bottom of Lake Baikal
RIA Novosti ^ | 01/08/2009

Posted on 08/01/2009 12:33:47 PM PDT by pobeda1945

BAIKAL, August 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made a dive to the bottom of the world's deepest lake, Baikal, in the Mir-1 mini-submarine.

Putin, clad in overalls for a 4-hour plunge, spoke to journalists on a radio linkup from the deepest point of the lake's southern part 1,395 meters below the surface, saying he was surprised that the water was not transparent and calling it "a plankton soup."

In his Saturday's dive, the premier, who on Friday set up a satellite transmitter on a white whale during a visit to Russia's Far East Khabarovsk Territory, was accompanied by submersible pilot Viktor Nishcheta and Anatoly Sagalevich, the head of an Oceanology Institute laboratory.

Such activities by Putin, 56, have won him popular support, especially among women: he has piloted a bomber, traveled inside submarines and driven various vehicles.

The Mir-1 and Mir-2 mini-subs involved in research in Siberia's Lake Baikal performed 52 dives last summer. They resumed work in June to monitor the southern part of the lake, near Cape Tolsty, with plans to conduct research in the lake's central and northern parts as well.



TOPICS: News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: baikal; lake; putin; russia; russiannavy; submarine
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1 posted on 08/01/2009 12:33:49 PM PDT by pobeda1945
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To: pobeda1945

There wouldn’t be any live plankton that far down. It’s too deep for sunlight to penetrate.


2 posted on 08/01/2009 12:39:48 PM PDT by reg45 (Be calm everyone. The idiot children are in charge!)
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To: pobeda1945

Wow! I guess he really IS pretty macho!


3 posted on 08/01/2009 12:40:27 PM PDT by 2harddrive (S)
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To: pobeda1945
Duplicate
4 posted on 08/01/2009 12:45:45 PM PDT by Wardenclyffe
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To: pobeda1945

“... saying he was surprised that the water was not transparent...”

Why did he think the water would be transparent?


5 posted on 08/01/2009 12:48:55 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: vladimir998

IIRC, Lake Baikal is or was considered one of the purest inland bodies of water in the world.

Sort of like Lake Tahoe. Wonder what’s changed.

Google “Aral Sea” and learn how the Soviets utterly destroyed the world’s fourth largest inland sea, and did so intentionally.


6 posted on 08/01/2009 12:59:44 PM PDT by elcid1970 ("O Muslim! My bullets are dipped in pig grease!")
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To: 2harddrive
Not to be out done, US President 0bama throws 55 foot “fast ball”.
7 posted on 08/01/2009 1:11:06 PM PDT by TYVets
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To: elcid1970
"Google “Aral Sea” and learn how the Soviets utterly destroyed the world’s fourth largest inland sea, and did so intentionally."

That was fascinating, and sobering. Plus, for more than 50 years I thought Superior was the largest freshwater lake by both volume and area, but now I learn it's only area. It's only third in volume.

I happen to be a conservative who thinks it actually a good idea to conserve. Not crazy environmental laws as in "save the miniature frog at the expense of thousands of jobs" crazy, but I have no problems with reasonable environmental laws and regulations. Wars have been fought over access to fresh water in the past, and I suspect they will again in the future.

8 posted on 08/01/2009 1:12:58 PM PDT by OldDeckHand (No Socialized Medicine, No Way, No How, No Time)
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To: TYVets
"Not to be out done, US President 0bama throws 55 foot “fast ball”."

To be fair, he does look terrific in a pair of mom-jeans. Only a handful of men can pull that off, and I (thankfully) am not one of them.

9 posted on 08/01/2009 1:14:56 PM PDT by OldDeckHand (No Socialized Medicine, No Way, No How, No Time)
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To: elcid1970
They have made a ‘good start’ on getting rid of the Caspian Sea also! In fact they are giving the Black Sea a good whack also, but since it is connected to the Mediterranean and the Ocean they won't be able to finish it off.
10 posted on 08/01/2009 1:24:39 PM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla ("men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." -- Edmund Burke)
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To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Lake Baikal is a beautiful area. But in Stalin’s day
it had a different history. In the early 1950s Stalin eliminated the Jews from the governments of eastern Europe (Slansky was hanged in Prague; Pauker was imprisoned in Romainia; etc.)

Then, after the concocted “Doctor’s plot” to murder Stalin had played out (with the “guilty” Jewish doctors to be hanged in Red Square), the Jews of Russia, “at their own request”, were to be resettled in Siberia and points east.

Four camps at least had been built to receive them—nothing but plywood and nails. Naturally large numbers would have died on the way there, and after arrival.

And the rumor was that a railroad terminus had been built out over the waters of Lake Baikal, so that cars stuffed with “resettled Jews” (a la Hitler) could be backed off the terminus and thus into the water, to sink to the bottom.

Stalin’s death on Purim in 1953 prevented “Holocaust II” (which was in Stalin’s plan to be followed by “World War III”—the Soviet occupation of western Europe.) There was no West German army until 1955, and NATO would not have been able to prevent this without using the nuclear option (one which Stalin also had by then at his disposal).

We in the west were enjoying I Love Lucy and Elvis, and never dreaming the plans that were being made...


11 posted on 08/01/2009 1:33:29 PM PDT by CondorFlight (I)
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To: pobeda1945

Note to self: Staggering popularity among women goes to the to guys that operate submersibles, fly aircraft, and drive powerful automobiles.


12 posted on 08/01/2009 1:37:45 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: OldDeckHand

I think I had read that there is more fresh water in Lake Baikal than in all of the great lakes. It’s DEEP!


13 posted on 08/01/2009 1:37:47 PM PDT by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
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To: pobeda1945

Big deal. Lord Obama could do it - and actually has, several times - on just lung power, no sub, no tank, nothing. And, while down there, played speed chess with sixteen thousand grand masters by video and mated all of them in three minutes.


14 posted on 08/01/2009 1:38:48 PM PDT by DPMD (~)
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To: elcid1970

I’ve heard that Lake Baikal has been used as nuclear waste dump. And the course of the rivers that fed the Aral Sea were diverted to create croplands, but that the effort misfired somewhat. Efforts are afoot to recalim the Aral, but it may be too late.

Didn’t the Imperial Valley in California once hold a large fresh-water lake? And that land development caused it to eventually disappear???


15 posted on 08/01/2009 1:40:47 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: CondorFlight

“And the rumor was that a railroad terminus had been built out over the waters of Lake Baikal”

Rails went over the waters in a sense. The original route of the trans-siberian railroad was laid directly over the feet thick ice when the lake freezes over in winter. Later it skirted around it. Havent heard the railcars into the lake story, but in “Gulag Archipeligo” it describes how during the 1930s, barges packed with military officers were sunk into that huge cold lake by Leningrad. All died.


16 posted on 08/01/2009 1:44:49 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs earn the title of "man's best friend", Muslims hate dogs,,add that up.)
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To: DPMD
sixteen thousand grand masters by video and mated all of them in three minutes.

Wow, screwing 16K masters in 3 minutes. Sorta like screwing the whole US in under 6 months.

17 posted on 08/01/2009 1:44:51 PM PDT by going hot (Happiness is a Momma Deuce)
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To: pobeda1945

An implode incident would have been cool.


18 posted on 08/01/2009 1:51:40 PM PDT by cranked
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To: pobeda1945
he was surprised that the water was not transparent and calling it "a plankton soup."

IDK if it is plankton but the fact is Lake Baikal was known to be having contamination problems as early as the 1960's. Putin has no reason to be surprised, unless the Russian government really is indifferent to environmental issues, which is my guess.

19 posted on 08/01/2009 1:54:50 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: 2harddrive

You have to be pretty macho to become head of the KGB.


20 posted on 08/01/2009 2:02:21 PM PDT by 353FMG
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