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.
There wouldn’t be any live plankton that far down. It’s too deep for sunlight to penetrate.
Wow! I guess he really IS pretty macho!
“... saying he was surprised that the water was not transparent...”
Why did he think the water would be transparent?
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.
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.
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.
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...
Note to self: Staggering popularity among women goes to the to guys that operate submersibles, fly aircraft, and drive powerful automobiles.
I think I had read that there is more fresh water in Lake Baikal than in all of the great lakes. It’s DEEP!
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.
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???
“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.
Wow, screwing 16K masters in 3 minutes. Sorta like screwing the whole US in under 6 months.
An implode incident would have been cool.
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.
You have to be pretty macho to become head of the KGB.
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