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...