Galina Mazepova, 71
Scientist at
Limnological Institute,
Listvyanka

I grew up in Irkutsk, and I can remember my teachers in grade school talking about Lake Baikal, and how beautiful it was. Those were just empty words for me then; I never thought I'd actually get to see it. True, it's only about 80 kilometers from Irkutsk, but then we didn't have any good roads to the area.

Baikal is a very strong, very big lake. So far it has not bowed to the influences that people have forced on it; so far it is relatively clean. But it is dangerous to treat the lake the way we are treating it, because the day is coming when it will be too much: Baikal will refuse to be Baikal -- it will refuse to stay clean. And then it will be too late.

The shores are dirtier now than they used to be. And there are fewer trees. People build fires along the shore, and then leave their garbage. Before, it was mostly hunters that wandered around the shores. They took care of the land, because they didn't want it spoiled for themselves. But now it's the tourists that are spoiling the lake. They come and act like wild people, who don't care if the lake is spoiled or not.

There's a mist today, but sometimes you can see the mountains clearly on the other side. Autumn is my favorite season on the lake.

My children and grandchildren keep trying to get me to move into the city. But how could I ever leave the lake? I don't ever want to leave...

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