The Kapova Cave (Shulgan-Tash)
A cave in Bashkortostan with wall paintings some seventeen thousand years old — mammoths, horses, rhinoceroses, laid down in ochre. Before its discovery in 1959 Palaeolithic painting was thought to exist only in Western Europe. In the Bashkir epic Ural-batyr the lake at its mouth is the entrance to the underworld, ruled by Shulgan, the hero's brother who went over to evil. The cave and the lake carry his name.
Lake Baikal
The deepest lake on earth, holding a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water. Buryat tradition fills it with spirits, and Cape Burkhan on Olkhon is one of the nine shrines of Asia, which not every shaman may approach. A separate body of stories concerns the Baikal mirages, in which non-existent shores and ships are seen above the water; the effect is physically real and comes from temperature layers in the air.
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