Lake Onega

Lake Onega is the second largest freshwater lake in Europe, located in Russia. The length of the lake is 245 km, and the maximum width is almost 83 km, thus occupying an area of 9720 ^km2.

There are a huge number of islands in the lake, there are 1,650 in total, which cover an area of 224 ^km2. The most famous of them is the Kizhi Museum Reserve. As many as 1,152 rivers feed the lake with their waters, but only 52 of them are more than 10 km long. The most amazing thing is that only one Svir River flows out of such a huge lake. In 1953, a hydroelectric power station was built on it, which regulates the flow of water during the spring snowmelt.

The shores of the lake and islands are usually swampy and covered with thickets of reeds, in which a huge number of game nests: geese, ducks, swans can be seen. Lake Onega is a paradise for fishermen, because 47 species of fish live here, such as walleye, perch, burbot, trout, lampreys, ruffs, eels, smelt, pike, crucian carp, carp and even sterlets and salmon. But of all this diversity, only 17 species of fish are interesting for commercial fishing.

Tourism and transport links have been actively reviving on the lake in recent years. A Comet-type boat trip is organized from Petrozavodsk to Kizhi Island several times a day. In addition, travel agencies organize boat tours on Lake Onega to the most interesting places. In winter, air cushion vessels are used for transportation. It is worth noting that since 1972, the Onega Sailing Regatta has been held at the end of July, in which cruising yachts can take part.

Lake Onega is also notable for the huge number of rock petroglyphs hollowed out of the rocks 4-6 thousand years ago. In total, there are about 1,100 rock images of animals, boats, people and geometric shapes. Most of the petroglyphs are located on the capes: Besov Nose, Peri Nose, Kladovets. The images are embossed to a depth of 1-4 mm and are 2.5 meters above the water.