River · Russia
Angara
The Angara is the only river that flows out of Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia. It runs north past big cities and huge dams until it joins the Yenisei.
Picture credit: Vyacheslav Bukharov (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Alexander Klink (CC BY 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Angara?
The river starts here: Lake Baikal, near Listvyanka.
It ends in the Yenisei near Strelka, south-east of Lesosibirsk.
Countries on the river: Russia.
The story behind it
Every year, about 60 cubic kilometres of water pour out of Lake Baikal into the Angara. At its start the river is about 1 km wide, and the water flows at 4 to 8 km per hour. Right at the start, a rock called the Shaman Stone sticks out of the river, and the water never covers it. People believed that the spirit of the Angara lived there. An old legend tells that old Baikal had one daughter, Angara, whom he loved more than anything. When she ran away to her beloved, the Yenisei, her angry father threw a huge stone after her. Downstream, the river passes the cities of Irkutsk, Angarsk, Bratsk and Ust-Ilimsk. Since the 1950s, four large dams have been built on it. The lake behind the Bratsk Dam covers about 5 500 km². None of the dams has a lock, so ships cannot travel the whole way from Lake Baikal to the Yenisei.
Questions children ask
How long is the Angara?
The Angara is about 1 779 km long from Lake Baikal to the Yenisei, although some sources give up to 1 849 km. Counting Lake Baikal and the Selenga river system that flows into it, the whole river system is about 3 500 km long.
What is the Shaman Stone?
The Shaman Stone is a rock at the start of the Angara near Listvyanka that marks the border between Lake Baikal and the river. According to legend, old Baikal threw it after his daughter Angara when she ran away to the Yenisei.
Can ships sail along the whole Angara?
No, because none of the four big dams has a ship lock or a boat lift. Ships can only travel on separate sections of the river.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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